Are you a collector, or just a fan?

[Kashgar]

The tracking down of comics I missed first time around definitely formed a cornerstone of my collecting urge.
As to the slog of being completist I think this depends on the type of collector you are. Some of us are sprinters and some are marathon runners. It certainly takes a different type of discipline to collect long runs than it does say to collect short runs or special issues. And sometimes, in my experience, you enter a race thinking it will be a sprint only to discover, happily so, that it might never end.

[Phoenix]

As to the slog of being completist I think this depends on the type of collector you are. Some of us are sprinters and some are marathon runners. It certainly takes a different type of discipline to collect long runs than it does say to collect short runs or special issues. And sometimes, in my experience, you enter a race thinking it will be a sprint only to discover, happily so, that it might never end.

When I started out on my nostalgia trip I was only trying to buy every instalment of serials in all four Thomsons' story papers that I really, really wanted to read again. As I acquired them, I inevitably read the other serials, some of which I hadn't actually read first time around, which led to my having to buy beyond the original modest remit I had set myself because of the way the serials overlapped each other, sometimes at both ends. Inevitably, as Phil said earlier, the process started to work both forward and backwards in time, but quite steadily. The first of what we might call my major growth spurts started at some point late in 1985, but I was still only concentrating at best on getting all the post-war issues. In 1990 I added all the pre-war and wartime issues to the quest. If I include complete photocopies in the count, I now only need 281 issues, but because I have taken copious notes on every one of them from the bound volumes in the British Library, I no longer need to get the actuals. My actual aim, which took several years to take shape in my head, is to know everything there is to know about their story content. Nothing less will do.

In the late eighties/early nineties I applied the above approach to Thomsons' picture story papers for boys, and I now have virtually all of those. In 2000 I started to do the same thing with their story papers for girls. I haven't got them all yet, but I don't need all that many, maybe about a tenth of the total, but the reason behind the urge to acquire them, and the picture story papers for boys, is exactly the same one that led me to acquire the text story papers for boys. I just have to know what is in them. I hate gaps. Credit where it's due, eBay has been a boon to me. Five issues arrived this morning, two issues of Bunty, and three of Judy. Tomorrow I'm expecting six issues of Judy, two issues of Diana, and four Bunty Summer Specials. The quest continues on a daily basis.

I suppose the above information would classify me as a collector, a completist, a marathon runner. But then again I am undoubtedly a fan, but really only of Thomsons' story paper output. My parallel collection includes quite a few issues of Tiger from the fifties and the seventies, a decent batch of Valiant after Raven recommended them to me, the first couple of hundred issues of The Champion, a large number of bound volumes of the same paper from the thirties and early forties that I bought from my late friend Des O'Leary's son Chris, several years worth of School Friend from issue 1, a handful of Jintys and Tammys, a pile of Scorchers, and every issue of Action up to the ban, all of which are giving me a limited view of the opposition but a somewhat broader view of the entire comic and story paper scene. I don't anticipate adding to those.

[Kashgar]

Excellent summing up Derek.
Now an example of how this fan turned into a collector -

1) In 1965 envied my friend's elder brother's collection of Buster. A pile of treasures that we were never allowed to touch.
2) May 1966 Cremola Foam Drink's Crystals given away free with Buster for three consecutive weeks ( for those who don't remember these were a delicious concoction that fizzed when added to water to create a refreshing drink. A kind of fruity drain cleaner in all probability but delicious nonetheless). Convinced my mam to allow me to have the Buster put on order from the newagents at this point.
3) Kept getting Buster for three years by which time it had absorbed Giggle.
4) Years later decided to try and track down those issues fondly remembered from my youth.
5) In due course managed to collect all 501 issues of Buster published in the 1960's.
6) Then of course I had to get those 38 issue of Giggle.
7) And how could I do without the 19 issues of The Big One which had merged with Buster in 1965.
Similarly it seemed a good idea to try and get hold of the 1960's issues of the other titles that Buster had subsumed earlier in the decade. So off I went and eventually collected the 60 issues of Radio Fun published in 1960/1961 before it meged with Buster and the 141 issues of Film Fun before it did the same in 1962.
9)Once I'd done this it seemed appropriate to also acquire the 164 editions of Knockout published in the 1960's even though it had no direct connection with Buster but did finally merge with another boyhood favourite Valiant in 1963.
10) Then finally with only Whizzer and Chips left it seemed churlish not to get hold of the 11 editions of that comic that were published before the 1970's arrived.
11) And there we have it. A fan always eager for knowledge I had managed to to collect all 934 comics published by Fleetway in the 1960's plus all connected annuals/specials etc. (I never thought of IPC's Smash as a comic by the way. It was a boys picture title akin to Valiant to me. Hence its non-inclusion here even though I do have them)
12) Then came the 1950's and 1970's but that's another story!

[alanultron5]

I collect as many comics that I can of those I read as a youngster! My main collecting was of `Sparky` but I also look for 1960s `Dandy's` Some `Wham`, `Pow` and `Smash` I also collect US 1960s titles with "Strange Tales" Circa 1965-1968 my favourites!

[DavidKW]

I've only started collecting a couple of yeras ago:

I only set out to read a few, but soon got hungry for more and got collecting addicted, especially after some good days collecting. Soon caution gave way to just get it now when you can.

Soon the collection grew and I've had to spend some time re-arranging my limited space to improve & adapt good storage conditions.

Much time has been given to searching but now I'm wanting to slow down and enjoy what I've got.

But the completist in me is awoken and like the rock group Can said in 1976 - I Want More. So after a slow down I'll be active again to keep on looking and never knowing what you'll find. I guess It's grown to addiction.

So I must be a bit of both - a fan turned collector wanting to be fan again but collecting addicted.

[Muffy]

I did collect some of the missing holes in my collection. Then I sold these issues all over again and gave some away.

I did read a couple of Marney the Fox's from Buster (recommended years ago in this forum) and loved the artwork/story, so bought the whole lot on ebay and cut out the pages - giving the other 28 pages of each issue away.

It would be so each to start collecting a title again though.

I must therefore, be a lapsed collector.

[starscape]

I did read a couple of Marney the Fox's from Buster (recommended years ago in this forum) and loved the artwork/story, so bought the whole lot on ebay and cut out the pages - giving the other 28 pages of each issue away.

[tony ingram]

I did read a couple of Marney the Fox's from Buster (recommended years ago in this forum) and loved the artwork/story, so bought the whole lot on ebay and cut out the pages - giving the other 28 pages of each issue away.

I think I feel sick...

[philcom55]

You feel sick? In my younger days I did the same thing with two complete sets of TV Century 21!

- Phil Rushton

[dandy mad]

I did something very similar by destroying a 1952 full years worth of Dandy just to remove the prose stories and looking back what the hell was I thinking!!

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

It's the sort of thing that some kids do: cut out the 'best bits' from comics, and make up your own 'best of' compilations, which seemed like a good idea at the time...Dammit, I even used to cut up posh books, just to make a 'poster!'

Today though, Digital copies of any paper images are easily struck at a cheap price, so there's no excuse to cut up perfectly good publications!

Digi-copies wasn't an option back then for some of us, of course.....

[Lew Stringer]

I did read a couple of Marney the Fox's from Buster (recommended years ago in this forum) and loved the artwork/story, so bought the whole lot on ebay and cut out the pages - giving the other 28 pages of each issue away.

I did a similar thing around 1971 by cutting out all the Desperate Dan and Black Bob stories from The Dandy of that year and using the rest to light the fire with. I still have all those Dan and Bob pages, sewn together in their makeshift books.

[SID]

Confession time.

Before I got the comic collecting bug, I did a similar thing. Like Lew, the victim was the poor Dandy - my strips were Black Bob and Jack Silver. My favourite strips at the time.

For years, I have carried this burden around with me. But now I have confessed, I feel so much better, like some a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Thank you my fellow enthusiasts.

And I still have the scrapbooks that have the strips.

[tony ingram]

I am disgusted with you all, and will be dusting off my Billy the Cat costume preparatory to hunting you all down by night for your crimes against sequential art. Make your peace with your gods, philistines-The Revengelator is coming!

[Lew Stringer]

I am disgusted with you all, and will be dusting off my Billy the Cat costume preparatory to hunting you all down by night for your crimes against sequential art. Make your peace with your gods, philistines-The Revengelator is coming!

I also cut out favourite panels from early issues of TV21 and stuck them into a scrapbook, purely because teachers had encouraged us to make a scrapbook. I grew out of that daft idea pretty quickly though.

The remnants of the TV21s were used for the fire, but I managed to re-acquire a near full run of the comic again in the 1980s, in near-mint condition, for £25, so all's well.