Monday, March 10, 2008

Bad Reading Habits

I may have mentioned once or twice that I have a tremendous back-log of comics that I haven't read yet. There are three whole short-boxes of comics floppies in my to-be-read 'pile,' not to mention the scores of unread graphic novels and manga sitting on my shelves.

This means that in the evening when I'm selecting a comic to read next, I don't necessarily go for what I think will be the best read, but often the quickest, in an attempt to cut down on the sheer volume of comics that need to be read. So anything by Chuck Dixon? An easy read, five minutes tops. But even though an issue of Casanova will most likely be a better comic, the time spent per page count will be higher. So the last several issues of Casanova sit in one of the boxes.

Sometimes if I get a nice long weekend with nothing else to do I'll pull out a long run of something and give it a read. But those chances are few and far between these days.

One peculiar thing that happens, particularly with mini-series, is that I'll read the first issue to see if it's any good. If it is, I'll get the rest of the issues, but many times they go unread until the series is finished. Then I realize that several months have gone by since I read the first issue and I don't know remember what's going on. Going back to read the first issue again seems counterproductive--reading something I've already read when there are so many unread comics to be read. It's like a vicious circle or something.

Of course one solution to all this is to buy less comics. I've managed to cut about $100 off of my monthly DCBS order, so that's a start. I could also move more things to wait-for-the-trade, but that just means that the bookshelves grow more packed instead of the short boxes.

I long ago accepted the fact that I'll never read every prose novel I want to read. I guess I'll have to accept the same thing about comics.

Sigh.

2 comments:

derzafanistori said...

Excellent post!
I used to have similar...hmmm...problem(?) but managed to resolve it quite simply: I found some people to ruminate read images/ideas with and my back-log started to diminish instantly. Retrospectively, it seems like quality vs. quantity issue.
:o)

Koen said...

I find myself in the same situation. My other hobbies and the fact that I now have two young daughters aren't making it any easier.... There's so many good stuff out there and I simply want to read it all. The internet makes sure that I know all the good stuff that is out there... But like you said I'll have to start accepting that I can't ever read everything I want to... (or I'd have to start living in solitary but maybe then I'll start having a space-problem)