rs@mirror.UUCP (11/25/85)
Well, I finally broke down and did it, I took the big step:
I put all my comics in those silly little plastic bags.
Now, this is really no big deal, as I only have about 150 comics
and the first five years of Heavy Metal, but I found myself
reacting very strongly to what I was doing, and I'd like to
bring the topic up for discussion on the net.
Up until today, I had sort of kept the comics piled up on my
floor and on my records. This was messy, but it was oh so
convenient to grab back issues of Cerebus when the latest issue
arrived, of American Flagg! when I was feeling randy :-), of
Heavy Metal when I was "altered," etc. These comics were my
friends, in a way. They provided me with hours of enjoyment
and (sometimes) stimulation and challenge -- everything one
could ask for in a good conversation.
Now, of course this casual treatment got to be rather hard
on them. A couple of the HM's have food smears on them (at
least, I think it's food smears). A few Cerebus's have sand
in them from a Cape Cod vacation/reunion where I turned my Mom
on to the little gray fellow. And so on. I wanted to protect
them, and make sure that the comics would be around years from
now, not just months.
Still, I can't help but feel that they way I used to treat
them is the way comics SHOULD be treated. These are COMICS,
right? Not High Art. They should be around and available,
and picked up and put down as convenient, and on a whim.
Now I feel it's gonna be a big production number for me to
idly thumb through them. Now I'm scared I'm not gonna do
that any more, and I'll degenerate from a comics fan and
reader to a comics collector.
What can I do? What do YOU do to keep your comics safe,
yet there?
--
Rich $alz {mit-eddie, ihnp4!inmet, wjh12, cca, datacube}!mirror!rs
Mirror Systems 2067 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA, 02140
Telephone: 6,176,610,777kscott@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Kevin Scott%Kuntz) (11/28/85)
In article <3200009@mirror.UUCP> rs@mirror.UUCP writes: > >Well, I finally broke down and did it, I took the big step: >I put all my comics in those silly little plastic bags. >Now, this is really no big deal, as I only have about 150 comics >and the first five years of Heavy Metal, but I found myself >reacting very strongly to what I was doing, and I'd like to >bring the topic up for discussion on the net. > >What can I do? What do YOU do to keep your comics safe, >yet there? > >-- >Rich $alz {mit-eddie, ihnp4!inmet, wjh12, cca, datacube}!mirror!rs >Mirror Systems 2067 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA, 02140 >Telephone: 6,176,610,777 I have copies of Doonesbury books that I am quite proud of, they have been totally trashed. They were not left on the beach, nor assassinated by five year olds, left on the car floor, etc. They were read to death. Some of the earlier books (call me when you find america, guilty guilty guilty) have certainly been read over a hundred times, maybe several hundreds. That is the way to go. If I were a book, I would not want to spend my life locked up until someday I'm in a house that burns down. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't take care of things. I personally keep my comic books in plastic bags, the ones I get when I buy my comics. I alphabetize them and keep about ten of a kind to a bag on my bookcase. When the bookcase gets full, a few bags that have filled up get weeded out and put into an empty photocopier paper box. These boxs are wonderful! They are just the right size, they have nice lids that come off topwise, and fit in storage spaces happily. Being in a university environment, I am fortunate enough to have as many on hand as I care for. -- two to the power of five thousand against and falling ...
jkr@gitpyr.UUCP (John Kenneth Riviere) (11/29/85)
In article <3200009@mirror.UUCP> rs@mirror.UUCP writes: >Now I'm scared I'll degenerate from a comics fan and >reader to a comics collector. > >What can I do? What do YOU do to keep your comics safe, >yet there? >-- >Rich $alz I don't have any reservations about being a comics collector instead of a comics reader, so I have had my comics in plastic bags for years and don't regret it. I think it does limit spontaneously reviewing an old favorite, but with over 9000 comics and getting dozens more each month (in addition to working, raising a family, and keeping up with usenet) I don't think I would have much time for rereading all my back issues anyway. Back in my college days when I was living in the dorm I kept my comics in the basement of my parents' house since I did not have room for them in my shared dorm room (I had about 3000-4000 comics at the time). I came home one weekend to find that the dishwasher had backed up and flooded the kitchen which was right over my comics. The water had leaked all over my comics, but because I had them in plastic bags they suffered very little damage. These were not the kind that are sold everywhere nowadays with the fold-over flaps which people tape closed (I don't tape mine, that would *really* restrict getting into them). These were some bags I had bought from a plastic bag company which were about half-an-inch taller than the comics themselves and the plastic just stuck up above the tops of the comics. When the water started falling on the comics the extra lip at the top of the bags just folded over and the water sat on top of the comics with the weight of the water holding the bags closed so that none got in the bags and onto the comics. Out of the 3000+ comics only about 6-10 comics bags had the two sides of the bag fold in opposite directions so that water could get in. That one incident paid for the cost of the bags so many times over that I feel that they are more than worthwhile. As for an overall storage scheme (as opposed to using bags for individual comics) I have a variety of containers which I use to store comics in upright positions so that I can put the comics on bookshelves. The containers allow me to store anywhere from about 12 up to almost 70 comics together, so I can keep my longest runs together in a few large containers while still having small containers for my titles which only have a few issues. For the truly miscellaneous titles of which there were only a few issues I have misc sections wherein I store the titles alphabetically with multiple titles stored together within the smallest containers so that they are still accessable without having to dig through lots and lots of comics. I don't care much for those three foot boxes that many dealers sell because it is just too difficult to look through them if you keep enough comics in them to make sure that they don't sag, and as a collection increases in size it is too difficult to shift comics accross large numbers of boxes in order to maintain an organizational scheme. Obviously, any storage scheme that works for you is probably best. If you really want to have good copies of comics that are readable many years from now, even after repeated readings, I would suggest buying multiple copies and storing the extras carefully until you tear up the current copy, at which time you can get out another copy to use until you tear it up. Comics are generally too cheaply produced to stand up to years of active handling without showing lots of wear. -- J. Kenneth Riviere (JoKeR) Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!jkr
ellen@reed.UUCP (Ellen Eades) (12/01/85)
> What can I do? What do YOU do to keep your comics safe, > yet there? I have only about 300 comics at the moment, mostly the popular Marvel lines. I keep them next to my bed in my dorm (they make *excellent* bedtime reading) so that they are easily accessible to read or to copy art from. They are all in little plastic bags with the flaps folded inside but not taped shut (except for my duplicates, few as they are). I find them very accessible and, because of my over-enthusiastic organizing system, easy to keep track of; I have tabbed index dividers separating them by title and, once I get another box for the, possibly by groups of 25 or so. What I wonder about is the light damage, since I rarely if ever put the box lid on them because I am always reading one or another of them. Does anyone out there know what sort of light damage this might do and how soon/how badly it will show up? Books are meant to be loved, handled and thrown across the room; comics I take a bit more care of due to the fragility factor. Another thing: Are mylar snuggies really worth it? Someone recommended them to me recently, and then someone else said (they being 10x as expensive as the regular 3-mil ones) that they would put their Spiderman 1-30 in them but package all others in 3-mil bags. Any comments? Ellen Eades -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?" "I read it in a book," said Alice. - - - - - - - - - - - - - tektronix!reed!ellen
m1b@rayssd.UUCP (M. Joseph Barone) (12/04/85)
In <2215@reed.UUCP>, ellen@reed.UUCP (Ellen Eades) asks: > ...What I wonder about is the > light damage, since I rarely if ever put the box lid on them > because I am always reading one or another of them. Does > anyone out there know what sort of light damage this might do > and how soon/how badly it will show up? The shop where I buy my comics displays several in its window on a monthly basis. The window gets direct morning sun- light and so the covers are washed out in only a few days. I would say that the tops of your books will start to fade if direct sunlight hits them. Also, sunlight seems to accelerate the dis- coloration of the bags themselves. Even if sunlight doesn't hit the books, you should use the lid for added protection from other forms of damage (i.e. fire :-) ). Speaking of fire, though, I'm wondering if there are collectors on the net who have their collections insured, how much they pay for the insurance (as a percentage), how regu- larly they have their collections reappraised, and if there are other tidbits of information on further protecting their books. Joe Barone, {allegra, decvax!brunix, linus, ccice5}!rayssd!m1b Raytheon Co, Submarine Signal Div., Box 330, Portsmouth, RI 02871