Comics, Comics, everywhere...

Something you don't know about your favorite Jewelry designer. I've been collecting comics since I was 11-12 years old.
I know, shocking, strange, non-girl kind of thing huh? Not so much to me, to me reading comic books is just another form of reading, and I love to read.

Stranger still to be a 42 going on 43 year old woman who still reads comics. We still have a pull at the local comic / game shop, abet it's just 2-3 titles now. But I have something between 4000 to 5000 comic books in my collection, everything from original 1964 Fantastic Fours written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack the King Kirby, to SIP ( Strangers in Paradise) (which is fantastic series, and it's all available now in book form !! )

A couple of years ago I decided we had too much STUFF. And I started a closet clean up project. I did the first couple of closets quickly and easily. I even sold a few things on Craig's list, enough to buy a treat night out here or there.

That got me to thinking about all my material goods. I mean what GOOD are they?? What's useful about something I've stored for 13 years in my closet and I've not taken it out since?

I realized that included my comic books. So 2 years ago, I started to haul the boxes out 1 by 1 and was determined to get rid of at least some of them. I hit a road block in the very first box I pulled. It had Air-boy comics in it, and I wanted to reread them. I really enjoyed the series and I figured I should read them at least once more before I got them out of the house. Also I few comics have more than just reading value. A few comics have real memories built into them. But the issues were not all in that box, and I knew I had all the issues. The last several years when we received the comics, we would read them and then just put them in the closet.. it was too hard to pull boxes out and put them away correctly.

Time is always a issue in my house (Doesn't everyone wish they had more time?)

Since I work full time, run a home business, and I'm Wife and Mom, I didn't have much time to really work on this, let alone reading them. It dawned on me I would have to pull every box out at once, and sort through them. It would take up lot of room and time I really didn't have to do the job properly. Then I checked out the value of the comics. Some of my favorite comics are not worth what I paid for them... something to be expected, but it still hurts to learn something you value has no value. I had to decide if selling them /whatever was worth the time and effort, vs. what they were worth to me.

I had it in my head that I needed to get rid of everything, cause what was the point of keeping some of it? I mean I was trying to clean out material goods in my life right?? What is good about letting them rot in my closet ?

and it just sort of became this huge bugaboo, why did I need to do this, and why right now??? So I stopped, and put them all away.

I just wasn't ready emotionally to let go of a huge part of my childhood. I wasn't sure what I really wanted to do.

Now 2 years later, I'm ready to tackle the issue. It took me awhile to get to that place in my head were I could make the decisions I need to about this.

First, I can keep what I want. I'm keeping SIP!!! I'll probably keep air-boy, but I"m going to read it first. That was the key... reading. I'm going to use the same yard stick we use on books in the library... while I honestly re-read this comic again?

If I'm not going to re-read them, why keep them? Even if I have some emotional attachment to something in my collection... if I'm not going to re-read it, then it's senseless.

I'm ready to bargain basement those comics that have no real value except to someone that enjoys reading them.

And those few comics that are actually worth something I will sell for what I can get, either the local shop, Craig's list or eBay.

It's going to take time to go through them and prep them for sale / give away / whatever, and that's OK.

So all the boxes have journeyed up to the jewelry lair and I'm in the process of sorting them into the proper groupings. some comics I know I don't want anymore... some I am not sure of, and some I want to re-read right now !! ( I just finished re-reading SIP. Seriously, this is good stuff!)

It makes it hard to do jewelry, but I"m hoping a week of really working at it I can at least reclaim part of my studio. I should be able to get the piles off the floor at least, so I can move around.

I suspect I will end up with about 1/3 of my collection. If it ends up more or less, that's OK. It's all good. And I get to re-read some great stories in the process.