Comic Books and Me

I've resurrected my old expensive habit of buying comic books. Every week, I'm visiting my local hole-in-the-wall comic book shop owned and operated by my friendly long haired CBG. It's an expensive hobby and it's seriously put a dent into my book reading and DVD watching habits these past few months.

Not that I'm complaining. I do believe that comics are nearing another renaissance much like they did some 10 years ago in the 1990's. Then, the comic industry was booming. Creator owned comics were selling like anything and first editions soon tripled in price. It was a bubble that was spawned from greed. Comic book publisher artificially hyped comic book values with releases of variant covers, hologram covers, exclusive art and a comic book minseries every month or so.

These days, it's much of the same but I think with less of the greed. Sure, publishers still release the variant covers and the extra editions. But now, there is less of the expectation that they will increase in value. That means, what remains after the "comics as investment" bubble are the real readers of the books. Readers who like a good story paired with excellent art. Readers like me.

It's indeed an expensive hobby but at the end of the day, I'm having fun. That's all that matters, isn't it.