Hot take: that guy at my local shop made me rethink my whole pull list

I was at Third Eye Comics in Annapolis last Saturday and this older dude next to me at the register said 'you know you're just buying the same book with a different cover, right?' I laughed it off but then I looked down at my stack and realized 6 out of 8 issues were just variant covers of the same few titles. He wasn't being mean about it, he just pointed out that I stopped actually reading for the story and started hoarding covers instead. Now I'm sitting here wondering if I've been a collector more than a fan this whole time. Has anyone else had a random stranger say something that totally shifted how you look at your own habits?

2 comments

2 Comments

nora_park10d ago

That reminds me of when I ran into a guy at the flea market who was selling a box of old comics for five bucks each. He told me most of 'em were still unread and he just liked having them in the house, which sounded familiar. We ended up talking for like 20 minutes about how the fun is in the hunt, not the hoard.

the_elizabeth10d ago

lol yeah my pull list last year was basically "Spider-Man and his amazing friends: 47 different ways to spend $300" until i realized i had three copies of the same issue and couldn't tell you what happened in any of them. it's embarrassing when a stranger has to point out you're basically a dragon sitting on a pile of variant covers instead of someone who actually reads. i felt real dumb when i looked at my shelf and saw my copy of The Walking Dead #1 from back in the day all beat up from being read 10 times, next to all these pristine graded slabs i was scared to touch. the real wake up call was when my dog threw up on a bagged board that i'd been meaning to read for six months and i didn't even care.