Changing Comic Book Habits

There are a number of reasons (though mostly because of money and time) that I’ve decided to stop buying monthly comic books starting in January 2008. It was decision I came to after a lot of thought and consideration, and it’s a course I plan to stick to for at least the next two years. I will still buy graphic novels and trade paperback collections, but the elimination of the monthly published titles that I currently buy (of which there are about 10) will dramatically alter my comic reading habits.

I plan to dig into my fifteen plus year stash of old issues and rediscover the books I’ve collected. It might even give me some inspiration for writing. Actually, I kinda hope that reading through these old books do provide some inspiration. Otherwise I’ll have to reconsider why I am hanging on to these back issues of comics.

In the meantime, I expect the first few months of my abstinence to be difficult. First I’ll have to break myself of the habitual desire to stop in at the comic book shop every two or three weeks. Then I’ll have to grow used to not having crisp new comics always sitting on the table next to the chair in our bedroom. Finally, I’ll have to learn patience when I read about great new books like the ones Red 5 Comics are turning out.

Thanks to a post in today’s Comics Should Be Good blog, I discovered Atomic Robo, a comic starring the Nikola-Tesla-built robot who has adventured his way through the years and now heads up the Action Science League to battle all sorts of crazy threats. Besides the glowing write-up, CSBG provides some scans of the interior of the comic, all of which had me sold on the book before I visited the Red 5 Comics website to learn more.

On the Red 5 Comics website I learned about Midknight, which is a book about a husband-wife crime fighting team who also has a three-year-old daughter at home along with regular jobs. I love the artwork I saw on display at the Red 5 website, and the reviews that I found spoke strongly about the series. Midkinght looks like another comic that would be perfect for my monthly comic pull-list, along with Atomic Robo.

If I was still going to have a pull-list in 2008.

So now comes my first test in patience. The cover of Atomic Robo indicates that the series is a limited 6 issue run. So hopefully Red 5 will collect the series in a trade paperback after the six issues are published. At which time it would move to the top of my list of trades to pick up. Midknight appears to have an open ended run, but maybe Red 5 will collect a first story arc into a trade. At which point I will be all over the book.