Are you a collector, or just a fan?

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big bad bri
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by big bad bri »

I Read them & bag & board them where i can afterwards But i have bought so much stuff in the last few years i dont have time any more to do any of that stuff now but i do want to buy loads of bags but british comic bags are so expensive now. :( Comics are meant to be read :D

Lew Stringer
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by Lew Stringer »

How did this thread diverge from the initial topic? :D The question was simply about whether people bought back issues of a comic they'd enjoyed.

As for the collector/fan debate, they're not mutually exclusive. It is possible to look after comics and still read them. Depends if you're naturally careful or hamfisted I suppose. :lol:

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Terry
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by Terry »

I would say I was more of a fan, the only full collection I have is The Striker comics, other comics I have tend to have would be ones I want to read, and I dont buy just too have full runs of comics, I tend to stick with Sports related comics or strips and the occasional War stories comics ie Commando, Victor and Battle

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tony ingram
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by tony ingram »

Lew Stringer wrote:How did this thread diverge from the initial topic? :D The question was simply about whether people bought back issues of a comic they'd enjoyed.

As for the collector/fan debate, they're not mutually exclusive. It is possible to look after comics and still read them. Depends if you're naturally careful or hamfisted I suppose. :lol:
I reread a lot of comics regularly, but I'd never sleep at nights if my collection wasn't properly stored.

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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by Lew Stringer »

You know, generally there's no difference between a collector and a fan. All the comic fans I've met over the years buy comics to read, collect, and re-read. This thread is the first time I've ever known people to create a distinction between fan and collector. They're the same thing.

If you're thinking of people who buy comics just as trophies or for investment, they're usually referred to as investors / speculators rather than collectors.

I know a lot of fans/collectors file their comics in order, create databases and lists etc. Personally, although I have a lot of comics and books, half of them are not in order, few are bagged, and none of them are indexed. I don't even make out a shopping list, never mind a comics database. But I'd still consider myself a collector/fan/enthusiast, etc. (and comics pro, but that's not relevant to this).
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tony ingram
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by tony ingram »

Lew Stringer wrote: I know a lot of fans/collectors file their comics in order, create databases and lists etc. Personally, although I have a lot of comics and books, half of them are not in order, few are bagged, and none of them are indexed.
How do you find anything?

Admittedly, I have mild OCD, but I have everything in my collection on an Excel spreadsheet (well, two; one for British, one for Americans and others) which I update every time I buy anything and automatically back up to a memory stick.

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Lew: I think some fans can get into the habit of collecting comics [or indeed, anything] just for the sake of it, ending up seeking out items they perhaps have no real interest in, just for the sake of completist lists: yes, it's a harmless habit that doesn't really affect anyone else in a negative way, but it's a pointless, unsatisfying venture in my view, and a scenario I try and avoid myself.

I stick to seeking out comics that had an impact on me first time around, to 'revisit my childhood', etc.

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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by Phoenix »

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:I stick to seeking out comics that had an impact on me first time around, to 'revisit my childhood', etc.
Isn't that approach, by its very nature, limiting, Rab? Are you not even the tiniest bit interested in what happened in your impact comics before and after your childhood? If not, how do you ever learn anything about comics and comic art? I would have thought, given that you create artwork yourself, that you would be acquiring a very wide range of comics from all publishers and all eras in order to study the styles and methods of the many practitioners and masters of the genre. If I had ever wanted a career as an artist, that is exactly what I would have been doing. Having talent is just the starting point. Learning how to hone it, and to adapt it to different circumstances, requires education, which goes well beyond your nostalgia for your impact comics.

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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by Kashgar »

This could devolve down into a debate into the philosophical meaning of the words themselves. Rab seems to be of the opinion that the more you collect the less personal emotional investment you can have in the items you have as they stray further and further from those impact titles that more often than not got you started.
Comic collecting has always been a journey of discovery for me and so it still remains.
It is many years ago now since I last acquired an 'impact' title from my own childhood but the ripples generated by those titles continue to spread back and forth ensuring that this collector will also always be a fan.

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Yes Lew and Kashgar, this past couple of years I have been 'discovering' lots of vintage/modern USA comics, and it's been great fun in the main: this method ensures you also encounter a load of dross as well, though!

I have wades of material I still have to get around to looking through, but I have no real desire to see every single issue of 1920s BOYS' OWN fare, for example [to cite an extreme case ] : I think a true collector would seek out every individual issue of such an item, unlike someone like me, who is happy enough to skim through a few typical examples....to get the basic flavour , there is nothing wrong with that, it's a voyage of discovery and is worth pursuing, as you say.

I think that's the main basic difference between a collector and a fan.

Fair enough, you can discover a lot of worthy material this way, but I've never really had the desire to collect the 'full set' of any publication before or after 'my time'.

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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by Phoenix »

Kashgar wrote:Rab seems to be of the opinion that the more you collect the less personal emotional investment you can have in the items you have as they stray further and further from those impact titles that more often than not got you started.
I think that interpretation is stretching a point, Kashgar, although I would certainly agree that our impact issues carry the greatest amount of nostalgic resonance. Rab seems to be assuming, quite wrongly, that I was recommending him to become a completist, when I was interpreting his words I stick to seeking out comics that had an impact on me first time around to mean that those impact comics represented by far the majority of his acquisitions. It would now appear that he does buy other comics, so I have been misled by his expression I stick to.
Kashgar wrote:Comic collecting has always been a journey of discovery for me and so it still remains.
As it always has been with me, an approach that can easily justify completism.
ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:I have no real desire to see every single issue of 1920s BOYS' OWN fare, for example [to cite an extreme case ]
Perhaps as well, Rab, as that type of paper at that time, had virtually no artwork to study in it. They were text story papers.

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Well, Phoenix, my 'prized items' are most definitely good quality copies of comics from the 60s/early 70s, and these are the ones I would save from a house fire if I had the time.

But I do look at other stuff as well, but I just basically browse through this material: the affinity I have for this 'other' stuff is not quite as strong, but it's OK for a butchers. I don't really 'collect' this other material with quite the same relish...it's more like window-shopping.

Great for a look, though.

Hope that clears everything up for everyone.

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philcom55
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by philcom55 »

For me it's a form of 'joining the dots'. I first fell in love with comics - both British and American - during the early 1960s, and the titles I read during that period have remained at the heart of my collecting ever since. Over the years, though, I found myself extending my interest to other comics from the same era that I somehow missed the first time round. Then I gradually widened the net to include earlier titles that featured the same or similar characters, as well as particular artists and writers whose work I could identify. Then I was drawn even further back by the discovery of creators and characters who inspired the ones I'd grown up with.

Of course this process works both forward and backward in time so that I can now trace a living tradition from the 1920s (a period that once seemed completely alien to me) all the way to the present day. Before the 1920s, however, I have to admit that I still struggle to establish a personal connection with characters like Ally Sloper, who seem to belong to a different tradition aimed primarily at adults (though they are not without a certain historical interest of their own). Similarly, I'm starting to find that my connection with American comics has begun to break down since the turn of the century when a whole new generation of creators suddenly seemed to come from nowhere and displace all the names I'd been familiar with for so long. It's not that I actively dislike the current output of DC and Marvel - as a matter of fact I've been quite impressed by recent titles I picked up such as Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye - just that they seem to be written for someone else!

Nevertheless, eighty years leaves me with a rich backlog of material to explore: one that should keep me busy for more than a single lifetime!

- Phil Rushton

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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by Lew Stringer »

tony ingram wrote:
Lew Stringer wrote: I know a lot of fans/collectors file their comics in order, create databases and lists etc. Personally, although I have a lot of comics and books, half of them are not in order, few are bagged, and none of them are indexed.
How do you find anything?
Usually I remember where I last put it. If not, it never takes too long to find it. Creating a spreadsheet for every comic would take ages, and then I'd have to keep updating it every time I threw a comic out. My 'nostalgia items' are all in order. It's just the stuff from the last several years I don't bother putting in order as they're the comics I'm most likely to chuck out after a while.

I need to put my vintage comics in order when I have time though. I see I have a Chips Annual nearby and a pile of Mickey Mouse Weeklies mixed in with some 2011 Dandy comics and a few recent American comics.

Regarding collecting for nostalgia; done that, but I've also been fascinated by the history of comics ever since Fantasy Masterpieces in 1967 reprinted 1940s Captain America strips. That interest grew even more after I had The Penguin Book of Comics for Christmas 1971.
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Re: Are you a collector, or just a fan?

Post by Phoenix »

philcom55 wrote:Of course this process works both forward and backward in time so that I can now trace a living tradition from the 1920s (a period that once seemed completely alien to me) all the way to the present day.
My eighty years start in 1921 with issue 1 of Adventure, and end with the final issue of Bunty Monthly in 2001, but the process you describe, Phil, is essentially the same as mine. I do also have a collection of story papers, a few issues of The Dandy and The Beano, and even a relatively small handful of comics and story papers that did not emerge from Thomsons' printing presses, but the ones that I didn't buy as a child are merely examples for comparison purposes.

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