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Collecting Stuff is for Idiots - convince me otherwise


Chest Rockwell

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Just now, PunkStep said:

What on earth did you buy there, a Laura Palmer collectable??

Aye, they did a Twin Peaks line of Pops. I would have had the doppelganger pack of Laura and Dale too but it was limited and goes for stupid money now.

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I’ve started collecting Comic Books, mainly just for cool looking cover art, I haven’t opened them up to read them I’ve bought 23 so far (Mainly Walking Dead which is the only comic I read) over the space of a couple of weeks.

Picked this one up the other day

5172490-03.jpg

I don’t really have a goal, maybe a display in one of my rooms where I keep all my Gaming/DVDs/Electronics

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50 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said:

I’ve started collecting Comic Books, mainly just for cool looking cover art, I haven’t opened them up to read them I’ve bought 23 so far (Mainly Walking Dead which is the only comic I read) over the space of a couple of weeks.

Picked this one up the other day

5172490-03.jpg

I don’t really have a goal, maybe a display in one of my rooms where I keep all my Gaming/DVDs/Electronics

Read them man!

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I come from a family of collectors/hoarders, to the point that any one of us is probably just a bad performance review away from bottling our own piss.

Saying that, I moved into a new flat at around the same time my parents moved from Jersey back to England, so I couldn't reliably keep half my stuff at their place any more, and it meant I got rid of a lot of the stuff I'd been collecting/hoarding for years, and that seems to have (mostly) killed the bug for me, as starting from scratch would be a fucker.

The stuff I still (sort of) collect is wrestling masks, Moomin memorabilia, Studio Ghibli merch, and Fighting Fantasy choose-your-own-adventure books - though I've not been seriously pursuing any of that in a while, just picking up stuff I stumble across.

In fact, my rule for the Fighting Fantasy collection books is that I'm only allowed to obtain them the same way I got them all first time around - finding them in carboot sales and charity shops. No looking for them online, no seeking them out, and only the original green and black paperbacks allowed.

The mask collection has kind of died off as I can't afford it, but they're the only collection really "on display" aside from a couple of Moomin bits. I picked up a few styrofoam heads at a boot sale, so I've used them to display some of the masks - I have a cheap Blue Demon replica and my own old mask I used for a couple of matches on top of a bookcase in the bedroom, a Kendo Nagasaki on top of one of the living room bookcases, then I have a little set of shelves for just wrestling DVDs and books, and on top of that I have a framed portrait of Randy Savage, flanked by a signed Great Sasuke mask and an old Soldier Ant mask - which kind of retroactively became one of the jewels of the collection, as it was the first I bought, and I ended up working a couple of matches with Soldier a couple of years ago, so that was nice.

 

As a kid, collections were everything - but I think the '90s were a golden age of collecting, and particularly when I was growing up with a twin brother and, to a lesser extent, older siblings. It meant the collecting and competing didn't stop when we got home from school.

POGs, Tazos, Monster In My Pocket, Monster Wrestler In My Pocket, Pokemon cards, football stickers, whatever the range of little porcelain hippos was in Kinder Eggs this week, we did all of it. And, at the same time, Mam was collecting anything with a Westie on it, my sister was after pandas (she has literally thousands of them now), oldest half-brother was collecting stuffed gorillas (as in stuffed toys, our Humberside council house wasn't a taxidermy nightmare), other half-brother was collecting Garfield toys, and I'm sure my Dad was probably after something too.

The frustrating thing is that my twin brother had a real clinical approach to this stuff - he's an archivist now, so that makes sense - but he always kept everything well looked after, while I was pretty haphazard about it all, and he always figured out the best way to make sure he completed every collection. I, on the other hand, always wanted to be a bit different, so while he (and everyone else) was collecting Pokemon cards, I was getting Digimon. He was buying POGs, I was buying whatever knock-offs were on the market for them too. End result being, I had collections no fucker cared about, while in adulthood he was able to sell his off for a pretty penny.

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1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

 

As a kid, collections were everything - but I think the '90s were a golden age of collecting

You're definitely right here. Most of my collecting habits were formed by growing up in the 90s with, as you mention, Pogs and Tazos being big ones (and those metal ones they did for a bit with a hand-shaped 'snapper' for playing, but I don't remember what they were called), but every few months there was a new big thing to collect. Merlin football stickers (better than Panini) and Mighty Max for me, Spice Girls photo album photos and Puppy In My Pocket for my sister. It was a good time to be young.

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I've started collecting comics again recently but they're 100% for reading, there's an amazing amount of mature and progressive books being released weekly now and there's also Snotgirl.

I have a little Wednesday or Thursday ritual of looking in Forbidden Planet for anything new by Image or Black Mask Studios but I really need to find somewhere selling more indie titles.

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4 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

I've started collecting comics again recently but they're 100% for reading, there's an amazing amount of mature and progressive books being released weekly now and there's also Snotgirl.

I have a little Wednesday or Thursday ritual of looking in Forbidden Planet for anything new by Image or Black Mask Studios but I really need to find somewhere selling more indie titles.

Mega City Comics in Camden and Orbital Comics in Leicester Square are my go tos for comic. 

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I used to go to Mega City a lot. It's got a great selection of independents, as well as mainstream. Found the vintage Guy Gardner run, when he had Sinestro's power ring.

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Here’s  my current collections of comics with an added signed Bruce Campbell autobiography hiding in there somewhere

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I went on a comic run Monday just visiting as many as I could on the tube which also led me to 30th Century Comics in Putney Bridge, a comic collectors set dream that place, I came out of there with a few Walking Dead back issues which other retailers don’t seem to sell unless they cost well over £30, I picked up about 5 issues at £3 a piece and will probably head back there at some point in the next few weeks to pick up some of the more expensive issues that cost £7 up to £25

Edit: Mega City Comics sell everything with one of those plastic covers too which Orbital don’t.

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Outside of Forbidden Planet, Orbital is my go-to - they have a nice little independents room, though IIRC it's better for TPBs than regular issues when it comes to indies. 

I've not been in a few years, but Gosh! Comics was usually pretty good for indie comics and 'zines, and general oddities.

 

I'm in London roughly once a month, and Forbidden Planet is a regular part of my routine even if I end up not buying anything. I see it as a sign that I've outgrown most of my collecting instincts that I can go in there and walk out empty-handed. 

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29 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

 

I've not been in a few years, but Gosh! Comics was usually pretty good for indie comics and 'zines, and general oddities.

 

 

Have you been since it moved? It's in Soho now and it's absolutely massive, the upstairs is all non superhero stuff and downstairs is all superhero stuff, it's a nice place to browse.

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