All New Marvel Collected Editions

[PrankT]

You people are encouraging me. If anyone is near xxxxxx and interested in some omnibus, I can part with a bunch.

[krisis]

Amen, Life is too short.

Indeed. I am sitting with some ANAD Marvel books in my IST cart right now. I cannot quite pull the trigger on them. They cost about as much as my yearly subscription to Marvel Unlimited. I love having complete runs of things in my house, but I also have completely filled the leisure space in my attic with boxes upon boxes of comics, which I now have to move with me from place to place or go through the trouble to sell on eBay.

I have a complete set of every book from Marvel Now and I have yet to re-read a single one them aside from Ms. Marvel and Thor.

Just think about it - before the 00s if you wanted to read classic runs of comics you needed to spend thousands of dollars on comics that looked like hell and were old enough to disintegrate in your hands! Now we all have beautiful bookshelves, but ten years from now we might just all have comics tablets.

Trust me, every fiber of my body is into being a completionist and owning every TPB of every Marvel series from here to eternity. But, at a point, real life concerns like money and space and time come into play, as does ever-shifting technology.

It doesn't change you being a fan.

[Captain Planet]

I think it's good to regularly look at your library, evaluate what you aren't going to read ever again and start selling. Every 6-12 months I sell off a bunch of books I finally realize that I'll never read again, even if I enjoyed them the first time. Trying to keep my library to only the books I know I'll pick up again.

Selling off my books has also made it possible for me to spend very little new money on comics. A

[TheFlow]

I can definitely see myself selling the majority of my collection and going digital, but for now I will keep collecting big physical books.

[Balakin]

Man, this hits so close to home. I've been collecting since 2012 and pretty much have everything i want (or can buy later since they are available) except a few white whales (Bendis/Brubaker DDs, infinite crisis). But I don't see an end point, books keep coming out and I have shelf after shelf filling up. I don't even have a permanent house (recent graduate) so my books are all not even in one place. I keep thinking of one day getting it altogether in one shelf and sending it to CBR shelf porn column (also the forum here) but it seems the collecting will never end. But I also think about selling all off it off and going on a euro trip or something. But I know when I do actually do part with them i won't be totally happy. Such a big part of my life for the past few years was reading this forum, bidding on ebay, building complete runs, enjoying clearout prices and making wish lists. Its a very weird place to be in. On one hand selling them off would take a huge (literal) load off my back and sometimes I wonder if these will even hold up in the future, but at the same time it seems all these years of collecting would have been for nothing (since I have 60% of the collection yet to be read).

They look so nice on the shelf though!

Keep the stuff you really want and sell he rest and go on that trip. You are young you should go see the world not piling up books on shelves. I mean don't get me wrong if collecting stuff is your life's ambition thent do that but seemingly you want to travel so i would say do that!

[Andru]

Every time I purchase a new group of books, I am always looking for what I can sell off.

I moved at the end of last year, and moving 20 plus boxes of books is not fun.

At this point I believe I have narrowed down my collection to books I know I will re-read multiple times. Every now & again though my tastes will change and I will see another book I can part with, or regret getting rid of one I thought I wouldn't want to read again.

[Mr`Orange]

I've been selling a lot of stuff on eBay recently, most of it at a massive loss but it was just to clear out some space and get rid of all the books I've double dipped (which was far too many!). But you do have to be careful as tastes change I have had to re buy books I once had but then sold. I am also being a lot more discerning with my purchases and not blind buying as many books as I used to.

[grahamgg]

It's funny you guys are talking about this stuff. A month or so back my wife and I put our house on the market and, long story short, we got a great offer on our house and are moving! We married the year after college and have been in our current home for 14 years! Over that span I've hoarded quite a bit of comics junk! I've said more than once, I should just pitch all these books in the dumpster and be done with it instead of trying to move it all. What I finally did was box up all my TPBs, Omnis, and HCs in long boxes and put them into storage at my parents house instead of hauling them 500 miles just to clutter up a new house. At some point as a collector, you realize you just have too much junk to keep up with. Now that we are moving, I see how much crap I actually have and how much of it I actually read (which to be honest, is quite a bit), and what I really want to keep.

Just think about it - before the 00s if you wanted to read classic runs of comics you needed to spend thousands of dollars on comics that looked like hell and were old enough to disintegrate in your hands! Now we all have beautiful bookshelves, but ten years from now we might just all have comics tablets.

Trust me, every fiber of my body is into being a completionist and owning every TPB of every Marvel series from here to eternity. But, at a point, real life concerns like money and space and time come into play, as does ever-shifting technology. It doesn't change you being a fan.

When we first moved in our house I still used to buy single issues each month and collected editions were just becoming a "thing". Then I slowly stopped buying singles by 2004-07ish. I primarily only collect HCs and TPBs now. At my peak I probably had 10,000+ single issues and maybe 400-500 TPBs/HCs. Over time I've whittled down the collection to only about 4 long boxes of single issues I want to keep (GI Joe, Transformers, Hulk & Spidey I read growing up plus key back issues ... GSXM 1, ASM 129, Supes 75, X-Men #2, Stan Lee signed comics, early Hulk issues, etc). But I still have 15-16 long boxes of TPBs and HCs which I just moved.

I completely agree with you about reading classic runs of comics. Never in a million years did I ever believe growing up that I'd have a near complete run of Hulk, Spidey, FF, X-Men and Avengers from the early 60s until today (what of it has been collected in TP/HC). Even 15 years ago I wouldn't have believed it!

It took me a while to decide to do it but once I made up my mind to sell off all my marvel omnis it was like a weight had been lifted, I had all these heavy, rare, expensive books sitting on my shelf gathering dust, I do most of my reading at work and it was too much of a hassle to take these into work, have pretty much sold them all now (just Bendis DD and Cap America stuff left) I replaced pretty much everything with those complete/ultimate trades (apart from Ennis punisher) and had enough money left to pay the deposit on a new car, I say do it, life is too short to have all these books sitting on your shelf, they may be worth a fair bit more than when you got them, but they are never going to be worth a fortune

I moved at the end of last year, and moving 20 plus boxes of books is not fun.At this point I believe I have narrowed down my collection to books I know I will re-read multiple times. Every now & again though my tastes will change and I will see another book I can part with, or regret getting rid of one I thought I wouldn't want to read again.

[Drakul]

I think this was discussed a while back but I wanted to revisit the subject for myself.

I have a few OOP omnibuses that are available in other formats (complete collections or partly in epics) and I am considering selling them off for the profit and just replacing them. I am having a hard time talking myself into parting with them though. Honestly I'm not even sure that the omnibus format is my favorite format to read comics. I like that they have the over-sized art and its all in one place and I like the hardcover, but the fact that weigh too much to hold comfortably in my lap and I probably don't want to read 25-50 issues of something at a given time means that they tend to stay on my shelf more than smaller sized books. I wonder if I collect and covet these omnibuses because of the mystique and the perceived prestige of them more than the actual content or enjoy-ability of them. Does anyone else share in this conundrum and/or have any advice on the subject?

I've been selling a lot of stuff on eBay recently, most of it at a massive loss but it was just to clear out some space and get rid of all the books I've double dipped (which was far too many!). But you do have to be careful as tastes change I have had to re buy books I once had but then sold. I am also being a lot more discerning with my purchases and not blind buying as many books as I used to.

Both of these posts hit close to home for me.

I really like Omnis for their size and completist aspect but I'm pretty new to Marvel (and comics in general since I hadn't read a single one before I moved to the US in 2005) so all my purchases are blind buys. At this point I have a pretty nice collection but like was said I don't always feel like reading 30+ issues back to back, especially with Silver Age stuff when it can become tedious, and so my Omnis usually end up gathering dust on my nightstand.
Case in point I was reading UXM1 a while back and I really enjoyed it but I stopped about 2/3 through because I fell into another trip (Star Wars, WoW... whatevs.) and on a bigger scale I started collecting Omnis in 2012 with ASM2, I now have about 60 omnis and OHCs and I've only read 4 of them because I'm crazy anal and I don't want to read Stern's Spidey before ASM3 or some shit like that.
Plus I'm a fan of everything. Video games, anime, cartoons, series, movies, books, manga, comics..... and time.... well there's not enough time. If I won the lottery and stopped working there wouldn't be enough time. So with time, do I finish Skyrim? (yeah I know), do I watch an anime series? Do I catch my backlog on Robin Hobb books? And so on. And if I'm honest comics are not a top priority for me like some of you because I fell into it later and there's no nostalgia there.

But at the same time I've sold games when I was done that I really regretted doing and told myself I would never sell again. And I'd much rather pay $50 for the omni rather than miss it and have to spend $200 on eBay down the road. So I still collect...

First world problems.

Carry on.

[TomSlick]

I think it's good to regularly look at your library, evaluate what you aren't going to read ever again and start selling. Every 6-12 months I sell off a bunch of books I finally realize that I'll never read again, even if I enjoyed them the first time. Trying to keep my library to only the books I know I'll pick up again.

Selling off my books has also made it possible for me to spend very little new money on comics. A

This right here.
I'm the same way. In fact, I'll sell books I swore I never would.
Example, I looked everywhere to get an "absolute" copy of the Neal Adams Deadman slipcase ediction for a decent price. Finally found one, so I swore I'd never sell it and even promised myself I'd re-read it, but I doubt I will. Great art, but silly writing.
So, it's going.
I also readjust for OHCs. When I could get a steal on the Bendis DD vol. 1-6 and Astonishing X-Men vol. 1-2, I sold those three omnibus books, grabbed the OHCs and had a ton of coin left over.

[Balakin]

my life is empty, cold and meaningless so I buy books to make me happy but some of them are crap so I try to sell them but some of them I got for like 10-12 quid and I just can't be bothered putting them up on ebay and get like 5 quid for them after shipping and package them and go to the post office and ugh...
I've actually gave away loads to friends which I don't mind but there are some books none of my pals would like so I don't know what to do with them. Don't want to dump them in a charity shop because all of them together worth a sum I would go to the post office for but probably couldn't sell them in a lot.
I have no idea what to do with them.

[Judge Dredd]

my life is empty, cold and meaningless so I buy books to make me happy but some of them are crap so I try to sell them but some of them I got for like 10-12 quid and I just can't be bothered putting them up on ebay and get like 5 quid for them after shipping and package them and go to the post office and ugh...
I've actually gave away loads to friends which I don't mind but there are some books none of my pals would like so I don't know what to do with them. Don't want to dump them in a charity shop because all of them together worth a sum I would go to the post office for but probably couldn't sell them in a lot.
I have no idea what to do with them.

I usually give them to a buddy of mine, do not feel like posting 10 or 15 books that are worth 10 dollars on Ebay, much easier to just pass along. Most of the books I do that with are because I upgraded to a hardcover copy.

[Mr`Orange]

my life is empty, cold and meaningless so I buy books to make me happy but some of them are crap so I try to sell them but some of them I got for like 10-12 quid and I just can't be bothered putting them up on ebay and get like 5 quid for them after shipping and package them and go to the post office and ugh...
I've actually gave away loads to friends which I don't mind but there are some books none of my pals would like so I don't know what to do with them. Don't want to dump them in a charity shop because all of them together worth a sum I would go to the post office for but probably couldn't sell them in a lot.
I have no idea what to do with them.

Try doing a big lot sale on ebay, put 10 books of the same genre or publisher together an sell them. Even if you get a few quid per book it build up and you can get cheap deal with p4d.co.uk or senditnow.

[Balakin]

I usually give them to a buddy of mine, do not feel like posting 10 or 15 books that are worth 10 dollars on Ebay, much easier to just pass along. Most of the books I do that with are because I upgraded to a hardcover copy.

I do that with some stuff but I don't know anyone who would enjoy Son of the gun or Beautiful darkness.

[Andru]

Anything I cannot sell or cannot be bothered to put up due to low returns, I just donate to the local library.