Comic-Book Collecting?

Horace Escue: First of all,unless you're going to actually READ these comics don't bother. The odds of a book made these days becoming very valuable is slim,the reason is a principle known as scarcity. The more copies of a title that are printed means there are many copies floating around out there usually pretty easily found and cheaply priced. So,little chance of collectibilty.Now that I've given you the "You ain't gonna get rich by collecting comics,ya noob" speech,I'll help ya out with this question.Relating to what I said above I would sugggest that you focus on buying titles you enjoy and wanna read,that may amount to you sifting through the back issue bins at the local comic-shops or just buying the latest issue off the shelf. Both of these rae fine to do as well,just eats into the budget if ya try to do both.You may wanna try to collect a complete series run but that doesn't always guarantee collectibility,somebody might be willing to buy a complete series collect! ion from ya but the price would be prohibitive for most collectors IMO.As to supplies: Ya want mylar or mylite bags to put yer comics in,the point there is that it's plastic so they're mostly impervious to liquids and maybe more importantly bags made of those materials are acid free! Acid free is the biggest thing to look for if ya wanna try keeping these comics in the best possible shape because for the most part the publishers use pretty damn cheap paper(pulp paper) that tends to eat itself over time due to the acids naturally present in it.You'll probably want to pick up backing boards too(acid free of course). The boards,if ya don't know,act like a "spine" if you will and help keep the comics in the bags from getting folded over an dthe spine of the comic itself from getting bent.There's also the issue of the boxes to store your comics in,you wanna get comicbook 'long boxes",they're just cardboard and you may want to look into acid free boxes too but so long as you have! the bags and boards that way the boxes are just fine if they ! aren't acid free. There are shorter boxes too,just depends on what ya want,I always opted for the long boxes as it took longer to fill one of those.Th eboxes come both assembled and assemble them yerself,trust me,get the pre-assembled! They're sturdier and it saves you the headache of screwing with the box beyond just filling it up with comics! :)Learn how to GRADE(determine their condition and thus relative collectibility) these books! I dunno if the old grading scale is still valid but it went: Mint,Near Mint,Very Fine,Fine,Very Good,Good,PoorI think the grading scale is numerically based now,10 being the highest and on down the line being lower,this allows for very specific grading and I suppose that's better but I preferred the old scale.If you really wanna determine the relative value/collectibility of yer comics then the best thing you can do is keep the most recent edition of "The Bible of Comicbook Collecting" the Overstreet's Comic Book Price Guide on hand! It's an! annual publication so it's not something you'll be buying often but it isn't a bad idea to have maybe a couple from the years previous on hand to get a feel for the direction the comics you have are taking in terms of collectibility.I know this is a lot of crap I've written here but as a former collector/reader of comics I'm just trying to answer your questions thoroughly and sincerely. If I had the spare change(so to speak) and access to a comic shop,I'd STILL be reading/collecting today.Last thing: If it ain't FUN,then don't bother continuing to collect. Hope all of this helped....Show more

Rocio Karvis: some ppl do collect them like comic books. they collect them for the sake of collecting them. but id say most manga reader collect them cuz they either r not used to online mangas, or they want their fav mangas kept in their room where they can read it again and again on their beds.