Longform 

Multiversity 101: Comic Overload

By | August 22nd, 2011
Posted in Longform | % Comments

It’s moving season time again! These next few weeks are a busy time for many of us as whether we are heading back to school or, like me, running out our leases and moving into new places to live (yeah, maybe I’m aging myself with that statement but I think the average age of most of the Multiversity writing staff is no secret). Amongst the seemingly endless line of things preoccupying my mind in anticipation of my upcoming move is the sheer volume of comic books I have (both in single issue and trade form) to move with me. Because of this, I’ve researched and explored several different options for storing, recycling and/or donating your comics in order to consolidate one’s collection into something a little more manageable, or at least less stressful on the suspension of my car. Click on down as I detail a few of them.

I want to make something clear right off the bat: I happen to believe that there is IMMENSE value to reading and collecting comics as single issues, not the least of which being that they are produced that way for a reason and preserving the original nature of comics is an absolute must. However, this can obviously become a hassle if you manage to do so long enough and with intense vigor, which is the primary motivating factor of this article.

While a there are probably as many thoughts on comic storage as there are comic FANS, the most common is undoubtedly the longbox. The familiar white, cardboard boxes of multiple sizes specifically designed to house and keep safe our favorite funny books are quick and affordable ways to ensure your books are stored properly in order to ensure their survival. Even in multiples larger than two, they tend to stack neatly into most closets, although stacked longboxes require a little work to get at the delicious comic center found within. Alternatively, recent years have introduced the concept of the drawer box. Slightly more pricey than longboxes, drawer boxes allow you much more access to your comics than you would get with multiple longboxes stacked on top of each other. However, once one’s collection reaches a certain size, longboxes and drawer boxes can get pretty heavy, with a full box of average single issues clocking in close to 60 or 70 pounds, which as mentioned above can make moving and managing one’s collection pretty tricky. Another problem is space and while not an issue for all of us, even stacked long/drawer boxes can tap the boundaries of modern apartments.

Clocking in at 9 longboxes, six of which are completely full, my collection is taxing my ability to maintain it. So, if straight storage is not an option for you, there are several options to triage or recycle your collections and the first is one quite obvious to many of us: trade paperbacks. While I won’t espouse the benefits of trades now since many of those are incredibly obvious to most of you, I will say that while looking into solutions to my problem I have really begun to appreciate the various archive via trade initiatives that Marvel, DC and several other companies employ to make stories more accessible than ever before. One option are the various omnibus collections available that seek to compile IMMENSE amounts of single issues into one oversized collection. Marvel and DC are most known for some of the extravagant omnibus collections that I’ve seen, however Dark Horse (for example) have taken a more minimalist approach and collected their books into digest sized omnibus collections that often collect as many single issues as their oversized cousins.

Either way, the idea remains the same in that what would be an extensive amount of single issues becomes a (more or less) easy to manage book on your shelf. Personally, as the bulk of my collection is made up of Marvel books, I have gravitated toward their Ultimate Collections that collect between 12 and fifteen comics into one softcover collection with many influential runs (such as Grant Morrison’s New X-Men and Brian Michael Bendis’ Daredevil) now available as three or four softcovers. Infinitely more manageable than the often unwieldy omnibusses and just as gorgeous.

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Alternatively, for those that are IMMENSELY space conscious (or incredibly Green), the same companies creating omnibusses and Ultimate Collections are also currently in the process of digitizing their back catalogues and offering them for discounted prices on the various digital comics apps available in your digital readers of choice. For those without a need of the tactile feel of a book in their hands, thousands of comics can be stored quite easily on something physically comparable if not smaller than the average trade paperback in full color.

While re-buying the same stories again may be a hard pill to swallow for some, I find that for the stories I REALLY want to read over and over again, this is option has lead to nothing but positive results. It allows me to delve into the bowels of my longboxes less and ultimately makes the stories that I really want to share easier to do so. While some may consider this sacrilege, the benefits of carrying around one book as opposed to 12 comics, especially given all the protection the average comic needs is fairly obvious.

Now, the question remains: what to do with the original single issues you already have once you’ve re-bought them? Well, there are several options. You CAN just keep them around and continue to use your physical/digital trades as workarounds to getting at your stories and if the stories had THAT much of an impact on you and your life that you bought them twice (as some stories tend to do) that is a perfectly acceptable option. However, since this article is about consolidation and recycling, I feel that I have to reveal what has become obvious to me and perhaps to some of you as well: some, if not many comics do NOT have as much staying power as others and the cold hard fact is that while some books may seem like absolutely obvious buys at the time they come out, you may find your personal connections to them waver as time goes on. Unfortunately, buying single issues is kind of a crap shoot in this regard as you could be assembling a story that will change your life, or pulling together a mass of paper that will one day turn into a 70 pound pain in your ass.

It’s because of this that I’ve assembled a simple bit of logic that I found has helped me out: if you pull a comic out of your longbox and have absolutely ZERO idea what the story was after a quick flip through, then the thing did NOT have enough of an impact on you. If it had no impact on you, it can probably go. But where and more importantly, how?

You can try to sell them off, and I’m sure most would be inclined to attempt this option given how much of a financial investment these things tend to be in the first place. However, if my experience has taught me anything its that comics are RARELY worth as much as we think they are, even in perfect condition. Sure there are the big event issues where a character was introduced or killed off or something monumental happened over the course of a certain run of a book, but think about how many of those issues have come around (current industry standards notwithstanding). I’m sure many of you will admit that the issues where (in the collective mind of pop culture) “nothing happened” far outnumber the ones that have pop cultural and therefore financial significance, and even then the “happening” issues need to have been released between the years of 1939 and 1975 to REALLY get you any kickback. Now, these issues COULD be sold off if and only if you manage to have a complete run or a large complete chunk of a run to sell, but you’ll usually get nowhere near the amount you paid for them to begin with and sometimes not even enough to re-buy the stories in their collected or digitized versions.

Taking the idea of topping your original investment, or even meeting it, off the table, you do have a few options left, and all of them involve simply giving your books away to a cause. A quick google search has given me plenty of comics based charities that accept old comics for various causes, however I myself have gone with an oldy but a goody: Goodwill. My local store was eager and grateful for the two boxes of books I dropped off there recently since while a comic may have little to no lasting impact on you, being able to pay 25 cents or less instead of $3.99 for a book with Wolverine on the cover could mean the world to a child who’s family survives on a low income. In the same vein, while most comic shops are hesitant to just accept old single issues due to the massive amount of them that are already there, there are libraries and used book stores across the country that accept comics as well and can make them available to fans that may not be able to afford to pay cover price but still want to enjoy the medium.

While parting with comics may seem like an insurmountable obstacle to many of us (and believe me it was NOT an easy task for me despite how easy I made it seem in this article), the joy we receive from reading them in the first place can often times remain undiminished even when we no longer have issue four hundred something of some book or other in our possession, and with so many ways available to consolidate and turn your comics into a gift that keeps giving, there are definitely options out there help you have your comics cake and not break your back moving it around.


//TAGS | Multiversity 101

Joshua Mocle

Joshua Mocle is an educator, writer, audio spelunker and general enthusiast of things loud and fast. He is also a devout Canadian. He can often be found thinking about comics too much, pretending to know things about baseball and trying to convince the masses that pop-punk is still a legitimate genre. Stalk him out on twitter and thought grenade.

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