A forced relocation to trades

How do you run a comics blog without any comics? I know I post all sorts of old guff here but the idea was always to be a comics blog. I've been mail ordering my comics for a while since there's nowhere to buy them in Reading. It was less than ideal given the time lag and the Post Office's attitude towards “Do Not Bend” notices but it was something. A few weeks ago the comic shop I order from went out of business and so I ended up a comics blogger with no comics to blog about.

I've spent the last couple of weeks shopping around online trying to find another service but the sale of the Post Office has done horrendous things to p+p costs. Also, it's been a long time since I've actually looked at the individual price of a comic. The monthly cost, yes, the individual unitary cost not so much.

Christmas is coming up. Family birthdays are coming up. My landlady has sold my flat and I'll have to move in the new year. We're living in the longest period of wage repression since records began. Time to change. Time to become part of the problem:

I'm switching to trades.

The benefits are obvious: trades cost less than buying individual instalments; they look good on a shelf; they don't fall apart as easily; they survive being lent to your friends somewhat better than floppies.

I will miss floppies, though. Not so much getting stories in regular instalments but because of something more abstract. The weekly fix of comics has been a part of my life each and every week for damn near twenty years ever since my grandmother bought me an issue of X-Factor at random from a newsagent to keep me quiet. From there I was hooked.

There are less obvious benefits to the switch, though. For once thing it will make me think more critically about what I buy. I have a tendency to buy things out of habit, picking up a series for months after I lose interest in it. Trades may be cheaper in comparison but they're a fair price in and of themselves so I'll need to take a long look at what I was buying before and divide them into the not worth buying; the worth pre-ordering; and, finally, the worth getting once it's dirt cheap on Amazon Used & New.

Young Avengers is a sacred cow. Aside from that everything is up for grabs.