And so it comes to pass, the end of my Buy Nothing Year tracking of comic book solicitations. Of course, I’ve really only been doing DC and Marvel (sometimes Image and Dark Horse when they get their solicitations out on time). I’ve kind of lost focus of what the purpose of this keeping track was all about. I’m not actually sure I knew what I was doing to start with… just previewing the Previews I guess… I dunno. I’ve not even gone back to check out what I was ogling previously so I’m not sure what help it is to me. Anyway. It’s the last one. Whatever. Let’s just get it done.
17/09/2008
what I won’t be buying (comics for december)
20/08/2008
what I won’t be buying (comics for November)
And then there were two. August is half over, and after this weekend’s Fan Expo conventioneering “volunteering” I’ll have a pirate’s booty of store credit at the LCS to keep me going until the new year. I’ve seen what September and October have to offer, and now it’s November’s turn to try and bilk me of my credits.
As usual, not necessarily what I’m going to buy, but also what I would normally buy and snide comments on things I’d never buy. Come January I’m going to do a side-by-side comparison list of acquisitions vs. want list.
08/08/2008
An honest to gosh BNY post about BNY
I had hope that “Buy Nothing Year” would be my grand “stupid boy project” that would fill my world (and blog) with insight about our consumerist culture and how much (or little) it all means, about how our lives differ today because of our access to technology, about how we view money, how we spend money and how our lives are influenced by forces outside of ourselves (marketers, credit card companies, advertisers, lobbyists etc). I was hoping I would cover the dreams and nightmares, the triumphs and regrets that would occur by abandoning that which I enjoy, to the extent that I part with aspects of my past and move on with the future.
8 months later and none of it has really, truly happened. I haven’t spent my money like I used to, but I still consume. It’s actually quite easy to do so on not much money, and it’s easy to justify it. Had I not already had an out, had I not conceded still attending the cinema with my wife, I might have actually had a shot at something interesting. I mean, can you imagine the lamentations if I missed out on The Dark Knight and Iron Man and Hellboy and Wall-E and other such movies which I desperately would have wanted to see? There would have been about two dozen posts about The Dark Knight alone, the cinematic event of the decade, and how I felt like I was missing out and how the urges to break my stupid pledge were threatening to consume me and the project.
Alas, all you get is a middling review which isn’t nearly as insightful as some of the many conversations I’ve had about the film, it’s themes and the silly people who didn’t enjoy it (unclench a little).
As for comics, to have abandoned them this year would have been an even bigger coup than abandoning the cinema, but given my entrenched-ness in Rack Raids I just couldn’t let it go. But in many ways, buying only one or two titles a week very much feels like I have. There’s a strange separation that occurs when you distance yourself from the fanboys who buy half of a companies line. Whereas when you’re buying so many books, you start to feel like you’re missing out on something in the other titles you’re not getting. When you’re only buying one or two books, you begin to question why you’re even buying them. With the exception of the stronger indie titles, if you’re not a regular comics consumer, most of the weekly releases hold no excitement. Trade Paperbacks, or complete story collections, are much more enticing, but even then, only for a limited time. Call it “now available - gotta have it” syndrome (NAGHI).
NAGHI is a pocketbook crippler which I’ve experienced many times in my life. It’s that urge to go out to see the new movies in the first week of release because the trailers excited you. It’s that drive to go out on Tuesday and pick up the new album (that you haven’t heard) from that band you kind of like. It’s that desire to purchase the just-released DVD of that movie you saw in the theatres that you don’t remember the story, but you do remember being entertained. It’s that need to pick up the latest trade paperback written by so-and-so because you liked their last one. NAGHI strikes, your will is crippled, your bank account depletes.
Wait
Just wait
Give it a month or two or three… or six. Then pick that book up off the shelf, or the cd off the rack and tell me you still want it as badly as you did when it first came out. Arguably you’re still interested, but are you as interested as you were? No. You know why? Because it’s not new anymore, it’s not fresh. Others have seen it and digested it long before you did, they’ve told you about it and the radioman said it was kinda allright, he guesses, and the mystique of the unknown has faded into the dull tarnish of the vaguely familiar. You also have let slip another dozen and one cds/books/movies past by, and there’s always something new. When you’ve fallen behind, it’s hard to catch up, and sometimes it’s easier to just give up and not catch up at all and be like “regular” people who don’t obsess about such things.
But “regular” people are dull, boring, cultureless beings who are more enthused by whatever that story your neighbour tells about mistakenly buying whole wheat buns instead of white bread rather than enjoying 6 hours of straight Venture Brothers DVD action. Is that what you want to become, someone who listens to plumbing stories or someone who sits in anticipation their latest Amazon.co.uk order containing what’s supposed to be the latest in ingenious funny business out of England? Who needs neighbours?
I think there’s a fear in the pop-culture obsessive of missing out, but also a fear of participating in life outside of fantasy. Television and iPods are awesome, but so is your wife whipping a shuttlecock at your face (we’re playing badminton you perv, get your mind out of the gutter) or having a chat with a stranger in line at the supermarket while you wait. Actual interaction, with real people, who aren’t cliche spouting figments of someone else’s imagination…
Did have a point here somewhere…
The point is, I’ve learned the lesson of BNY even if it hasn’t exactly manifested itself in an entertaining or secondary-usefulness manner. 1) There’s only so much one person can hope to consume in their lifetime. 2) Real people are, about half the time, more interesting than fiction. 3) Money can be used for other things than keeping you stocked to the gills in paraphernalia. 4) Spending more than you make is a bad idea in the short term, and detrimental in the long term. 5) Spending all of what you make is foolish. 6) I’m not a terribly adventurous person, and I’m okay with that. 7) what you want isn’t necessarily what you need. 8) what you get isn’t necessarily what you wanted. 9) very little in this life is returnable (aka. nothing is ever a sure thing). 10) I regret nothing.
Seriously, I’m glad I got to see the Dark Knight and didn’t have to wait and sift through reviews and sit and listen to people talk about it and not be able to contribute and opinion. I would die inside a little. I could have done without seeing Get Smart, enjoyable as it was, but there are some experiences I would have regretted missing out on.
I still have moment, especially now that I’m debt-free, where I want to just splurge, where I want to toss my credit card in the wind and buy the hell out of an HMV, just pick up material goods because, goddammit I miss them. I want a new cd. I want to buy a DVD (when I see a bin of $4 DVDs at the superstore containing the 3-disc special edition of Panic Room or A Mighty Wind I get weak-kneed, not because either are particularly great movies (though I did enjoy them and/or their cast and/or their director) but because my completest tendencies start to come over me. Same thing happens if I buy a comic book to review and it references a previous story, I want that previous story. It’s not that I’m terribly interested, else I would have read it already, but again, my completest nature. Also, I can’t resist a bargain. Also, I sometimes just get spending urges, like last week when I wound up in a used book store and bought $35 in used comics and books for my wife and stepson (or at least using them as an excuse to do so).
It’s a scary thing when that happens. I’ll stand in a store and I’ll be looking for one thing, find another, like say I was searching for Teen TItans Season 5 for the little guy on DVD, didn’t find it, but found that they had Flight of the Conchord’s CD on the 2/$25 rack. I look around for a second /$25 and spy Darjeeling Limited on the 2/$30, and suddenly I’m on the hunt for $55 worth of goods. In my hunt I realize there’s a new Portishead album out, I find an Amon Tobin cd I missed, I pick up Batman Animated season 2 (gap in the collection) for $19.99 and settle for a copy of Metric’s first album as my second $2/25 and the Omega Man as my second $2/30. I begin to look at it and say, “Well, I’m buying this much, might as well get those two Angel box sets that are only $20 each, and Season 7 of Buffy, which I still haven’t watched.” $235 and way out of budget later, I stride home, my goods in my backpack, and say “what the hell” and stop into Pages and buy $60 worth of books which, chances are, I won’t actually read. In fact, that copy of Omega Man, still wrapped up six months later, and only two episodes of Angel actually watched.
It’s a made up set of purchases, but an embarrassingly true scenario which I really don’t want to continue repeating.
Buy nothing year is actually teaching me introspection and discipline at the purchasing counter, but it’s eliminating the moments of weakness where I slip up that’s crucial.
I do really wish that I could buy this, now, though. It would make me ever so happy. But I’m being good. I’ll still want it though.
One of the things I’m still having a terrible time curving the craving for is action figures. I lust after action figures only marginally less than I lust after my wife, and that’s not healthy. I see all the various DC Universe action figures that Mattel is producing and I drool like a Prozac-addled invalid. My wife bought me two of my action figure desires for my birthday (the Kirby-inspired Darkseid and Mr. Miracle) and I took them out of their package and put them on the shelf where occasionally they fall over. That’s it. They look fantastic, but they only thrill me when I don’t have them and for the few moments after getting them. Once they’re out of the package, the thrill goes away almost immediately. I wonder what acronym I can give that. “OOPTIG”? (Out of package, thrill is gone).
I dunno. That’s why I’m trying to commit myself to only getting action figures that will a) be taken out of the package and b) played with by my stepson…
which involves the whole DC Universe Infinite Heroes line… heh heh heh (hands wringing).
-fin-
30/07/2008
what I won’t be buying (comics for October)
October comic solicits are out, which means I’m now 3/4 the way through BNY in comic book ordering terms. I’ll be a little more lax in what I can do in September and beyond as I’ll be working the Silver Snail booth for Fan Expo in late August, which will give me copious amounts of store credit, but I need to pace myself as last year I wound up blowing my wad early on New Frontier action figures and running out of trade by the end of November.
anyway, my picks and unpics and commentary on what’s coming out (from the major publishers) in about 2.5 months’ time after the cut…
10/07/2008
Busted
I broke the Buy Nothing Year this week *GASP*
I’d been bending the rules with my whole “store credit” at the comics shop but, yeah, this was a flagrant violation of the rules.
I went for a haircut the other day (the flowing locks are gone, now I’m all naval crewman), and the barber just happens to be across the street from BMV, a local discount/used/seconds bookstore retailer which I frequented when I was living in BOBTown (since it was also on the path on my way home). BMV has not just used DVDs and books and discounted books, but also comics and trades, you know, my weakness?
So I went in to look to see if they had any Planet Hulk or World War Hulk trade paperbacks (as Marvel often releases a glut of trades whenever a movie comes out, and Aden and I wanted to read up on some of the more interesting recent Hulk events after seeing the movie.. and since Aden was also interested in reading them as much as I, I could cheat and say they were a gift for her). They DID have some Hulk trades (and Iron Man, and a whole bunch of various Civil War and other overstocked Marvel titles) but not what I was looking for. What I did find, however, was the first two trades of DMZ for half-price (+$1) and the Hitman/JLA 2-issue miniseries which I missed late last year at half price (+$0.50), all told came to just under $20. I can’t resist a bargain, especially since I’ve been wanting to read DMZ for some time and my Hitman collection felt incomplete without the recent mini.
Well, Adrienne feigned shock, and appropriately chided me on my cave-in, stating she didn’t even want to read DMZ so I couldn’t even justify it (nope, I caved due to sheer greed and my bargain shopping sensibilities. There is a pang of guilt associated with breaking my own flexible BNY rules, but I’m still happy I got those trades at a really good price. And Aden just read Brian Wood’s The New York Four (which will be reviewed on Rack Raids in the next day or two) and liked it so maybe she’ll be receptive to his other works and I can “write off” the DMZ purchases.
JLA/Hitman on the other hand, I just plain regret. Awfully written (Ennis made Superman out to be a child, Batman to be an a-hole, Wonder Woman a moralistic prude, Green Lantern a wimp, and the Flash an even bigger a-hole than Batman if you can believe it… pitting them all into Deus Ex Machinas that the characters should never get into), and ugly (John McCrea’s never been a particularly clean or attractive artist, but this is borderline unreadable slop). A lot of fandom and reviewers, so jubilant to see Ennis return to one of his best creations, were excessively lenient on this book, and praised it as a great extension to the main Hitman series. Nope, it’s utter wankery, putting Tommy Monaghan as the if not ethically, then morally superior character in the story. Plus, do you think Clark Kent is ever going to tell a story like this to anyone other than a fellow hero or his wife or mother? Come on! Like that reporter wouldn’t see through the spectacled disguise the instant Clark started telling the story (and so much of it not from his own perspective). Bad character work and sloppy framing sequence, and generally intolerable writing all around.
Wow, somehow this confession turned into a review. Anyway… I cracked, I caved and I should be good for another 5.5 months now.
(of course, I’m getting those DC Infinite Heroes action figures for the stepson… yeah… for him… and the new Millenium Falcon too (it’s almost bloody 3 feet long!).
17/06/2008
What I won’t be buying (comics for September)
It’s been 6 months of “buying nothing” in the comics front and, well, it’s been tough, primarily because I’ve been the showrunner of Rack Raids and it’s hard to run a comic book review website without, you know, reviewing comics. I had planned on just reviewing freebies I received from publishers, but I’ve found reading PDF comics difficult to say the least. I have to fight with myself to do it. If only there were electronic paper and I could read digital comics on the subway. Alas, until futurescience catches up with my petty needs I’ll have to keep coming up with excuses to get store credit at the Snail for my weekly batch of acquisitions. So far, I’ve received credit for Christmas (thanks wife!), worked for credit, sold comics for credit and put some birthday money towards credit (which, essentially, will have to last another 2.5 months… it’ll be tight). By the time the September comics come around I should have plenty more work-for-trade after working behind the booth during the Con. Given that my actual weekly purchases now range from a maximum of three books to a hefty single paperback collection, I should be able to carry that store credit through to the end of the year. Then, in 2009, shopping spree!
No, actually, in 2009 I’m going to really restrict myself in my purchases. I’ve tried it before, maximum 5 titles and 1 trade in a week, but this time I mean it. No side purchases either at the Con or from other sources (much of which I still haven’t waded through many years later). Come 2009, I can buy up to 5 titles a week (no banking) and 1 trade paperback (provided I’ve read the previous week’s trade… if not, I can’t buy anything new). If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s restraint, if not outright discipline. Of course I’m out of debt in a few meager weeks and once I actually have disposable income my… reservations/hesitations may no longer apply.
Oh, and my idea for 2009, in terms of returning to purchasing CDs and DVDs is I can’t buy anything until 6-months after it’s release date. It’s the only way I can ensure that I actually want to listen or watch or indeed buy it. That should prove pretty easy since I’ll have such a backlog of things I’ve not purchased from 2008 that it’ll be easy. Plus, a lot of DVDs and CDs and whatnot will be in the cheapo bins after 6 months, which should save me at least $5 per disc, if not much much more. Hmm… maybe I should do that with graphic novels/tpbs as well…
Still to do this year… sell sell sell. Review review review. but now: September comics:
21/05/2008
what I won’t be buying (comics for August)
Advanced solicitations for some publishers’ August offerings are on-line in various places.
Here’s what I may be reading if I have some trade or Aden’s also curious in buying.
16/04/2008
What I won’t be buying (comics for July)
As I do every month, I take a look ahead at comics being solicited for publication in two months’ time. I take a loot at all the items I might have an interest in, or, in some cases, thinks I most definitely have no interest in. DC and Marvel are usually first out the gate, this will be updated as Dark Horse, Image and others get their solicits released.
25/03/2008
What I won’t be buying (comics for June)
Two weeks ago my store credit ran out, although I have some joint store credit with the wife after trading in the bulk of my JSA run and her Batman “Hush” issues. Conservation is at an all-time high and so I’ve pared back most of what I’m buying to finishing off mini-series and storylines. So for the first time I’ve come to realize that most of what’s in my two-months-in-advance look at what’s coming out I won’t actually be acquiring. It’s both saddening and liberating, in a sense.
22/02/2008
19/02/2008
What I won’t be buying (comics for May)
Every month I decide to torment myself by making a list of what comic books look interesting from the solicitations for books shipping 2 months down the road. Of course, with a little bit of store credit remaining I’m not completely unable to get things, but with that little resource well drying up, I may actually be out of luck for May… we’ll only have to wait and see.
13/02/2008
what not to buy… miscellaneous edition
Books
Contract by Si Spurrier (release date - out now)
America Unchained by Dave Gorman (release date… April in UK, later this year in NA)
DVD
Dave Gorman in America Unchained - (release date - Feb. 11, UK only)
toys
(out today, sigh)
15/01/2008
Nah-quisitions
Taking a look at upcoming TV on DVD releases, here are some things that piqued my interest yet won’t be entering my DVD collection any time soon:
Tin Man - a re-envisioning of the Wizard of Oz, starring Zooey Deschanel, Alan Cumming, and Richard Dreyfuss. I think I’ve heard good things about it, but I don’t really remember.
Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job - the first live-action original Adult Swim programme is an utter mind trip… maybe not even funny, but an assault on the brain like those seizure inducing Japanese programmes.
5 Days - an HBO/BBC co-production, like a melding of 24 with whatever that child abduction show is… it’s five episodes each spanning one 24-hour period on various days during a missing person’s case. Sounds quite intriguing.
John From Cincinnati - may not be WKRP, but Toasty really liked this show.
Starlost - now, most sci-fi television from the 1970’s remains unwatchable, but this series, spearheaded by ingenious and notorious cranky old man Harlan Ellison *might* actually be worth looking at… even though it is Canadian.
Robot Chicken: Star Wars - watched it on youTube months ago and was rather disappointed not to find it in the Season 2 set… it smells of a cash grab, especially for $15 bucks.
10/01/2008
Updated: what I won’t be buying (comics for March and April)
well, for the most part, anyway. Actually, I won’t be buying anything, but if I have any trade left, I’ll still get a few… list behind the cut
(Only Dark Horse has sent up their April solicitations so far, but DC, Marvel and Image should be along in the next week or so).
06/12/2007
BNY starts early on Action Figures
Been doing my budgeting and, yup, I’m out of money, which means extra-frivolous expenses like action figures are right out. It’s really too bad because the second series of Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier Action Figures is coming outnext week and they look swee-ee-eet.
But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of action figures I’ll lamentably be excluding from my collection in ‘08. There’s also the New Gods line in April (which is the closest I’ve ever seen Kirby’s art so accurately replicated in 3-D… I’m not even a New Gods fan, but my desire to have these is a testament to how innovative still Kirby’s artistic and design aesthetic remains).
As noted at the San Diego Comic Con, Hasbro has licensed the entire DC Universe for a new line of collectible figures, DC Universe Classics, which will start appearing on the shelves the first week of January (bastards). The big deal about this is they have the legendary figure sculptors The Four Horsemen working on designs (giving the figures all uniformity in style and proportions) and they will all be quite articulated. The DC Direct line of figures have been good for capturing an artist’s style, like Alex Ross, Jim Lee, Kirby, etc, but when a Deadshot figure belongs to a Michael Turner line, he doesn’t look very good next to a George Perez inspired Cyborg. A lot of the DC Direct figures, like the Justice Society line-up, have been ugly or awkward, with some of the most inane articulation (7 points, two of them ankles? WTF?), but with the Hasbro line, everything will be integrated visually and nicely posable. Oh, and each wave of releases will have a collect-a-figure, which the Marvel Legends series popularized, where you get a component of another figure with each figure in the line, to assemble a new one. Wave 1: a sweet-looking Metamorpho. Wave 2: Gorilla Grodd.
Toy announcements tend to come far in advance as prototypes are drummed up quite some time before they’re ready for market, so we often can see figures lined up 6 (or more) months ahead of scheduled release… so expect a few more of these reports, especially since DC Classics are slated for 1 wave every quarter. Oy.
20/11/2007
12/11/2007
DVD - No Ted for Me
Since it’s during the BNY I won’t be getting this anyway, and seeing as I already have some (very crappy) copies of the show on DVD I shouldn’t buy it anyway, but there’s a new box set of Father Ted on the horizon and yes, I want it…
Alas…
03/11/2007
Remaining Comics From November + December
Since I’ve been thinking a lot about my debt, I figured I should work a little harder at planning how I spend my money. I’m going to look at all the advanced solicitations from the bigger publishers so I can help figure out what I’ll be buying, what mini-series and stories perhaps I should stop buying in order to minimize purchases.
18/09/2007
The Want List - December
For those that don’t know, Diamond Comics has, essentially, a monopoly on the comics distribution market. I won’t go into the long and storied manner in which this came about but what you need to know is that the bulk of comic books, graphic novels and related paraphernalia is distributed through this solitary company, and that once a month it unloads a 700 page catalog upon the comic shoppes of North America called Previews. Previews features every item Diamond is expecting to distribute in two months time, and while only comic book stores can order via Previews, consumers can buy the $4 tome and make their “want lists” which they can then give to their store of preference to ensure they get their might preciouses.
I was a Previews slave throughout most of my teenage years, spending more money than I can actually recall earning on comics, books, toys, games, statues, clothing and more 2 months ahead of time all the time. I never budgeted and some months were lighter than others but yeah, I was a full-fledged geek and I didn’t really mind.
I don’t look at Previews anymore, it’s better for my sanity that I don’t, but sites like CBR and Newsarama still run the major publishers (DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image) solicitations, and I like the chump I am, still read them, spoiling plot points for myself and spending my money before I earn it.
The latest lists are up now for DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse, which are solicitations for december… below the cut are the books I will be getting, and the books I would be getting were I still buying books in 2008.
Part of my experiment, which is why I’m starting this a month early, is to see how much my interest dwindles, if at all, during ‘08, and how my desires will change during this time. Will I still be making lists like these 6 months down the road?