One of the most interesting aspects of following corporate superheroes is the idea of lineage. There’s a great sense of wonder and weight to the idea that there’s 700 issues behind the one you’re reading, which theoretically fill in the entire lives of the characters you’re reading about. In the words of a recent DC slogan, “Everything matters.” But in practice, this becomes messy. And I’m not talking about the in-story workings of continuity. I’m talking about its effect on the reader and the hoarding it can encourage.
The following is a cautionary tale.
I’ve always been a completist. Add in the fact that storytelling is my lifeblood, and you can see how comic collecting can become an issue. I’ve spent countless hours and a significant amount of cash tracking down and reading back issues, creating reading maps and charts and spreadsheets, binding entire series, and repeatedly thinking through what happened in certain series on an issue-by-issue basis for 300 issues. In some cases, it’s sapped me of a desire to even read. I recently joked to someone that trying to do chronological read-throughs beat every bit of curiosity I had about the Golden Age out of me. Once I expanded beyond corporate superheroes, my desire to be as well-versed in comics as possible meant tracking creative lineages between creators and their life’s works, as well as their influences, and their influences’ influences. Ultimately, that all led to me hoarding as many books as my poor bedroom furniture could handle. (I’m sorry, couch, and table, and dresser, and bed, and nightstand, and closet shelves, and I’m sorry to the overstuffed bookshelves most of all.)
This year, things really started turning dark, and I started wondering, gee, why am I not enjoying this hobby? Why, upon looking around and realizing I’m trapped in a fortress of partially-read books, am I feeling guilt and shame instead of joy and self-fulfillment? Is there, perhaps, something wrong here?
No shit, Nick. Of course there is.
That’s not to say my completism is all bad. I’m as knowledgeable about as wide a variety of comics as one could be. I’m a comic book database in the form of a human, and my analysis processors are always churning, always incorporating new information that informs the old. As someone who plans to make a living out of storytelling, all of that can and has come in handy.
But the single most important thing I learned this year, in terms of comics, is that every story is disposable. I’m not talking comics specifically, either. Every piece of entertainment that we consume is completely disposable.
Most books are, in some large or small way, influential. The influence of things like “Watchmen,” “Love and Rockets,” and “Y: The Last Man” might be obvious, but even something as seemingly insignificant as an issue of “Arion: Lord of Atlantis” might have influenced someone who went on to create something else later on, which in turn influenced countless others who went on to make their own works. Hell, as a writer myself, I’m a part of that bizarre process of endless iteration. Grant Morrison’s hugely popular “Animal Man” run changed the way I think about stories, yet at the same time the mostly-forgotten Nickelodeon show As Told by Ginger still influences my creative work as well. One of my life goals is to make something that someone someday is influenced by, and then combines that with their own myriad influences to make something completely new.
So I’m not saying stories are forgettable. I think the opposite is true: If you have read a story, you have gained the experience of consuming that story. I recently took on the task of tracking every movie I’ve ever seen, and I had a similar sort of revelation. A solid 15-20% of those movies are terrible 90s family movies that my brother and I would watch on VHS tapes on repeat. Frankly, that’s embarrassing. No matter how much I wish I hadn’t, I watched each and every one of those movies. Jungle 2 Jungle is and forever will be a part of my life. I can guarantee that these movies have had little to no effect on me, and yet, even though I do not own them in any form, they remain a permanent part of me.
Continued belowWhich brings me to the ultimate point: You do not need to own that story to hold onto that experience. You consumed that piece of entertainment. You had that experience, and it lives on in your memory. You do not need to own it. And if time passes by and you’ve forgotten the story, that’s okay, because that means it wasn’t memorable anyways. Worst case scenario, it gave you something to focus on for 20 minutes. Not everything matters. In fact, if you were to give up the physical copies of every story you owned, you would quickly realize which ones truly meant something to you and which ones didn’t.
I know this sounds a little new-agey in the worst way. “De-clutter! Cut out the things that are weighing YOU down! Simplify YOUR life!!” But there are some genuinely useful sentiments in that advice. Since I had these revelations this year, I’ve been getting rid of a lot of my excess comics, and I feel great. The Detroit era of Justice League is no longer a physical burden stacked in front of my tv, staring me down as I get dressed. Those items are now giving someone else joy, and all but the parts I actually liked are slowly fading from my memory. Since I’ve been getting rid of more books, I’ve only regretted getting rid of one or two, and they were easy to track back down. And since it’s 2018, if I ever do seriously regret parting with a book, digital is a great safety net.
And so I challenge all of you reading this to learn from my mistakes. If you find yourself feeling like I did earlier this year, sell some comics, or give them away, or donate them, or even — gasp — throw them away. Embrace the disposability of these stories. Embrace the fact that you only have enough bandwidth to re-read select few books. Embrace the idea of owning incomplete runs. Nobody is going to show up and arrest you for only keeping the second volume of “Doom Patrol” and ditching the other five.
As I mentioned up top, corporate superheroes like to hang onto the idea that all of their stories matter. It’s easy to fall for that, so I think we’d all do well to remember that it’s just a brilliant marketing strategy. Only you can decide what few things truly matter. Everything else is disposable.
