Ken Aldred

It’s good that the OP has access to all of this supportive and practical advice from the other boardies here, as I’ve said before, something unavailable to me at the start of my collecting. I was very unrestrained and unfocused when it came to buying comics back then, the polar opposite to Steve / Marwood, and I’d buy anything that appealed to me in the slightest, within a kid’s budgetary limits, of course. That, and I’ve always been a fairly voracious reader. All such an energised, exciting, frantic adventure back in the 70s and 80s. I wish, and something in parallel with the OP’s concerns about over-accumulation, that someone had advised or intervened to put a brake on my purchasing, which, in the end, resulted in a hoarder’s roomful of high-stacked boxes. I’ve cut down a lot on that burden since then, had a couple of disastrous damage incidents in recent years, and common sense dictates that I don’t make the same building-up mistake again. In the early days there were delusions that I’d be able to collect long runs of my favourite titles, but price inflation in the back issue market would always outpace my limited budget. Then, being diagnosed with ADD a few years ago explained a lot about my historical impracticality and impulsiveness, an exploitable vulnerability painfully reinforcing the need to gradually distance myself. The changes in recent times have been profound. When I joined the boards and started buying old comics again I restricted myself to buying only specific issues which I’d read and really connected to, the really important stuff, and gradually gravitated away from going to the LCS for new comics each week to runs reprinted in archive editions, Masterworks, trade paperbacks and other collected books instead. Eventually, I ran out of space in that storage room and had to stop buying physical copies, around the early days of the film speculation boom, and defected over to the digital world as an answer to the accumulation and storage dilemma. There I can buy large bundles of diverse material which still satisfy my insatiable desire to reading a wide range of stories, as well as on occasion seeing some offers for complete runs as well. So, there is an evolution, having been in the same basic situation as the OP in my youth, but I hope the advice will lead him onto a more sensible path than the one I took, without such counsel. You’ve still got room to expand, but don’t go mental with it.

Looks like from the T-shirt that he was trying to be Lobo as well.

I suppose, technically. But, it’s really just an attempt to emulate the look and attitude of Cable. Thankfully short-lived. He’s no Kent Nelson.

That's overkill.

Death of the New Gods 1 to 8 by Jim Starlin. Under his usual cosmic themes, a murder mystery about trying to identify a god killer. The deaths were actually rather short-acting as it turned out, and the pantheons soon recovered. 2023 total = 598

Brave and Bold 2007 series 1 to 17 Lot of good bits throughout from Mark Waid, but the 12 issue storyline did drag in places. Nice artwork from George Perez and Jerry Ordway. The later issues were solid but not exceptional team-up stories, though I did quite like the Superman / Catwoman issue. Final Crisis : Legion of Three Worlds 1 to 5 Pulled out some more George Perez comics, really excellent in places. With such a large cast involved, the to-and-fro between the different fights was a bit confusing at times. A later scene seemed quite reminiscent of the final battle in Avengers Endgame to a degree, and Geoff Johns uses a similar idea about observing worlds within a comic page that I read earlier in the year in Grant Morrison’s Animal Man run. 22 comics in all 2023 total = 590

Quite good. Haven't read the latest series by John Ridley. I had been thinking about going back and reading some of the Christopher Priest run from the late 90s.

Which series?

You might have to expand your model a bit, Steve, as I believe Jimmers is a huge Charlton Comics fan as well.

It is a little ridiculous. Sure he could handle being hit by a power beam, such as from Cyclops, and some energised playing cards wouldn’t be much different in effect.

I've used lighter fuel. A lot of remaindered graphic novels in UK bargain shops were American copies with British price or Titan Books stickers, so I used that stuff quite a lot back then.

Why are those issues so expensive?

Wing, who should’ve been the Eighth Soldier of Victory, and despite my admiration for The Spirit and Will Eisner, Ebony White.

As long as Preston Garvey doesn’t keep interrupting the storyline every 5 minutes with a tedious side quest, I’ll be interested in watching it.

Fantastic Four : Unstable Molecules 1 to 4 mini-series Quite an interesting indie, slice-of-life take on the team. A bit different. 2023 total = 568

It's about time we had a new one.

That's why when buying pricey slabs or raws I used to focus on books I'd read, loved the stories and art, and had a deep connection to. Reading digitally now I've found a lot of material, including many hot books, to be extremely mediocre, that do nothing for me, and I'm relieved I never bothered getting a physical copy of them. It's a consistent process that allows you to move on and keep distant from the hype and FOMO. I wish that resource had been available decades ago to constrain my youthful overeagerness.

Just assumed it was a random eBay seller. Sorry.

I’m also always a bit dubious and cautious when large quantities of books are all graded exactly the same, 200 issues here. To me, it suggests books which have a range of obvious defects which keep them out of the NM stratosphere, but actually could be anything VF or possibly much less. No good at specific grading, or can’t be bothered to be that meticulous.

Yup. Bryan Hitch and Liam Sharp as well. Some good early work.

A very good point.

Never noticed that before. Still think he’s facing away. Works just as well for me. Has done for over 3 decades.

Chicken Tikka Masala is now considered one of our national dishes, and that’s a touch mild for Brit curry lovers. And, we do like our curries. A nice Madras for me.

Never liked pickles. Make me retch a bit. And, I'm Sagittarius. Don't know if they're really that popular with other Brits.

A superb resource. I’ve mentioned a few times on here that I find the Newsstand section of the website absolutely fascinating, as a research tool and also just picking a month at random even, as a means of looking back on comics history and personal nostalgia. Very sorry to hear this.