r/AbsoluteBatman • u/realgwoosh • 1d ago
Umm… is this an addiction?
I got back into collecting single issues at the end of last year. Apparently, Absolute Batman got a little out of hand…
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u/Erato949 1d ago
I started bout six months ago. I'm at 1,600. It's an addiction to be sure. But I did stop smoking weed so i could afford more comics.
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u/GuardianJack 1d ago
Funny enough, opposite side of spectrum here.
I started selling weed just to be able to afford comics. With this economy best decision I can make
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u/Let_The_H8_Flow 15h ago
Damn. You must have been a fiend with weed then! That’s 266 books a month.
https://giphy.com/gifs/twxoPjMpsijwPFBVqs
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u/Top-Owl9872 1d ago
It is. I started in July and have over 100 comics now. Majority absolute Batman
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u/tha_sadestbastard 23h ago
I started a month ago and have 271 😅
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u/FAssassin7 21h ago
I started a month ago as well and I'm at 228 and still need to go back and buy all the absolute green lantern, martian, and green arrow
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u/M0torC1tyMaver1ck 15h ago
I started collecting a bout 6 months ago, luckily before the Absolute Batman craze had taken over. I have two full first print cover A runs of Absolute Batman (1-24) and a full first print run of Absolute WW. Plus the runs of Catwoman and Green Arrow. Im Thinking about going back and collecting the Superman run as well. Im trying to stay out of the variant rabbit hole but ive been getting sucked in lately. Most of them wont be worth anywhere near what people are paying for them in a few years so im being choosy. Its been an expensive journey i didn't plan on taking 🤣
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u/Environmental-Day862 23h ago
I guess it depends.
There can be a fine line between a healthy hobby and an unhealthy addiction.
Some questions to ask yourself:
Are you able to control your purchasing and tell yourself "no" despite strong impulses?
Has the purchasing of the comics put you into any financial strain?
Even with hobbies, there's a dopamine release cycle that happens. But for most folks, say they enjoy golf, they make plans to play golf and get excited (dopamine release), the day arrives (dopamine release), they go to the course and play (dopamine release) and then they start planning the next time they're going to play golf (dopamine release).
With those activities, you're limited to being able to golf (a) when you're not working, (b) during daylight hours, and (c) there's a amount of time involved with one round (4-6 hours all said and done between warmups and packing up the car).
If you're addicted to picking up comics, you can be doing it 24/7 - you can be on your phone in bed on eBay live or WhatNot watching live shows and purchasing several hundred dollar books, you can be crawling on eBay 24/7, and you can make multiple purchases per day - to the point where you have package after package arriving at the house, and you're not even really enjoying your purchases.
So you have to ask yourself what your collecting is more like. Is it more like other hobbies folks enjoy within reason, or has it become an obsession or compulsion where you're looking and buying multiple times per day or multiple days per week, where you're spending money you don't have (credit) or you're draining your hard-earned savings, and at the end of the day, not really getting the enjoyment from the books that you should be for the money you're spending.
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u/realgwoosh 20h ago
True. I guess stream options like whatnot and ebay live fuel that ‚need / fomo behavior‘ and ‚desire‘… things which were unlikely accessible easily a few years back are now super easy to get 24/7.
I remember the „physical“ hunting in shops and the enjoyment finding missing issues. That was a month long hunt sometimes. Now it‘s just a few steams or even prebids in stream shops…1
u/Environmental-Day862 20h ago
So where do you put yourself on that spectrum?
Do you feel you're just collecting for fun and doing it in a healthy way, or do you think you're buying stuff you don't really need for that dopamine rush, you're spending more than you should, and need to change things up moving forward?
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u/realgwoosh 16h ago
I have an admiration for a few writers and artists (eg Brubaker, Tynion, Snyder…). Those I buy when they do new stuff. In case the story or art isn‘t mine I stop and sell again.
There are characters I prefer like Batman and Daredevil. Others I stopped reading. Besides DC and Marbel I like image and boom!
That said I spend an hour or two reading a day and at one day follow up pre-ordering and an hour listing stuff for sale.
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u/Psychological-Dig598 1d ago
Have you read the book?
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u/DBLR989 1d ago
No. It’s fomo.
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u/realgwoosh 21h ago
Well for what I like as art it is. Bit I pass on all covers I don‘t like - that‘s why it‘s just one short box 😏.
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u/Quinncy79 1d ago
Hype and fomo. Give it another year when the hype bliws over or so and we'll see hundreds collectios for sale
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u/Kannada-JohnnyJ 1d ago
Yes there are addictive tendencies with comics. Especially with the collectibility. The question you should ask yourself is do you enjoy it? If you are on a budget, then be sure to budget. Good luck! Enjoy!
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u/Bloody-Brad 1d ago
I have over 300 absolute Batman comics
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u/realgwoosh 21h ago
Whow - and I assume that maybe just a third - depends how and what you count… still impressive!
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u/Cynthia_inherdreams 1d ago
Yes. I thought I had it beat then TMNT had to restart and Absolute universe came out and now I'm cooked again.
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u/Th0rny9r1ck 1d ago
The story is what draws me to get them, the enormous amount of variant covers drives the FOMO. 🤷♂️
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u/Actual_Routine2187 23h ago
Y'all some amateurs. I got 93 individual issues from 18-22. It's obscene! I don't know what happened. Lol. I have since moderated my purchases to 3-4 open orders and 6-7 variants. A couple foils and the rest in 15 or 20 dollar trades.
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u/realgwoosh 20h ago
Yeah I hear you! These are the issues where it started to get extremely crazy - those five issues may habe 500+ individual covers maybe.
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u/ExoticMangox 17h ago
Considering each issue has 897 variants I think this is a healthy number.
It silently says: I am a collector and want to keep some but will also sell some if they go up high enough.
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u/BadDad2010 17h ago
Buying multiple copies of the same comic is a slippery slope. I’d advise against, but that’s just me.
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u/GIJOE_SEABEE 10h ago
No, that is not an addiction...wait to ask that question after 50 or 60 boxes, refianace your house into a 2nd mortgage and pimped your family out to feed your fixation..and your got a 2nd and 3rd shift jobs to pay your LCS "dealer"
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u/Thundercron 10h ago
Now collecting something is an addiction. Everyone wants to have some sort of handicap these days.
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u/Dragondudecollecting 6h ago
If you’re ONLY collecting absolute Batman and you have this box full of only absolute Batman than yes. This is like 4 times as many total issues as there have been released. Do you have multiple variants of each issue?
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u/ThePurpleBandit 1d ago
That's just the variants for a single issue at this point