My local shop's '90s X-Men rerelease event turned into a real debate about collecting

The shop in Springfield had a big sale on old X-Men issues from the 1990s, and the line was full of people arguing about buying to read versus buying to keep sealed. I watched a guy in a Cyclops shirt get pretty heated with another collector who said keeping comics in plastic was 'missing the point'. It made me wonder, for a story you really love, is it better to preserve it perfectly or actually wear out the pages from reading?

3 comments

3 Comments

hayden7098d ago

Man, that argument sounds so familiar. Saw the same thing happen at a con last year over some old Spider-Man books. Like, if you never open it, are you even a fan or just a fancy storage unit? The whole point is getting lost in the story, not staring at a plastic case.

simonl118d ago

Yeah that whole sealed vs. read thing @hayden709 mentioned is everywhere now. I mean, it's like people buy vinyl records just to hang them on the wall, or get those fancy sneakers and never take them out of the box. Feels like the stuff itself became the point, not the actual experience. Idk, maybe it's just me but seeing a kid actually reading a beat-up copy of a comic seems way better than a perfect one sitting on a shelf forever.

tarar276d ago

Totally get what you mean about the beat-up copy. My buddy found a first print of his favorite book at a garage sale, cover was basically falling off. He read it to pieces and it's still his most prized thing, way more than any slabbed book @hayden709. The story's just meant to be lived in, not locked away.