Like my interest in soccer, cartoons and sketch comedy television programs, I inherited comic book collecting from my father. The issue to the right is the first comic that I had ever purchased, in November of 1990. As a ten year old with surplus income from a paper route, my father insisted that I find a wholesome hobby such as my brother's baseball card collecting, which I found inane. I continuously collected X-Men devoutly, along with other X-titles as well as Spider-Man, Batman, Punisher, Daredevil, and various others (only Marvel or DC-I suspected the other independent publishers were lame knock-offs, like shopping at JC Penny's or Payless Shoes), until around 1995, when I needed money for other things, and felt that comics were for kids. Later, in college, I would sporadically go to a comic book store and splurge on both current issues, as well as as many back-issues as I could afford, to fill in the last five years of story. Finally, in 2006, I decided that having a wholesome hobby was a good idea, and began subscribing to the x-titles again, and I currently receive 6 titles in the mail each month. My collection is currently contained within 3 large comic book boxes, 2 of which are in New York, thus splitting the location of my archive into 2 physical sites. Although I had previously rabidly collected back-issues, internet fan sites such as
uncannyxmen.net have allowed me to catch up on the story without having to pay anything, although depriving me of possessing the physical object, as well as the visual pleasure of most of the art-work contained within the pages, as these sites tend to summarize the story into paragraphs, depriving the reader of the full experience and sensation of different artist's styles, colors and dialogue. I do not really hope to collect X-Men in its entirety, as I enjoy the feeling of being lost in the story line, and having to google names and places to figure out what is significant that I have missed. So as far as I see it, there are no real limits to my collection, but objectively I could collect every Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force and New Mutants comic ever published-the story was always more important to me than the physical objects. While there is a market for comics, and I'm sure a few of mine may be worth a bit of money, I have no real interest in exchanging them. Strangely, I at once could never throw them away, but also take very little care of preserving their integrity as art-objects or possible commodities to be traded in for money. As far as use value, I like to think that one day I will write a compelling paper about the Mojoverse, comics as political and social critique, or the rise and fall of Chris Claremont, but when it comes down to it, the narrative universe of X-Men has occupied my absent mind for so long that sometimes I just like to look at old comics again, allowing me to enter parallel universes and alternate time-lines, re-visiting sheets of the past which allow me to recollect my actual thoughts/sensations while I read the comics the first time. My archive of serialized comics allows me a path at once into my past and into the narrative universe of a group of people who are at once branded "gifted" and "cursed"-an allegory for both intellectuals and queers.
Like my interest in soccer, cartoons and sketch comedy television programs, I inherited comic book collecting from my father. The issue to the right is the first comic that I had ever purchased, in November of 1990. As a ten year old with surplus income from a paper route, my father insisted that I find a wholesome hobby such as my brother's baseball card collecting, which I found inane. I continuously collected X-Men devoutly, along with other X-titles as well as Spider-Man, Batman, Punisher, Daredevil, and various others (only Marvel or DC-I suspected the other independent publishers were lame knock-offs, like shopping at JC Penny's or Payless Shoes), until around 1995, when I needed money for other things, and felt that comics were for kids. Later, in college, I would sporadically go to a comic book store and splurge on both current issues, as well as as many back-issues as I could afford, to fill in the last five years of story. Finally, in 2006, I decided that having a wholesome hobby was a good idea, and began subscribing to the x-titles again, and I currently receive 6 titles in the mail each month. My collection is currently contained within 3 large comic book boxes, 2 of which are in New York, thus splitting the location of my archive into 2 physical sites. Although I had previously rabidly collected back-issues, internet fan sites such as uncannyxmen.net have allowed me to catch up on the story without having to pay anything, although depriving me of possessing the physical object, as well as the visual pleasure of most of the art-work contained within the pages, as these sites tend to summarize the story into paragraphs, depriving the reader of the full experience and sensation of different artist's styles, colors and dialogue. I do not really hope to collect X-Men in its entirety, as I enjoy the feeling of being lost in the story line, and having to google names and places to figure out what is significant that I have missed. So as far as I see it, there are no real limits to my collection, but objectively I could collect every Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force and New Mutants comic ever published-the story was always more important to me than the physical objects. While there is a market for comics, and I'm sure a few of mine may be worth a bit of money, I have no real interest in exchanging them. Strangely, I at once could never throw them away, but also take very little care of preserving their integrity as art-objects or possible commodities to be traded in for money. As far as use value, I like to think that one day I will write a compelling paper about the Mojoverse, comics as political and social critique, or the rise and fall of Chris Claremont, but when it comes down to it, the narrative universe of X-Men has occupied my absent mind for so long that sometimes I just like to look at old comics again, allowing me to enter parallel universes and alternate time-lines, re-visiting sheets of the past which allow me to recollect my actual thoughts/sensations while I read the comics the first time. My archive of serialized comics allows me a path at once into my past and into the narrative universe of a group of people who are at once branded "gifted" and "cursed"-an allegory for both intellectuals and queers.
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