The Old Man and the 26 Copies of X-Men #1

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

What advice would you give to someone who is getting started with one of your hobbies?

The first thing I’d say to any beginner is this: don’t feel like you have to get everything. To put that into perspective, I’ll look at two of my own favorite pastimes: collecting baseball cards and collecting comic books.

The Old Man and the Baseball Card Bug

Long before I had even a passing interest in baseball cards, the “Old Man” got caught by the collecting bug. Like many new collectors, my dad’s appetite was insatiable. He amassed every card he could find. Always the most practical man I’ve ever known, he never did anything too “crazy” price-wise—in fact, I don’t think he ever purchased a card from before 1960—but he wanted volume.

America is driven by a capitalist, consumer culture. For decades, we’ve been told to “keep up with the Joneses.” In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, there is a Ferengi Rule of Acquisition that states: “More is good… all is better.” The Ferengi were intended to be a caricature of American capitalism, and the problem with that attitude is that you end up pouring money into a proverbial bottomless hole. No matter how hard you try, you’re never going to “catch ‘em all,” if I can borrow a line from Pokémon.

The beauty of baseball cards is that you can really go any direction you want. You can build sets year by year, focus only on a favorite player, or stick to one team. My Dad dabbled in a little bit of everything with a fair degree of success, but the lesson remained: the hobby is better when you define the boundaries, rather than letting the hobby define you.

“Funny Books” and the Batman Black Hole

I’ve realized lately that I’ve written a great deal about my comic book collecting. I offer the same advice here: you’re never going to get everything, so don’t bother trying.

Just like cards, you can narrow your focus to a specific character, writer, or artist. My own collecting exploded in 1988 with Batman’s “A Death in the Family” series. From there, I tried to snatch up every Batman back-issue I could: Batman, Detective Comics, and The Brave and the Bold. Eventually, I branched into the newer titles like Legends of the Dark Knight and Shadow of the Bat. Then came the ancillary characters: Robin, Catwoman, Nightwing, and endless one-shots.

The problem with a character like Batman is that even in 1988, there were already 50 years of accumulated lore. With early issues being some of the most sought-after (and expensive) books in existence, there was no realistic way I was ever going to be “complete.” But like the Old Man, that didn’t stop me from trying.

The Speculator’s Fallacy

If I could offer one more piece of advice, it’s this: collect because you enjoy it, not because you think it’s going to be an investment. Your collection is likely never going to pay for your child’s college education. Unless you’re the person who finds Action Comics #1 stuffed inside the walls of a vintage house, just buy the books for the stories and the art.

My own “foolish example” of this was 1991’s X-Men #1. To spike sales, Marvel printed five different covers. All in all, I owned 26 copies of this book at one point: five of each cover, including the special edition and one issue autographed by artist Jim Lee.

While it became the highest-selling comic of all time, that was actually bad news for collectors. With 8 million copies in circulation for only 3 million collectors, the supply dwarfed the demand. Today, those books aren’t worth much more than the paper they were printed on. Both the baseball card and comic book hobbies were very nearly destroyed by the speculator market, as demonstrated above.

We’ve all had our “X-Men #1” moment—that time we got caught up in the hype or the “Ferengi” mindset of “more is better.” What about you? Have you ever fallen into the completionist trap, or do you collect strictly for the love of the game? I’d love to hear about the hobbies that keep you grounded—and the ones that almost broke the bank—in the comments!

Wait—there’s more! I’m feeling particularly inspired today, so I’ve actually published a second post. While you’re here, I’d love for you to head over and check out “Dark Windows and Crowded Driveways” It dives a bit deeper into some of the themes we’ve been exploring lately, and I’d hate for you to miss it.

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The article “The Old Man and the 26 Copies of X-Men #1” first appeared in Rebuilding Rob.

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