Up to bat on this week’s Into the Fancave is long-time Multiversity supporter and established podcaster in his own right, Brian Salvatore! This New Jersey native has been reading comics for quite some time and has some great thoughts on comic pricing and perceived value of comics from one fan to another. Click below and enter his Fancave!
Joshua Mocle: Tell us a little (or a lot) about yourself!
Brian Salvatore: My name is Brian Salvatore, I’m 28 years old and live in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey with my wife and dog.
JM: What comics are you currently digging and why?
BS: Well, I’m a DC man, and a longtime Green Lantern fan, so I’ve been enjoying the shit out of the GL books for the last couple of years, as well as a lot of the Blackest Night/Brightest Day stuff (but not all). I’m also in the minority that has been enjoying James Robinson’s run on Justice League of America, and have recently re-discovered my love for the Bat-family, due mostly to Grant Morrison. I, like everyone else, have been really digging Paul Cornell’s work on Action Comics and Jeff Lemiere’s on Superboy, so I guess I’m reading 2 Super-books for the first time since the Reign of the Supermen.
JM: How do you usually go about discovering new books, and what is the primary deciding factor usually in play when you pick up a new title?
BS: I’m a sucker for critical praise, so if I hear enough about a book, I usually am ok paying 3 or 4 bucks to see what all the fuss is about. I’m also pretty insane about having complete crossovers/runs/storylines, so a lot of times I’ll pick up a book as part of a crossover, and if I dig the book, I’ll keep buying it for the time being. I also implicitly trust the fellas at my local comic shop, the fantastic Zapp Comics in Wayne, NJ, to turn me on to good stuff — if Corry says I should buy it, I tend to give it a shot. I am also lucky to have a library in Pompton Lakes that has a pretty great graphic fiction section, so I’ve been able to catch up on a lot of stories and books I’ve missed during my (many) times when I wasn’t buying comics.
JM: Interesting you should mention the collector’s mentality given the article I just published on the subject. That said, have you ever bought a book you did not like/had no interest in ONLY because it was part of a crossover?
BS: Oh yeah, I have. I’m not too proud to admit that, but it is the truth. I usually justify it by thinking “well, one day the entire Blackest Night saga, including that one-page tease in Solomon Grundy #6, will fetch more on eBay than it would without it.” Even if that is an absurd idea, it’s what gets me through the night.
JM: Have you ever actually sold off any of your comics? Or is it more of a “well, one day I will” type of thing? And if so, why do you perceive your comics as something you will one day sell off?
BS: I have sold off old comics — most of which I now regret — and I hope to never have to again. I’ve been reading comics for almost 25 years, on and off, and in times when I wasn’t reading, and I wanted to go see a band, or get a Mets ticket plan, I’ve sold off comics to help fund those adventures. However, I think I’m at a place now where a) I’m a tiny bit more financially stable, and b) I know what I like more than I did before, and I’m a little more judicious with what I purchase. But I could see a time when I was faced with selling off some less than favorite comics to buy my (as of now, non-existent) kid a better birthday present when I would sell them again. This also goes for my 7”s from college and my gig poster collection — it isn’t comics specific. Generally, I do see comics as something I want to hold on to — but when I make those less than wise purchases, I use the potential sale of them as my rationale.
Continued belowJM: It sounds like you are pretty cognizant of your spending on comics, would that be an accurate assessment?
BS: Yes, certainly.
JM: Would you agree that there are some collectors that are…less financially conscious? And if so, what do you think it is about comics that makes them so, cutting no corners, addictive?
BS: Of course — and I think it is a slippery slope to becoming one of those less financially responsible collectors. I think comics are addictive for a variety of reasons. First of all, I grew up with comics — I used to make stop-action movies with my action figures, I had 5 foot Superman, Batman and Captain Marvel paintings on my wall, courtesy of my dad, and I used to spend all of my allowance on comics. Reading comics, for many of us, brings us back to the innocence of reading them as kids — and any quick look on Amazon or eBay will show you that nostalgia sells you back the same shit you bought as a kid for 10x the price. But comics, especially the big 2 companies, don’t just present to you a self-contained story that wraps up in 30 pages — even the most self-contained issues exist as part of a larger universe that is fascinatingly crafted. It is hard to section off a small corner of that universe and be totally satisfied. One of the reasons I spend so much time reading about comics online is that I can’t afford to buy as many books as I’d like to, so I get my fix by reading about how other people feel about them and hopefully that sustains me.
JM: Given the rising cost of comics, especially over the last five years, do you foresee a point where you’ll just have to say “enough is enough”?
BS: It might eventually come to that — but I think that has more to do with me than it does the price of comics. However, I think I will always be the type of buyer who will pick up trades of certain books, even if it takes me years to do so.
JM: Wrapping up: do you differentiate between buying single issues and buying trades, or at they both intertwined ways to get the full story? Do you perceive a greater value in one than in the other?
BS: In a perfect world, I would only buy trades — they look nice on a shelf, they offer a more pleasurable reading experience, and you get more bang for your buck with no advertisements. However, I don’t think at this point in my fandom, I could wait six months to a year to read issues I know are available right now.
If YOU would like to enter the fancave and let YOUR voice be heard, drop me a line at the address below!
