How To Start Reading Comics Without Going Broke

Comic books can feel like a locked room: 80 years of history, thousands of issues, constant reboots, and price tags that add up fast. We’re two longtime superhero fans who got into comics the hard way, and we’re sharing the shortcuts that finally made reading fun instead of stressful.

We start with the real beginner problem: where do you even begin with characters like Batman or Spider-Man? We talk through starting points that actually work, why celebrated story arcs and collected editions beat hunting random back issues, and how trade paperbacks and graphic novels help you follow “main storylines” without getting trapped by crossovers. If you’ve ever felt like comics demand a second job and a second wallet, this is the reset.

Then we get practical about money and access: digital comics, major app sales, subscription services like Marvel Unlimited, and why your public library might be the most underrated comic shop in town. We also dig into the collecting side, from variant covers and foil editions to the joy of displaying single issues as affordable wall art, plus the reality check that comics usually aren’t a reliable investment.

We wrap with tips for finding a welcoming local comic book store, setting up a pull list, storing issues safely, and a quick PSA for parents about content and maturity levels. If you want a clear, budget-friendly way to start reading comics and stick with it, hit play, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave us a review. What series are you trying to break into right now?

Transcript

Welcome And Why Comics Overwhelm

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome back to the real one episode eleven. Of course, no one knows what we're talking about. But maybe someday you will. I'm welcome.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

And this is culture credence.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

So on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about uh how do you break into reading comic books, which can be really daunting, it can be really overwhelming to look at. You know, some of these characters have been around for over 80 years when you're talking characters like Superman or Batman or Wonder Woman.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

So big wheel.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Yeah, so there are thousands of issues of comics uh that these characters are in. And so it can be kind of like, well, where do I start? How do I afford this? How can I what are the key issues, you know, things like that. So on today's show, we're gonna talk about how you do that and how how you read main storylines and things like that without breaking the bank.

How We First Started Reading

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Yeah. Um, you know what? I I think we should start out with how we got into it and kind of kind of a good starting place and what we've learned from that.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Yeah. So for me, I grew up loving superheroes, watched everything superhero, uh, you know, uh played superhero games, all that kind of stuff, but I never read comics. And so it wasn't until I was in probably college and one of our friends started getting into comics and let me read the original Spider-Man comics were collected in these large black and white collected editions. And so I started I started reading those. Well, about that time I decided I had always Spider-Man had always been my favorite, and about this time Batman was becoming my favorite hero. And so Batman comics, I feel like more than just about anything else, are acclaimed for different storylines and things that are really popular. And so I decided, hey, I want to start reading Batman comics. So how do I do that? Which Batman, you know, you've got Batman and Detective Comics, you've got Batman's own run, you've got Batman and Robin, Batman and Superman, Justice League, you've got all these things that Batman is in throughout the decades that makes it really hard to know where to read, where to start. So what I did uh was uh at the time I I was looking for, you know, what are the main storylines that you need to read as a beginner for Batman comics? And there's there's a lot of uh articles and

Beginner Batman Stories That Hook

SPEAKER_03 3:00

stuff out there that you can find that will give some of these. So what I started with was I ordered uh Frank Miller's year one in a graphic novel or trade, however you want to refer to it, format. And I ordered the Long Halloween, uh, which is Jeff Loeb Tim Sale, also in a graphic novel format. I read year one and I remember being like, I like this. I don't know if I love it. I don't know if I'm gonna stick with comics uh right off of reading that, but when I read Long Halloween, I was totally hooked. And so from there, I initially was you know reading some other graphic novels, other trades of big storylines, for example. I really liked the Jeff Loeb Tim Sale thing. So I read Dark Victory, which was a sequel, uh, read some other ones of theirs. And then about that same time is when Rebirth was starting. So it worked out really well for me to get into right on the ground level of rebirth, uh, just starting at issue one, you know, and so I started reading Batman and Detective Comics there. But where I really probably read the most of my comics over the years has been in different digital formats. And so there's good and bad to that. Uh, you you don't have any tangible product, you don't have a cover you can display, you don't have anything that you could resell later that would be worth anything. There's no collecting you know aspect of it. However, with digital, you're able to quickly buy a larger number of comics for cheaper. And so one of the main things that I was using at the time, I actually had a job where I was just working a front desk and there was nothing to do the vast majority of the time. So they didn't care if I read as long as I was doing what I was supposed to do when something came up. So at the time there was an app called Comixology, which has now kind of been blended into Amazon and Kindle and all that stuff is changing all the time. But uh, so that's what I got into. And Comixology would regularly do sales on graphic novels and stuff on there. So instead of a graphic novel being 10, 15, 20, a lot of times they would be $5. And so I would just wait for those sales and just buy up a bunch of the main runs of comics. And which, you know, what you can do there is look for what are storylines that are key points, what are storylines where you get a large number of issues, what are, you know, the storylines and issues around those graphic novels that you want to read for main things. And so off of comicsology, I was reading things like uh No Man's Land, Nightfall. I read the Grant Morrison runs of Batman and Robin. I read the new 52 stuff on there. And so I was able to really quickly, within a very short amount of time, I had read uh, you know, pretty much all the main Batman comics from the last few decades just from reading digital comics. And I was able to do that relatively cheaply because I was reading them digitally.

Digital Comics And Big Sales

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Now, also at this time, this is something you and I both have done a lot of back in the day, was DC Universe, and all of that stuff has changed a lot, and we've talked a little bit about on this podcast before that neither one of us really does DC Universe anymore. But at the time, they were putting a lot of comics out there, especially older comics, and uh you would get entire runs of comics or entire graphic novels put on DC Universe. So if you had the subscription, which at the time was not very expensive at all, uh like five bucks.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

And then it went up to seven until like ten, and they started removing stuff.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

Yeah. And so you could read that, for example, is where I read a lot of things that weren't Batman. You know, Green Lantern or uh Batman Beyond stuff, or you know, things like that, I would read on DC Universe. Well, that's not really as much of an option anymore. Uh Marvel still has Marvel Unlimited if you're wanting to read Marvel comics. I've read virtually the entire run of the original Spider-Man comics off of Marvel Unlimited, which I also don't have anymore.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

It was always more expensive than DC Universe too. I never really subscribed to it. It was just too much for me to justify.

SPEAKER_03 8:09

So for me, that's that's kind of how I got into comics and got into reading a lot of these things and learning more about the characters was graphic novels and um digital. I I did buy some issues. I've got a comic series that are a couple of comic series that I'm reading now that I try to buy some of the issues. But my biggest piece of advice, and I say we would agree on this, is on if you were just trying to read comics and you're not really concerned with having something to display or you're not gonna try to resell it or whatever, it is much, much, much more cost effective to buy either a trade or digital than it is to try to get all the issues or something. You're you're gonna spend a fortune if you're gonna try to read a whole run of back issues that have already come out. If you want to buy the issues as they come out, you know, and it's every other week or it's every month or whatever, that's one thing. But if you've got a comic book series and you're saying, I want to read all this and it's got hundreds of issues, you can't that you can't really do that unless you are a millionaire with buying every single individual issue, and it's gonna be difficult to find all those because your local comic book stores won't have all that. So then, unless it's a you know, maybe you have a really good comic book store and it's a really popular recent run or something, but uh also if you if you want to do it that way, you're gonna end up buying things off eBay, buying things where you're paying for shipping and and people are overcharging you and things like that. So if you just want to read comics and you just want to learn about the characters and the storylines, I would definitely recommend trades and digital over trying to read single issues.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Yeah. I I'm kind of in a similar boat with you with how I started, except for um I think the earliest I I I was always into Spider-Man, then Batman, you know. But um I think around middle school, my mom took my sister and I to Free Comic Day at our local comic shop, and they had the um Archie run of Mega Man comics at at the time. So I picked up some of the free comics, and then I

Formats That Change The Budget

SPEAKER_02 10:30

picked up a few copies of uh this Mega Man comic, because I was really into the Mega Man games growing up. And um eventually I I would start going to Books A Million because Books A Million has a lot of trade paperbacks, and uh a thing that we should probably differentiate is the different formats of comics. So you have your typical like comic book, your just standard comic, you have your trade paperbacks and graphic novels, and those are pretty well the same thing. Uh sometimes they'll come in hardback form, and it's just a compilation of like five issues that make up a run um into one story for about like twenty dollars. Sometimes you can get it for less. Um, and then you have something like an omnibus that's like a whole collection of comics for an entire run, and it's usually a massive book that's pretty expensive.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

Um I have only bought one omnibus, and I actually did it recently. And you do, you get a lot of comics, you get a lot of artwork, so it's awkward and actually kind of painful to try to read that. Like I'd be like sitting in a chair or laying in my bed trying to read it, and it's like the thing weighs like 15 pounds, and you you know, like your wrists are starting to hurt and everything. So yeah, omnibuses are kind of cool, but they're expensive and hard to read.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

So But yeah, I I started going to uh to Books a Million, and I actually have these here with me right now. Um I started getting the Mega Man Archie uh trade paperbacks, and at the time they were 12 bucks um for one of these. Now they're like 20, 20 bucks for one. But you get a whole grouping of comics in one, and it usually has some extra art. It's in a better format that you can read them all at once. Um and usually Books A Million would do deals on stuff like this. You would, you know, have a section where there's some marked down 20 to 50% off, or like they do buy two, get one half off, buy two, get one free. Um so that that that was always a good way to get some. I I usually didn't buy anything like that because I I was really into video games, and unless there was something that I really wanted in book form, I usually didn't get it, you know? Um and then in high school, I didn't really get anything like that. Um there were a few Star Wars trade paperbacks that I got from like a I don't know, like a book fair or something here and there. Um but then college came around, and that's where I really

Subscription Apps And Reading Paths

SPEAKER_02 13:10

got into it. Um DC Universe came out and they made it really easy to get into comics. Like it was five dollars a month, they had all the rebirth comics, anything new coming out day and date, you could get it. And they had different um I don't know, like paths that you could read. So it's like you'll be reading the story, and it's like, oh hey, there's a spin-off in this one or a crossover, you should read this, and it'll tell you to read that. And it made it a lot easier. So um I started reading all that, started reading a lot of the old stuff, Jeff John's run of Green Lantern. Um Reddit is a great resource, I know it's goofy, but the people there um that don't shower or sleep um know what they're talking about with comics. So if you need information on like what you should read in what order, usually that's a pretty good place to go. Or just any Wikipedia will tell you. Um so that was great. And then I remember they had challenges on the DC Universe app. Like you would um read a certain amount or do this and do this, and you get reward points that you could use for like real life stuff like a t-shirt or a statue or something. And they quickly phased that out. But I was like really reading a lot of comics so I could get that stuff. And um I'd say around middle of college or so, um, I was working an IT desk job, kind of similar to what you were doing, and they if I didn't get a phone call or have something going on, I would just be reading comic books. And um I around that time I also got into manga, which is just Japanese comics. And those were about eight bucks a pop at Books a Million, but they would run promotions where you would get so many and you would get a certain discount or so May free. And that was also a pretty good way to get into that.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Um and then I guess now I'm buying single issues of comics like a maniac, so there's yeah, we are I had I had quit buying comics in the last few months, few weeks or whatever. I've started not only have I started buying comics again, but now I'm buying single issue comics again.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

And it's like and and remind you comics were like what 250 or 3 bucks when we were buying them originally, and now they're five bucks a pop for a single issue.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

I remember okay when Rebirth first started, they made a big deal out of they were reducing the price, which they did temporarily, down to $299. Well, then that quickly went back up to like $3.99 or whatever. But yeah, now comics are like five bucks, and especially if you're getting a back issue, it might be anywhere from two to ten dollars. And so, I mean, they can rack up really

Crossovers And Event Fatigue

SPEAKER_03 16:10

quickly, which is another you said about the crossovers. This is something I I want to touch on. Part of what's so overwhelming about comics and so expensive is there's so many crossovers and uh big events, and you know, to read this whole storyline, you've got to get into another series or whatever. Well, one of the really good things about trades and graphic novels and stuff is it gives you all the essential issues for that. You don't have to go hunt down single issues of a series. Like, like, for example, if you're reading, you know, Hush or something, Batman, you don't have to go worry about, oh, there's gonna be something in Nightwing or there's gonna be something in Justice League that I didn't read, you know. And that's something that I've always found. It's a it's a sales gimmick, and I've always found it really frustrating about comics is I don't want to read 15 different series. Yeah. I want to read this series that I'm paying to read.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

And lately I've noticed it hasn't been too much of an issue. DC's really rolled back on that. The only time that I've seen it come up lately is around issue like 18, maybe 16 of um absolute Batman. There was a crossover with Wonder Woman, but it wasn't really necessary to read Wonder Woman to get the information from that. And I think a lot of times that's how it is.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

You don't really need the crossover, yeah. Or like big crossover events, in my opinion. I'm thinking of like the different crisis events and days. Are not good like compared to other comics and comic runs, they're not near as good. And so a lot of times it's like, let's just skip that.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

But there was a big one during Rebirth, they did the the Dark Knights metal. And I at first I don't like the Batman Who Laughs, but I liked a lot of the interesting stories they had, and and towards the end they started branching off into these like like Justice League, what was it, space or something like that? Where they went beyond the source wall, and I was like, I don't really want to read this.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

It got super weird, and there were times where there was more than one Justice League.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

And they tried to mix it in with the actual, like the Dark Knight's Death Metal at first was supposed to be its own standalone, kind of like how absolute Batman is, but then it became like this is a multiverse of the actual. And they really wanted to because it was popular at the time, they really wanted to push into that being part of the mainstream. And so it led to a lot of splintered crossovers that weren't really necessary, I guess. Um at the time that was pretty bad. Um I I think for someone getting into it, I still think DC Universe or something of the sort is a great way to do so. You have DC Universe, Marvel Now, if you like like Japanese manga, Viz Media is their app, and it's theirs is only like three or four dollars a month. As opposed to the uh I I don't even know how much DC Universe is now, but it was like eight dollars or something when I was last subscribed to it. I was like, I don't think this is worth it, because at first you had every like DC cartoon movie, live action movie, TV show, they were putting new stuff like the Titan show on there, brand new comics, and then they moved all of the TV media up to HBO Max, so you lost all that, then they raised the price, and then you lost more stuff and they raised the price, and it was it was it became a total rip-off. Yeah. Kind of kind of changed.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

It turned out like really worth it big time, and then it became just

Cheap Finds Dollar Bins Libraries

SPEAKER_03 20:10

okay, why am I why am I paying for this?

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Yeah. And another thing that I did when I was younger, the dollar bins at comic shops, if you just want to like read a comic, there's plenty of just good enough comics there, or like at thrift stores, like we have a local I don't know what you'd call it, like a thrift mall with different booths. And I I would go there and if there's a comic that has a cover that catches my eye, I'd look at it. Like X-Men. I uh when I was growing up, I didn't really watch the X-Men cartoon. I mostly watched like Spider-Man Batman animated series, Batman Beyond, but um the comic covers and the art in the X-Men comics are so vibrant and really nice to look at that I would just get some to put on my wall. Um, and like little frames from Walmart. Um and I I don't know, like that that's a great way to get into something. Like right now I'm really into the new X-Men X-Men run, and it's mostly because at some point I started looking in boxes of comics and saw some that looked interesting to me.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

And that's something like I don't really do this. I typically it's like have one specific thing like I want to read, but yeah, at some of these shops like you were saying, or uh antique stores even or something like that, they will have there are a lot of comics. They might not be what you are looking for, but they have a lot of comics of DC and Marvel. And uh I see a lot of stuff from the 90s, early 2000s when I go to places like that. So if you were like, hey, I want to read old comics but not super old, those are places that they're a lot of ugly looking comics. Yeah, there's a exactly, which is probably why they're there and not worth much because nobody

SPEAKER_02 22:00

There was a long time where comics just did not look attractive at all.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

No.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Um Yeah.

unknown 22:08

No.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

I I like new stuff. But I do like the stories from old stuff.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Um Yeah. Yeah, I d well, like for example, okay, so generally speaking, as much as I like Batman, as much as I like the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoon, I like the Justice League as it is. I haven't really liked a lot of the Justice League comics I've read, but the best Justice League comics to me are uh the run that started in the late 90s and went into the 2000s that the Justice League series is based off of. Uh this is where Tower of Babel comes in.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Like the Justice Society America stuff, or was that after that?

SPEAKER_03 22:55

No, this is different. This is where this is like the run where their initial part of it is the White Martians, and then um this is where Batman's contingency plans get used to neutralize the Justice League, yeah. And so, which is done differently in the comic than it was in the movie adaptation of this, but so that run is to me probably the best of the Justice League comics that I've read. However, the art style is not very appealing, in my opinion. And it it's that 90s, you know, yeah, really grainy looking, you know, not a lot of color. It it's just comics, comics right now, in my opinion, and in the last 10 years, look really good.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

They look they're the best they have ever looked.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

Look exactly. They look as the best they have ever looked, the covers are the best they have ever been, and it's just is the writing what it was or not, you know, is the question. And is the expense?

SPEAKER_02 24:07

It's people that grew up with the original comics and also grew up with all this like outside influence from different media around the world and different art styles and different m movies and different TV shows. And um, you get a lot of a lot of neat stuff now. Um also my voice is just falling apart right now. I'm still a little hoarse from being to say. Yeah, I'm I'm fighting the plague right now. Um a good way to look at uh if you think that you might like a book and you have a public library, when I was in high school, that was like my way to read comics. Is they had just trade paperback after trade paperback. I read all of Batman Eternal and Injustice from our public library. So you may or may not have comics at your library, but it's more likely that you do than you don't, you know? Same with manga. Like I I remember there were some like different manga that I I wasn't interested in any of that, and then I I read a few um volumes from a local library, and uh I was like, oh, this is cool. And now I have like tons of trade paperbacks and tons of manga. So and there's um right now DC is doing something pretty interesting, and Marvel has their own version of it that's more expensive with slimmer issues for some reason. But uh they're calling them was it DC Compact Editions? And they're 10 bucks a pop, and it's an entire storyline for whatever character. So it would be like Batman Dark Knight Returns, or I I don't know. Um it's another one that they've done. There's like dozens of them, but I was like, oh, that's the only one that comes to mind. Um Long Halloween, stuff like that, court of owls, and it's only every single one of them is ten bucks, but it's the entire story in like a small, like manga-sized book. So I feel like the value proposition propositions there, and if you're just trying to see what a story's about, it's not a big investment, you know?

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Especially considering an a single issue of a comic as five bucks right now.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Yeah. So yeah, and I mean, I don't know how it's fixed. I don't I don't want to get into like trying to solve that as a problem, but yeah, it's expensive to buy single issue comics. And you know, I I don't know how you how that ever gets fixed because you gotta pay the people who do it and all that stuff, but and the way the economy is or whatever, but like it's gonna be hard, I would think, to get people right now to keep buying single-issue common books.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

I'm actually surprised how fast they seem to fly off the shelf at local shops right now. Yeah, yeah, I'm like

Collecting Covers For Wall Art

SPEAKER_02 27:10

it's it's hard to keep them in stock for some of the issues.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

I think some of it is if you're just really invested or motivated into a run and you like collecting com so this is something I've run into recently that this was not part really part of it for me before. It was all about just reading before to me. But now the series that I've been reading, one, they have a lot of cool covers, and I'm trying to read the whole thing, but also I'm starting to get the appeal of the oh, I have an entire run. You know, I have five, ten, fifteen issues in a row, and you're there's like a I don't know, it's some kind of collecting thing that you're like trading. This is really cool, and so you want to buy them, and I'm sure that impulse for a lot of people is very strong, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:04

And you know, like going to like a half price books and getting a trade paperback's cool, and it's nice to be able to read it. But I almost feel more joy from being able to like look at the individual covers like pieces of art, you know. Like I really like collecting art, kind of like it's trading cards. So I I have that, I can read it, but I can also hang it on my wall if I want to, or I can look at all the different issues I have and be like, oh, that looks cool. Sometimes some issues line up and make a mural, things like that.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

And we'll go over variants later, but well, and if you look at it from that viewpoint, because that's in a way, that's probably like the best thing about comics is the is the covers and the display and enjoying what it looks like and everything. But that is if you look at it from an art perspective of I want to display this on my wall or whatever, then they don't look near as expensive. Because if you try to buy a poster or a some kind of wall art or something, they're way more expensive than the comics.

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Well, you're also the comic is a lot smaller, to be fair.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

Yeah, yeah, that's true. But like if you just buy a two to five dollar comic and you don't go crazy with the frame or whatever, and you just sit it on a shelf or you put it on something plastic or an inexpensive frame, then you're getting really cool art for a lot less money than you would have gotten probably something less cool that you bought at a store or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

You know, you can vouch for this. That's how I decorated my apartment in college. I went to Walmart and got the five dollar pack of like five frames, and then I went to that flea market mall place, got a bunch of cool X-Men comics that lined up with a certain color scheme or like made a gradient, and then I I put them across my wall, and uh it looks really cool. It's a good like conversation piece, it gets you into stuff. Like I I found a lot of really cool comic covers doing that, like all new Wolverine, um, X-Men 92, um a lot of a lot of Spider-Man stuff. And then that's how I discovered some of the variant covers too. Like um when when I when I was younger and getting comics, I it would just be like a single issue here and there. So it's kind of similar to that. It wouldn't be very targeted. Um but as you start to like gain a taste for like different art styles and different ways that they present some of these comics, you're like, oh, that might be something I want to get into. And that's kind of how I've I've looked at it um as I started collecting recently. So like recently, again, I've been collecting like X-Men, or like if I see something that catches my eye, IDW's doing this really cool looking uh Godzilla series and Starship Godzilla.

SPEAKER_04 31:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

And I saw that on a shelf and I was like, ooh, I like that art style. So I got the first issue. And you

Picking A Comic Shop You Trust

SPEAKER_02 31:10

know, you can go to the comic shop and it's daunting. I I never like went into a comic shop alone or like bought a comic that I uh was interested in buying a whole run for or something until like a year ago. And I was like, hey, how do I how does this work? How do you like subscribe to these and stuff? So you can you can actually like set up an account at like most of your local comic shops and they'll let you basically get a recurring um series or something, and they'll give you a discount most of the time. And that's that's a pretty good way if you're collecting single issues to go about it. Um depending on what comic shop it is, they'll give you a pretty significant discount for it too. Um but yeah, our local comic shop, I have a lot, a lot of uh different series going. You might want to keep a list though if you start getting into a lot of them, just to make sure they don't miss them, because they they may.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

Yeah. You gotta make sure you're getting everything.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Not not a jab.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

And that's something like it makes a difference what your local comic book shop is like.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

And we've been we've both lived in different places, we've been to several different comic book stores in different places. Not all comic book stores are the same, and and there's a lot to that, but primarily what I'm talking about is not all the comic book stores you're gonna go into are very friendly and inviting.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

And you there's a lot of times that I've been in a comic book store, especially when I was younger and didn't know much about it, that like you said, it's intimidating. It's kind of weird.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

You're they're playing card games and staring at you, pack up and run.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

Like they don't want you to be there. Like, and so when you're in a comic book store like that, or they've got super weirdo stuff everywhere or whatever, it's just like or it's dirty, you know. I don't want to be there. Right. But something that's been big for us, I feel like, in comic book collecting, is a few years ago, this comic book store you're referring to kind of presented a different experience.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

And by and large, I mean, I can't vouch for everybody that's worked there in years or whatever, but uh it's a lot different experience and a lot more friendly and a lot more helpful.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

It's very open and clean, and they have a variety of things very well sorted out.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

Yes, well sorted, that's another thing. And and they give you a discount. Their comics are less expensive than a lot of the other shops. Much less expensive.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

And they bag and board them all. You'll go to a lot of places and they won't even bag and board them, which is like the plastic sleeve that you see on a comic with the the back cardboard on it.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

For example, we we went to a comic book store together recently and a couple, and I got comics at this store, not necessarily the same issue or whatever, but I got comics that were in the same run for like $2 at the store, the main store we go to. I can get them at another store for five dollars. It's it's substantial.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

And it and it's back issues. Like some most of the time, if you go to a store, you the the standard price of a back issue, a recent back issue, is like four dollars, I would say, bag and board on it, right? But you know, this other local shop that we have that isn't so good. I didn't they want like $5.50 or $6 for some of these back issues. Yeah. And then for some of the current issues, they wanted $5 without bag and board where you could go to the other shop, you know, right across town, get it for the same price with bag and board, and it's in perfect condition.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

And I mean, so there there's good and bad things about every comic book store, but I feel like it's definitely changed our view of comics and comic book reading and getting single-issue comics because we have a really good comic book store that we like the people and we like the store.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

And it feels a lot less snobby than it did before. Like I didn't want any part of it because of how uncool they acted at the other place, you know.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

There are too many comic book stores I've been in in too many places that you walk in and it is like they do not want you to be in there.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Right.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

And that is I don't that's no way to do a business. I know that. But like, for example, we were at free comic book day. There was a line outside our primary comic book store. So cool. The guy who owns it came through, talked to every single person, high five, shook their hand, remembered people, said nice things to everybody, was very appreciative and everything.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

He brought pizza and donuts. You could get one of every free comic that you wanted. They had posters printed out for free. They had discounts on every item, including games and even even like um like expensive like key issues and stuff in store. Uh significant discounts, even like 15-20%, sometimes even more. And that that was great. Then you go over to the other comic shop and you could get three free comics total. They didn't have any kind of thing going on. Everyone you still had to buy your bag and board for stuff. Uh most of the discounts were like 5% or something. I don't know. It's just not as uh you can definitely tell the difference when they actually like care about what they're doing. It it it was actually for free comic day at the other place. I couldn't even find the free comics, like it was hard to find them. Um, but this other one, well sorted, they had a system going. Everyone was really friendly, very welcoming. Huh.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

Yeah, it makes it there's a lot of comic book stores that are dimly lit, tight, dingy, not well sorted. Smell like a psych. Yeah, and then there's comic book places like the one that we like, brightly lit, open, well organized, you know, that's a totally different experience.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

So, you know, obviously it's a no-brainer for us where we we like to go. Right. And so, you know, you might be able to get some good comics at other places, and I'm not trying to knock all we're not even using any names, but like everybody's been in a comic book store that didn't match this description. I'm not saying don't ever buy a comic book there, but it sure makes the experience better.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

There's there's been times where I've walked in there, had a stack of comic books, and then someone has like done something off-putting. I'm like, oh, I'll just put them all back and go. Because it's it's like I like I'm okay

Buying Online And Ordering Variants

SPEAKER_02 38:10

just doing my business somewhere else if it's more expensive at the place. Yeah. Even for the convenience. Like I can go online. Another great resource, by the way, is that you know that shop app it has like a bunch of like local businesses and stuff. Um usually if you go on there, most of those businesses have like a certain threshold where if you spend like $25, you get like free shipping or a certain percent off, like 20% sometimes. Great deals. That's where I've gotten a lot of back issues. Um, or even from publishers like Uden that does the current Mega Man run and a bunch of Street Fighter stuff, you can purchase directly from them and pick your variant, and after a certain threshold, it's free shipping. Same with uh Mad Cave that does the current speed racer run. They have free shipping after $25 and you get to pick your variant.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

So and that's to me just a total game changer.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Yeah, like it's weird that with DC and Marvel you can't do that. It's very hard to get their comics. You have to go through a secondhand source. It's kind of like 3D modeling software. You can't purchase 3D modeling software directly from the creators of the software. You have to go through these weird secondhand stores. And that's kind of how comics are for some reason. Um, don't really know why, but I I guess it's guess it's lucrative for them.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

Like, it'd be really nice if you had more control over your variants.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Like I mean, I'm just glad that most of them don't do the like mystery bag thing. Yeah. But yeah, it's still just like that's another thing. If you if you get things from a local comic shop, you can be like, hey, could I just get every variant that isn't an expensive one? Because most of the variants are the standard price. If you order them from the comic shop, if you order them online, they're gonna be more. Like if you get the A, B, C, some of them start getting into different costs for the different variant covers. And variants are just a different art on the cover. It's the same comic, but some comics have like a one in fifty variant that goes to a shop or something like that, and those could be more expensive. But if you tell them, hey, can I just get every variant of this? Like I'm doing that with the Mega Man ones, because like some of them make a mirror or some of them look cool, and I really like Mega Man. Um it's it's a better way to do it because you don't have to pay the second hand prices for it. But if you just want to read the comic, again, just like a trade paperback or like online subscription is great. Um, I feel like that's been a game changer. And even for like the manga stuff that I was talking about, those are like originally like shown and jump. So they'll they'll have like a weekly magazine that has all the different like up-to-date ones in Japan. But then when they come to America months later, you get like five issues in a single like volume of the manga. And those are like eight to ten dollars, sometimes twelve bucks. But if you get the Viz Media app, or if you do like DC Universe kind of thing, you can read them as they're coming out for like a lot less. And then you just don't have a stack of books taking up space. But if you like that, you can go to places like you know, Target has them for 20% off, or like Books A Million has deals going on sometimes, or half price books is a great place to go to get trade paperbacks in Bonka.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

So that's that's what I think.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

Yeah, I agree. Like reading comics and you're just trying to read it, you know, definitely trades graphic novels collected editions rather than single issues. The single issues is more for you're reading an ongoing series or you And you still want to have some tangible media, like the physical media collectors, you know. You really, you know, you want to display it or something because you really like the art or you know, and so for me, I've I've been doing something I have never really ever done. I've in the past, I've pretty well always been like, no, I'm not buying multiple covers of one comic. That's insane, you know. And now I'm like, especially stuff that like um it's uh it either they're adjoining comics, or like you said, they make a mural or one thing.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

It's just like really cool art. If there's something that's eye-catching, it's like, whoa.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

Yeah. Or like you have a series of variant covers in a run that go together, you know, stuff like that. I so I've been buying lots of stuff like that because I like the covers and I want to put them on my wall or or on a shelf or whatever I want to do with them.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

And so, yeah, I mean I've even gotten to where some of the artists, like Peach Momaco, is my favorite comic book cover artist. I if I see a Peach Momaco art, I'm like, I don't really even care what's in the book. Like, I really like the art on the outside of that.

SPEAKER_03 43:17

Yeah. And I mean, really, there's a huge element of comics that's the writing in the story, and I I'm not trying to take away from that, but comics in a lot of ways is about the visual art aspect of it. That's that's why it's a a comic and not a novel, you know. And so if you like the art on something and that's what sticks out to you, I mean, why not get that rather than you know, people decorate their houses with lots of different things. People collect lots of different things, why not display or uh collect comic book art? Art that you like, you know. Yeah. And if you find a series that has art and in each series, you'll have art styles will change, you know, it every single issue for the whole run isn't usually the exact same art style or the exact same illustrators and everything, but uh a lot of times they keep a pretty consistent theme or or go back to that. And so if you find a series that's got art you like, you know, there you go. But I mean that's a big part of it. What does it look like?

SPEAKER_02 44:32

I mean There's uh there's one series recently. Um like at local comic shops, I'll sometimes go through the bargain bin or like some back issues and see if there's like I don't know, like a third-party one, like uh like a boom comics or an IDW that I I think looks interesting. If it looks interesting, I'll pick it up and see if it's good. And if it's good, I'll get more copies of it. Like um a recent one was iHeart Skull Crusher. I saw an issue of it at one of our local shops, and it had a had a really, really vibrant, cool cover to it. And then I looked inside and I was like, oh, this art style is really neat. Um and so I was like, well, let me see how many issues there are. Let me see where I can find it. And that's uh that's a great way to find some comics.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

And there's something to really be said for in this type of thing of hey, you went in your comic book store and you found some a cover or a part of a run or a series of covers or whatever that you've been wanting and you snagged it. And I mean, that's a cool feeling to be like, oh, look, look what I found, you know, at the comic book store.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

And yeah, like one time I saw that that Gundam Wing comic from like a free comic day. I was like, whoa, that's sick. Oh, yeah. And I didn't get it at first because it it was a little expensive, but then on free comic day they had it on sale because it was uh it was from a f previous free comic day a long time ago. But they they just so happened to have it, so I was like, I'll just I'll pick that up while I'm here now.

SPEAKER_03 46:05

Good find. Yeah, and free comic book day is huge because like depending on the store, but they'll do a lot of sales like the comic book store we really like did huge sales. Yeah, and so it's like if you're gonna buy a bunch of comics, that's the day to do it. Yeah, it's gonna be busy and there's gonna be people in there, but you know, it's a really good time to go.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Yeah, and see what else they have too. Like our local comic shop. I've I've found so many video games and stuff too. Like I got a copy of like Metal Gear Solid for below market price, complete inbox, or like uh uh crossbones Gundam Verka. Um You got like that Game Boy Oh yeah, I got a Game Boy printer for something. It's like I mean it's like crazy find. And they just brought it up casually. Like if you go in there enough, they get to know you and they're like, hey, would you be interested in this? Hey, does uh this we found this, this is pretty cool. You thought you might like it. And uh they might even set things aside for you if you ask.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

So uh Yeah, and that's an advantage of going to a comic book store consistently, is they might learn, you know, what you like and tell you, hey, there's a there's a good series out or coming up or whatever. And so, you know, that can be an advantage to having a local comic book store that you go to and getting to know the people.

SPEAKER_02 47:33

Dude, I was at I was at ours uh one week and someone was like filming a video and they were like, uh, would Daredevil beat this person in a fight? And I said, I said, only if he's in a hallway.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Oh man. Well, yeah, his abilities go up dramatically in a hallway.

Storage Boxes Bags Boards Frames

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Oh, also storage. Um you might you know though they have boxes that they put them in, the like really long white boxes. You can actually buy them from the store, you can buy bags and boards. Some places if they don't give you a bag and board with your comic, you can buy it separately. Um and then those art boxes, they're they're like shorter boxes, they're usually under the tables or on display up on a shelf. Those are usually for sale too. And I've gotten several of them at a discount from the store because they're kind of trying to get rid of them. They get them with the comics, and um they kinda gotta get rid of them before they get more.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

Yeah, your boxes are really cool.

SPEAKER_02 48:32

If you buy enough, sometimes they will just give you one. Like I I reg I I won't say regretfully, I was wanting to get them, but I went to this place out of town that I've shopped with online several times before. That's been great. They're always really organized. Everything they have, every issue is on their website too. And they had restocked all of the back issues of Absolute Wonder Woman and all the back issues that I didn't have of the new X-Men comic. So I just bought them all while I was there because I was like, when am I gonna find all of these in person or on a store together, right? Because I don't really like getting duplicates either. That's always really lame. Sometimes you'll buy things on eBay and if you already have a few, you have to decide whether you want to get something at a shop and risk not finding it all or getting a duplicate later. So keep that in mind if you're getting individual issues, but yeah, sometimes if you get a lot of them, they'll throw in something on top of a discount. So that's always nice. Also, don't force yourself to read something if the art style is really bad. Or if it is really bad, kind of uh I don't know. Give it a try still, but don't force yourself to do it. Because there's there's some things like I I hate the way the long Halloween looks, but it it's a great story, you know?

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Yeah. Yeah, I mean some of them it's not worth like when you're really into a series, you might be like, oh, I've got to read this so that I know what happens. It's like, hey, guess what? Uh your character is going to eventually eventually it's all gonna come back to equilibrium in comics. And that's you know, like the old stick of nobody stays dead except Uncle Ben, you know, it's just like I mean they're bringing him back, okay?

SPEAKER_02 50:28

Like, and so don't panic if you unless unless you're reading a manga, then it's going to be the same the whole time and it just ends. But comics, like, that's another thing I look for. If I'm in a comic shop, I'm like, oh, is there an issue number one of something that I can look out for? Um, and if there's a issue number one, I'll pick it up and I'm like, oh, this might look cool. So I grab it, read it. If I like it, I subscribe to it the next time I'm in the shop because it's usually a like a month between issues. Um I don't know. Like I feel like that's a great way to do it. Like there's a new Daredevil run out right now. Usually if there's less than like three comics in a run, that's a good time to get into it. Otherwise, it's kinda daunting, you know. Like I got into the X-Men comic a little too late that's coming out right now. I think it was like issue 15 or so. I I saw some covers and I was like, wow, these are cool, and I started picking them up, and I was like, I actually want to go back and get more of them. And then it was almost impossible to find them until I found the restock at that one shop.

SPEAKER_03 51:34

So Yeah, like for me, what I've been into, this is the most I've been into a comic book series in I don't know how long, if not ever. Um so Boom is coming out with the the new Mighty Morphic Power Rangers series this summer. It's starting. So when I heard that, I was like, oh hey, that would be a good time for me to get into it. And and I don't really remember the context of exactly how I even started reading, other than that. But so I started reading the the run that started in the 20 about 2016 range and went into the 2020s, I think. Um, or it might actually, I think it started in the early 2020s, like 2020, 2021, sorry. But they did GoGo Power Rangers and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and then that split into some things and came back, and I won't get into all that. But yeah, I mean, I've been trying to read, I've been trying to read the whole series before the new series starts, and I only had a few months to do it, and I don't know if I'm gonna make it because I've got a lot going on, which then I'm just gonna have the new issues and leave them sitting there and not read them. But yeah, trying to read an entire comic book series, you know, after it's firmly established is hard to do. Yeah. Because there's a lot of issues and crossovers and branch off and all this kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 53:07

And that's another hard part about the individual issues. I feel like it's more daunting to read more of those at a time than it is to just go through a book because you'll be reading through a graphic novel and it's like, oh, I read through 10 issues here, whereas you're individually pulling out the issues from your bagging board and putting

The Stress Of Reading Single Issues

SPEAKER_02 53:25

them back and trying not to bend them and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 53:28

Okay, I I I'll tell the story I told you. This happened to me last night. Okay, so I if you know anything about Power Rangers comics, you probably don't because I don't think a lot of people read it and we don't have a lot of listeners.

SPEAKER_02 53:41

But so they're all Power Ranger comic fans in running all yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

So there is a uh version of the Pink Ranger in this comic book run that pops up periodically from a different universe who is referred to as the Ranger Slayer. Well, she's become pretty popular mainly because the cost the suit is awesome. But um, so I was reading there after she's been in the comics a few times, she gets her own one-shot. She had it's called Road to Ranger Slayer and then Ranger Slayer one. Okay, so I have a really, really cool foil variant of Ranger Slayer with her on it. And I was reading it last night because I hadn't read it yet. And when I was putting it back in the bag and board, I hit the corner of it, like on the board or whatever, and folded the corner of the cover up a little bit. And I'm sure most people would be like, oh, it's minor, it doesn't matter. But I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Like, I can't believe I did this. And so it's like when you're buying the single issues, you literally have to think about things like that. Like if you're wanting to display it or if you think it's gonna be valuable one day or whatever, you're like, getting this in and out of the bag and reading it with my grubby little hands, you know, could could mess up this comic book. Whereas if it's a trade, you know, you don't care, you don't care if the covers creased and you bought it used or whatever, you know, it doesn't matter. You're just reading it. But yeah, so there's definitely a pressure to single

Value Myths Facsimiles And FOMO

SPEAKER_03 55:30

issues.

SPEAKER_02 55:31

In my sincerest opinion, do not do not do not buy something because you think it's going to be valuable.

unknown 55:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

I feel like people are in this random like rat race for no reason because there's 50 million variants, and they're like, oh, if I get all of them, I'll get the ones that look cool to you. Don't get the ones that don't look cool to you. Um, just read it. Yeah, like best case scenario, like one of them's gonna be like 25 bucks or something. Like it's it's not like it used to be where it's like, oh, we printed these in a warehouse behind this guy's house in New York and we made five of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

Like it's they're mass-produced. Right. And you have to you have to sell them if you're gonna sell them, you have to ship them, you have to find somebody who's willing to pay what you'll pay for the or what uh you know they're supposedly worth. What condition are they in? Are you gonna pay to get the thing graded? Because that's uh, you know, a major expense, and then that usually takes out any value of the comic book as if you decided to get it graded. And so, yeah, I'm totally like you just get what you want because it's not gonna be worth it. I told I was talking to you off the show, like I was going back and looking at my rebirth comics because I'm gonna be doing a move and I wasn't sure if I wanted to get rid of them or what I want to do. And so I started looking through them and trying to figure out, which is kind of hard to do, if any of them were worth anything. And generally speaking, no. I mean, the vast majority of them are gonna be worth probably less than what I paid for them, even if I got like a variant cover or something. And so it's just like if you were getting into this hoping this was a solid investment, let me spoiler alert, comics is not a good investment.

SPEAKER_02 57:30

Like you'll go to a thrift store and see boxes and boxes and boxes of these comics. Because that that that's essentially what these other people have done. They've gotten all these comics and they can't offload them to people. Like it's yeah. So you either get them and you like them, or you get rid of them. I I don't know, like it's it's just not worth it to try to like scope out the value of them. No. Unless you're collecting the really old, very specific issues and you're already paying an enormous amount for them. They also for those, there's another type of vari, there's many types of variants, but one type of variant is a Fax Simile variant where they just recreate an old cover. Like I got an X-Men Shattershot cover for like five bucks because they just reprinted it recently. They've reprinted some like key Batman issues or key Spider-Man issues, like that they're constantly doing that. So you can have what looks to be that comic in good condition, but you don't have to pay a billion dollars for it.

SPEAKER_03 58:35

Yeah. And also, if you're new into comics, don't get fooled by that. You do not have an Amazing Fantasy XV in your hand for you know, Spider-Man. You have a facsimile.

SPEAKER_02 58:48

And it'll it'll say the copyright date on it, also, if you're still wondering.

SPEAKER_03 58:53

That those covers, those comics are not just out there floating around. You know, you're you're probably gonna know if you you happen to stumble upon one of those in a somebody's storage unit you bought or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 59:08

But yeah, also don't be tricked into getting the Artless variants where it just has the logo of the comic on it, and no print on the front. It's all white. That is not rare. They just do it so artists can draw on them.

SPEAKER_04 59:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

Um foil variants shouldn't be as expensive as as they are. The um the virgin variants that are the same comic but without the logo, for some reason, usually five to ten times more cost, not worth it. Just get the normal one.

SPEAKER_03 59:37

I love foil variants, and it's like I know that they're not gonna be worth anything, and I know that they're probably more expensive, but if they look dope, I'm gonna get it.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

Yeah, just get ones that look cool to you. Like it's it's all about personal preference, and I I think that people take it too seriously.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

Oh yeah, it's for fun. Like that's the whole point of this, is you enjoy it, you like the way they look, you like the stories. W it's a hobby, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:08

Don't problem is people our age making everything into a business that doesn't need to be Pokemon cards, Legos, toys, like things that should be affordable to kids and their families. Like if if this is something that you enjoy, do it within your means. Don't by uh by any means don't go out of your means to do this, you know. But yeah, it's just yeah, it's weird. It's just it's really weird how people turned it into this thing that it probably shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:40

I mean, yeah, it you're just you're just not going to get what you think you can get for a comic. Like, for example, I stumbled upon an issue, uh a cover of an issue that I wanted that looked really cool or whatever, and found in a lot of places it was worth a fair amount of money. For example, there was an online comic book store that I've bought stuff from before. They had the comic for $125. I looked at another online comic book store that I've used a lot of times. They had it for like $60. And at the time they were doing some big sales, so it was like $40 or whatever. So anyway, where I'm finding the comic, it's it's a lot more expensive than the average comic that I would be buying. And so I was like, well, I'm not paid, you know, all that for that, you know. And so then one day I was on eBay and somebody was selling it and some other issues, a few other issues that were also covers that I wanted but weren't really worth anything. They were selling it for like 30 bucks. And so, hey, I paid the guy like 30 bucks and I got all four covers, and I got the cover that's supposedly, you know, worth money for not that much because that's what somebody was gonna pay for it. Right. Somebody wasn't gonna pay $125 for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:00

Yeah, and like if you go on eBay, you can look at sold prices for things. Yeah, people will be very different than what manipulate the market a lot, but you'll see most of the actual purchased ones are not going to be at that high price. And a lot of people, if you actually put in an offer, most of these combies are just sitting on eBay for a really long time. Or if you put them on your watch list, they'll give you an offer and you can counter offer for lower if you feel like you can get something. Um, or if you even message them, talk to them. But yeah, like I'd say main thing is if you don't want to spend a lot, subscription service or compact editions. If you want to spend a little bit more, maybe get a trade paperback from like a discount at Books a Million, Barnes and Noble half price books. If you want to spend a lot, you can go for your individual issues, omnibus for the entire series. Um and if you want to spend a whole lot, get a bunch of variants. But you know, there's there's really just a wide array of things that you can do and good places to go. You have your DC Universe, your Marvel Now, your Viz Media, you can go to your local bookstores, you can go to your local comic shops, subscribe to things, you can call them and ask to if they have something, they might have it in the system. You can go on the shop app, they have all kinds of deals where you can like if there's a variant that you like that's like you were saying, really expensive, but they have one of those like spend fifty dollars, get twenty dollars off thresholds, you can get a variant pretty cheap if you're you're looking for a crazy expensive one for some reason. Or you can go to eBay and then you have all these other options. So you you really have all kinds of things going on. And if you want a place to store your comics, you got frames from Walmart, frames from Books A Million has comic frames for five bucks that you can get um online or in store. Um you can go to your local comic shop, they'll have boxes, the art boxes, bag and board. You can get them on Amazon. Um, some of the frames you can look for UV protected frames so that your comics don't get sun bleached. Um I have one for this Scott Pilgrim comic from uh there's like a Canadian comic convention, and they had this Scott Pilgrim odds and ends comic that's like a bunch of stuff that didn't make it in the graphic novel series. And it's really hard to get a copy of this. Like it's I I don't know how many of them exist, but I found one when I went to buy it several years ago, and I haven't seen one since. And um, so I was like, I I gotta get something really nice to protect this with, and there's there's definitely options. So that's that's my takeaway for all this.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:59

They

Sun Fade And Display Reality

SPEAKER_03 1:05:00

don't have to be super expensive. And I wanted to ask you, I've actually just personally been wanting to talk to you about this a little bit. So I personally, not that I've had that many that I've displayed. Uh I've never had a comic get faded in the sun.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:20

Now I've also It's not normal to have that happen unless it's like directly in the sun.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:25

Yeah, I can't remember ever having it like in the sun before. But if you're reading online about like displaying your comics, you would think that this is something that happens like every day and people's comics are just getting ruined all the time. And so I was gonna ask you, have have you ever had an issue with a comic getting sunbleached, faded, or whatever?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:48

No, as you know, I usually live in complete darkness. Um yeah, Lego Legos also have this issue. Like white Legos will get sunbleached. I've seen someone's Wii get sunbleached before. I I've seen a Super Nintendo get sunbleach. You just can't have it too close to the window. If it's like adjacent to the window, it's fine. But like usually I I don't think you would have it like close enough. Usually it has to be like right in the windowsill or like two to three feet in front of it, like direct light, you know. Um if it's near an actual like lamp or something, just don't have it too close to the lamp. Maybe have it hanging on the wall five to ten feet away from a light source. If if you if your light source is like a ceiling fan in the middle of the room and you have comics on your walls on the Walmart frames, they're gonna be fine. Um it's just the same as putting a poster in a frame. I mean it's not there's there's nothing different. It's just paper printed on. So uh the only place you'll see like sun bleaching, if you go in like a like a store that you know used to be like a blockbuster or something where there's big windows and shelves and they have like resale movies and games and stuff, you can see all the sun bleach stuff because it's directly in the window and has been for like 10 years. Or or sometimes longer.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:13

Blinds and stuff, and you're not like leaving the sun directly on your comic.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:18

I don't think it's just gonna instantaneously like because that's just kind of how it the discourse that I've read online kind of seems to be like Yeah, or like you know, like my grandparents have a sunroom in their house, and they're if you have a TV or something on the wall, or like a poster on the wall, like it's probably gonna get messed up by the sun because it's always under direct light. But if it's indirect for most of the day and you don't have it like in perfect perpendicular setup to the sun, like you're you're probably fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:55

Because that can get, you know, if you if you tried to frame every comic you ever wanted to display, that could get expensive and space spacey.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:06

If you want to do it with several of like uh at that one apartment that we stayed at, um we were roommates uh when I was in college for a bit. I I had them on the wall um going around the living room. And I think I probably had like 15 or 20 frames, right? And uh that was collected over a while, and I I spent quite a bit on those. Um I mean they were all from Walmart, so they weren't very expensive, but they gradually were getting more expensive the longer I went, because it was from COVID when things started getting more expensive, I started paying more for those frames as I would go. And sometimes if you don't get frames all at once, or shelves all at once, they'll start releasing slight changes to those. So you'll buy one that's a little different than before, and it's so bothersome. Like uh right now I have these posters, movie posters on my wall, these two foot by three foot posters, and I was gonna get another frame, and I noticed that the frame uh thickness is slightly different, like barely different, but it's noticeable enough that I didn't want to get another one in the same type.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:23

So that's something to look out for.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:28

And one little tidbit

Parents Guide To Comic Content

SPEAKER_03 1:09:30

I'll just put in here, and I don't know if any parent is going to be listening to this and that doesn't know a lot about comics. So I kind of feel like the idea, if you haven't ever read a comic before, or you know, you're just talking about the concept of superheroes, is that all of this stuff should be kid friendly. And that is something I would say if you're a parent and you've got a kid who's wanting to get into comics or something like that, it it is not necessarily kid friendly. A lot of the comics out there are probably not real great for kids. Like if you were looking back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, comics were largely like pick up a Batman comic or whatever, written for young kids. Well, now the tone of comics has kind of changed to be more towards teens and adults.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:31

And I'd say it's even it was a lot darker for a while, but now it's gotten a lot more mellow for the most part. Marvel is still too much on that end, but DC, I feel like has mellowed out for the most part. Like you can read a Batman comic and it's not very inappropriate.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:50

Well, that's the way I feel about like these boom Power Rangers comics I've been reading, which obviously that's based on a kid's franchise. Like, they're much more appropriate for a younger audience than some of the stuff that I've read in the past. But like, even, you know, like you said, let's take the 90s, early 2000s, 2010s, Batman comic or whatever. Oh man, there's a pretty gruesome violent dude.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:26

There was a lot of push for this very violent black label, they called it, which was the violent one at first, but then they started like making that more of a premium thing than a violent thing in maturity.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:38

Well, like we both said we read the Jeff John's Green Lantern universe. People are getting dismembered. I mean, like it there's a lot, and and I don't want to go on the code.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:51

I won't say just dismember, but they're getting like vaporized, Nathan.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:54

There's a lot of there's there's nothing left. It's gruesome. And there's, you know, it is what it is. We won't get in a whole discussion about this. A lot of times in comics, women are not drawn in a way that I would call respectful. And so there's an element of that. Like if if your kids wanted to get into comics, I would just say maybe check it out first.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:23

That was always an awkward thing when I like free comic day when I was younger or something, we would go to the comic store. I was like, why is this on full display in the middle of the shop? Like you want you you don't just want like the adults are spending a lot of money, but you want people with their kids coming in here and spending money too.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:44

Yeah, it's a really weird thing about the comic book industry to me. Of I thought this was really supposed to be kids and getting a chance.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:51

But it's just like gooders.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:54

And it's just like, you know. I don't want to read something weird and creepy, and so it's just kind of like I just feel like mainstream superheroes and stuff should be more kid friendly than what they are.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:09

You could probably find like reviews for these online. If you're like, oh, maybe I should see first. You could probably, you know, I don't know if there's a website where someone can where someone does review that kind of stuff. I feel like some fairly safe ones are like most of the stuff by Boom and Mad Cave, I feel like Speed Racer, Power Rangers, you have some some of the new Batman stuff is good. There's like Marvel stuff oriented to kids like Jeff the Shark. Um I don't know. Like there's there's a good variety in Free Comic Day. Again, great opportunity for that, because there's dozens upon dozens of ones that you could try and see, and if it's something you're interested in or something that you think may or may not be good for family-friendly reading, um, you can give it a try and see if you like it, see if it's actually okay to read.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:04

And if if you're going back and reading like old comics, like for example, I said I read the original Spider-Man run. If that started in the 60s, if you're reading 60s, 70s Spider-Man, you're probably not gonna have to worry about anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:18

But once you get You might say a slur or something though.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:22

Yeah, once you get into like the 80s, things start to shift, 90s for sure, with with comics.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:31

So that's where you know if if you're I feel like the nineties through like 2003, 2004 is like the really big I don't know, like they tried to be super edgy, and then around the time that the dark or the Batman Begins came out, um I feel like that was kind of the turning point of hey, let's turn this around, Spider-Man 2. Like when the movies became popular and they wanted to appeal to a younger audience again.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:00

So just a PSA if you're a parent out there.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:08

Because I it honestly kind of took me a aback when I started reading comics because I just expected it to be, you know, oh yay, superheroes, and then like the only thing I had read up to that point was the original Spider-Man, and I was like, this is the way comics are. And then you get into some of the I mean, like the very first thing I read after that was, like I said, the Frank Miller year one, and you're like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:30

This is I don't need to see Batman's butt cheeks.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:34

Like, I don't, you know, this is pretty violent, and he's got Catwoman as a hooker, and you know, and he's saying bad words, and it's like that is just totally not what is all at the at that juncture, and you know, it's just like so I mean Batman Beyond's always fairly safe too. I agree. I was thinking that too. Batman Beyond is a pretty good one, and and I think they're better about stuff that is clearly directly based on like a kid's show, Power Rangers Batman Beyond, is generally more appropriate than something that it was a comic book.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

Batman and Rob or a TV show. I feel like anything with Damian Wayne most of the time is now. At first they tried to make it a little edgy, but I feel like they've tried to do a more of a Bruce Wayne being more nurturing to him now, so they're trying to make it more I don't know, more all ages for that kind of comic, but I don't know. A lot of the covers for that one are really cool too. I wanted to get into it, but it's I think it's also on like issue like 26 or something. I'm like way, way too far along to That's the tough thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:56

It's like if you don't if you don't get in at the right time, you're just like, oh man, spending so much money.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:04

Like when this new Power Rangers comes out, they're they're doing one main Power Ranger series to start with, and then two um I think they're both limited mini-series. So like, okay, well, that's not that much money, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:20

But if it gets popular, it will be a lot because they'll keep adding to it. Like the absolute Batman was just going to be like 20 issues or something. And then they're like, oh hey, people really like this. So they're like, let's expand this. Now we have absolute cat woman comic. Now we have absolute green arrow and this and this and this, and they're all crossing over and we're making more. Yeah. Just just expect for it to get out of hand.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:48

Cause it will. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:50

And and if it doesn't, it will end abruptly and there will be no resolve for you said about Batman Beyond.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:58

Because it's like we both have really like all the Batman Beyond runs and they end really quickly. And so then yeah, if you always get canceled. If you were just subscribed to Batman Beyond, you were only paying whatever that price for that issue was until that run ended. But if you're trying to go back and read a long run, or you're trying to read one that does get a bunch of branch offs, well then that's gonna get expensive.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:28

Yeah, like this X-Men one I'm reading, I expect will be going for the next like three to five years. Like it's uh it's usually like the big ones. Like Batman resets at number one, it's gonna be going for a while. Um X-Men, gonna be going for a while, stuff like that. Like Daredevil will usually go for a long time and then reset. They just reset him. Um just a thing to look out for. And usually when it resets at number one, you don't need to know any other information. It'll provide things as the story goes, but sometimes they do call back to things that may have happened in other series. Because even though it is a reset, they use existing characters and existing st I I don't know, existing um story motifs from their characters, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:20

Um they did New 52, which was like that was pretty much a hard reboot other than just having some of the basic characters and stuff. But uh so then they did New 52. Well, then they did Rebirth. Well, Rebirth to me was like taking New 52 and the old and mushing them together. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just saying you may have not read New 52, but or you may have not read the original run, but there was gonna be some from the both runs in the new one. So it's kind of like that. You know, when they do a reboot, you might not know everything if you didn't read the previous one, but they're written so that you don't have to go back and read a thousand issues of something to be able to read the new series.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:22

Yeah, and that's that's why I recommend picking up a number one if you see it of something, just to just to see if you'll like it or not. Like I I didn't care about what was it, Kato, the uh the rabbit from IDW. I could not have cared less, but I saw this new series they're doing, the Kato 84, and I was like, oh, that looks kind of cool. So I picked up an issue of it and I was like, oh, this is neat. Um and you know, sometimes you may pick up an issue of something, like there was a Daredevil and Punisher one they did recently. I was like, oh, I like both of these characters, but the art style in it is abysmal, and the story isn't quite what I wanted, so I um I didn't continue with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:04

I've also noticed, and we touched on this a little bit, but like sometimes I'll be reading a comic book series and I'll love the art style. And then for like an issue or two or something, they'll just change the art style.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:20

Yeah, like a different artist will take over.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:22

Yeah, and I'm like, I hate this, and then they'll go back to it, and I'm like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:27

That's how a lot of animation is. You'll have like a bunch of different people doing in-betweens, a bunch of different people doing key art, and um they'll they'll have like a guidebook on what they should be animating, how the characters look, how they move, what they do and say, but because everyone is different, you won't have the exact same art style for boardplace. You can see that in a lot of cartoons. Like it's it becomes very apparent when you start watching like a long cartoon series or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:02

But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:03

So it's kind

Favorite Runs And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_03 1:22:05

of our rundown of getting into comics. Uh so give the people, we've already talked about it some, but just a few of your favorite comic book runs or series.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:19

Like new ones, or just in general?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:21

Uh I would say just in general.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:23

Oh dude. Um trade paperbacks, I would say the Archie Mega Man ones. Star Wars Blood Ties was good. Um, I really like Batman Universe. Um, The Last Ronan Ninja Turtles. Um, Tales from the Dark Multiverse is cool. It takes like original stories like Dark Knight Returns. It changes the ending, but they use the same art style. Um stuff like that. I'd say current comics. I'm really into the new X-Men, Batman, absolute Batman, um, the new nor normal Batman one, just Batman, uh, Batgirl, uh, the one that's coming out right now, Speed Racer, Mega Man X. Um, and then I know this is mostly comics, but on the manga side, I really liked uh Fire Force was really good. My Hero Academia was pretty good. Um that guy was inspired by uh Spider-Man comics. There's a lot of covers to that where it's just like copies of Spider-Man comics, but with those characters, and he's actually the guy who did that, um, did the art for the characters for the new Spider-Man, or not Spider-Man, Marvel fighting game that came out. Um yeah, those are those are a lot I like. Um there's probably a lot more, but I don't have any of my books unpacked at my new apartment, so I can't really glance over and see all of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:57

Yeah. Yeah, that was a totally unexpected question.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:00

Yeah, no, it's all good.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:03

For me, I would say I don't I don't think I've read as many different series as you. I primarily focus on like one character or one series.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:13

Yeah, I'm a maniac. I'm just reading everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:17

But for me, I mean, obviously, Batman Batman Beyond. Yeah, I was a separate Batman from everything else. Runs in Batman that I remember really liking. I mentioned along Halloween. The first time I read Hush, I really liked it. The second time I read Hush, I didn't like it as much. There's a Hush 2, though. Yeah, they keep all this stuff going. Um another Batman run I really liked. So kind of going together. I'll just mesh these together because they're kind of connected of Batman Black Mirror, Batman R.I.P., the Grant Morrison run of Batman and Robin. Those things kind of end up meshing together. Those were fun. Uh, when I first read some of the new 52 Batman stuff was really good.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:08

Court of Owls was so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:11

Really good. Uh some of the New 52 gets just excessively gruesome, but especially Year Zero? Yeah, Year Zero was pretty good. One of the ones that I liked a lot was towards the end of to middle to end of the run of New 52 Batman is so Batman and Joker have this big confrontation. I don't want to spoil everything, but Bruce Wayne gets injured, forgets that he's Batman. And I thought that was a really good section of the run. I also like there was a comic in this series where uh it's set in the future, and Bruce Wayne has been has set up a way to clone himself for like generations. And so every clone that gets out of the pod is basically faced with being choosing to be Batman or not to be Batman. And so it shows one of the clones getting out, and there's an elderly Bruce Wayne there, and he's like, Well, you don't have to be Batman, but I would if you're gonna leave, I would hurry up. And so the Bruce clone doesn't want to be Batman. He starts leaving the cave, and then uh a siren and a bat signal goes off, and he just turns around and just has the bat glare, and it's just obvious that he's going to be Batman. And so that was one that I thought was really cool. Uh, non-just Batman. We've said I love like all the Batman Beyond comics, they're really good. Um other than that, you know, this these Power Rangers comics I've really loved, and while they're somewhat connected so far, I would say I like the Go-Go Power Rangers run better than the Mighty Morphin run. Go-go is supposed to be set more like in their early days of being Power Rangers, and it's it's a lot shorter run. I think it's like 32 issues, but so it was really good. And I really liked the original Spider-Man. I mean, it's a lot different feel, but I really liked the original Spider-Man run.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:24

So there's a lot of really good Spider-Mans. Um, what was the one where uh not Ultimate Spider-Man? The one where Doc Ock uh Superior Spider-Man, that one was cool. Um I haven't read a Spider-Man comic in so long. It's just very inaccessible. Like they're all way they're all one-offs or they're all in a really long line, you know? And they they keep trying to do new characters as the main character, like uh there's Spider Boy, I think is the current one or s something. And it's just like uh it's cool, but like it's hard to get into because it's ostensibly a different comic now, like it's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:13

Spider-Man feels overwhelming to me in the last few decades. It just I don't know how you even break into that.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:20

I don't know. Yeah, for the longest time I felt X-Men was that way, but X-Men is more um I don't know welcoming to get into than a Spider-Man comic, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:37

Yeah, I just really haven't read anything Marvel since that original Spider-Man run.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:44

And dang.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:46

I mean, I just never really got into it. I've like I said, I'm all when I have time to read comics, I'm always in like a series or whatever, and I just read that and then Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:57

And I feel like DC is just easier to read a whole story than Marvel. Marvel is focused on the villain of the week stuff more than DC is. Um there are some Marvel storylines that are pretty intense, but they haven't I don't know, they they haven't had the same impact as some of their older stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:21

And I mean, if you're looking for an easier way, like I have I've had my sister talk to me about this before. As movies come out and people hear news about different things uh in comics, there are shows. If if you're not somebody who's gonna get in and read the comics, there are shows that have been really good adaptations of comics. I I brought up Justice League, Justice League Unlimited as a essentially an adaptation. Yeah. Um the 90s Spider-Man that followed the animated series. Very close to uh just an adaptation of the comics. Yeah, that one's so good. So that's a really good one if you're curious about a Spider-Man storyline. There's not that many episodes in that series.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:14

Teen Titans. Teen Titans is a good one. Because it takes something that is bland and boring, in my opinion, turns it into something intriguing and fun with serious moments.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:26

So I want to go with you on that. So I was just thinking about that earlier. So Teen Titans is one of my all-time favorite pieces of media ever, the animated series from 2003.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:40

But because I loved it so much, I went and read, you know, quite a bit of Teen Titans, particularly the 80s new Teen Titans.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:48

Titans Teen Titans.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:52

But it's still It's not very good. The new Teen Titans comics are not very good. I thought Rebirth had some decent stuff though. But New 52 or Teen Titans.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:10

So, I mean But since then and before then, there has been nothing, and I still don't think that they have matched up with the show. There was some stuff during Future State that came close, but like with the reveal of uh Red X and stuff. But yeah, I I don't know. Like uh I uh it's another one of those things where they took influence from anime, right? And they made the show with characters that I won't say no one cared about, but they weren't primary characters. They were all sidekick or alienated.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:48

I doubt anybody at that point had knew anything about anybody but Robin. Right. Like if if you were a kid at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:56

Cyborg. Cyborg was pretty popular.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:59

I seriously doubt you knew anything about Beast Boy if you were an eight or ten-year-old.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:04

Yeah, it's like the Wonder Twins kind of thing, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:08

Like he's just a goofy one-off character, but they they made it made him a really good character. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:15

Kind of like the whole uh Avengers with the MCU.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:18

Yeah, like no one cared about Iron Man.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:20

And they'll look at him because they did such a good job with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:26

So anyway, that's our discussion on getting into comics, comic series we like, advice from people who are nerds and read lots of comics.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:36

Come back next week for something.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:39

Yeah. It might be a surprise even to us.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:42

Yeah, I'm I may not even have a voice entirely by next week. I was getting out of breath while talking, you could probably hear it. Um that's why I just stopped talking sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:54

Just trailed off into nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:57

Alright. Well, thanks for tuning in, everybody. See ya later. Chumps. See you, chump.