How often do you reread your comics?

[the1captain]

I know people always seem to have that stack of unread comics just sitting there. But how often do some of you dive into your back issues and/or shelf of trades and relive an old favourite?

I do this almost daily. Hey I paid for the books, might as well get my monies worth. It's great when one has been collecting for a long period of time and see how well some books hold up. And how some may not stand the test of time. Sometimes when one gets older you can get a different perspective on a particular story.

It also helps one to take stock of your current buying habits. What books today still excite me? I use to love this book but am I only buying it out of habit now?

What books have you reread recently that surprised you as being better this time around or not nearly as good as you remember them being?

On a sort of related note, I miss the back issue spotlight podcasts. The guys often came up with some not obvious choices of back issues to look at. Not trying to dump more work on Bob and John. Just letting you know some of us miss getting new episodes of those shows.

[JohnMayo]

I have enough other things going on now that most of my reading time is filled with just my new purchases.

When I have extra reading time, I usually give priority to back issues I haven't read than on rereading some I have. That having been said, I do want to reread Morning Glories and a few other things when I get some additional time.

As for the Back Issue Spotlights, I find those to be fairly time consuming to do. There is the reading time for the comics. Add to that some time for taking notes so I can talk coherently about the issues. Then there is the actual recording time itself. After that, there is the editing time and tasks related to releasing the episodes. For episodes like the one on The Life and Time of Scrooge McDuck and episode on the Great Darkness Saga, all said and done, I probably spent 10 to 20 hours on each episode.

While the episodes can be fun, they are also very time consuming.

Right now, I'm too busy to really considering doing one. In addition to the usual work, reading and podcasting, I'm taking two online courses for another few weeks and I'm taking a few other evening classes locally. I've got a relative who lives in Japan in town at the beginning of December so my spare time while she is in town is accounted for with that. The holidays are also coming up with some time commitments there. Right after the holidays is the Yearly Comics Spotlight (which I should probably start preparing for) and the double whammy of the December sales data and the year end sales data.

Frankly, I feel it would be kind of irresponsible of me to commit doing to more Back Issue Spotlights right now with everything else I have going on. That having been said, if people are interested in more of those episodes, we'll certainly consider figuring out a plan to get them back into the rotation.

I'm glad you enjoy those episodes and I'm glad you asked about them.

[the1captain]

John the amount of work you put into something that, frankly, we get for free is greatly appreciated. I didn't really expect you to be able to add more podcasts. I know it goes against the stereotype. But comic geeks do have a life outside of this hobby. At least I try to. lol

[LA Rabbit]

Not as much as I would like. Maybe once a month or so unless you count having to reread big 2 books so I can remember what happened in the last few months then it seems like every week almost. I just did reread Secret Wars for the first time since Secret Wars 2 came out. It was fun to reread. Too many comics in the world. If they stopped making them today I think I would have plenty to last my life.

[BobBretall]

Frankly, I feel it would be kind of irresponsible of me to commit doing to more Back Issue Spotlights right now with everything else I have going on. That having been said, if people are interested in more of those episodes, we'll certainly consider figuring out a plan to get them back into the rotation.

I'm glad you enjoy those episodes and I'm glad you asked about them.

So, if people want them, they can volunteer to do them with me. I've done these before with people other than John.

One of the keys here is that I have to be interested in the comics being proposed

I can edit episodes & then pass them to John for final processing (an example of one that I edited myself is the Mike Norton interview up today). For me, it takes me about 2x - 3x the time of the show to do the editing. I spent about 2 hours editing the Mike Norton interview, for instance. I think I'm slower at this than John.

[stardog]

It's been a long time since I went back and reread something old, but I do reread some current books:

Batman - It's such a good story and great to look at.
Uncanny X-Force - Just an amazing run.
Wonder Woman - I find that I get more out of this series when I read it a second time. And it's great to look at, too.
Batwoman - You just have to study the artwork, so I often end up reading it again.
The Valiant relaunches - Just really excited by this universe, so I find myself rereading a lot of the issues.

[boshuda]

I don't reread anything anymore. There are just too many comics out now, plus the older stuff I haven't yet read. My long box is full of current stuff, and there's a stack on my bookshelf of just New 52 that's about 3 feet tall now. Plus all of the trades I've picked up... I need to take all of my vacation time in one swoop and rent a cabin or something to catch up. I'm having fun reading the original Avengers run on my lunch break (I have those digital so I can read them on my work machine). But I've never read them so it's a read not a reread.

If I had the time to re-read them I would reread my Classic X-Men (reprints of the Byrne/Cockrum/Claremont/etc) comics. I love those, and read some of them into near obliteration. That was a great series to be reading as a kid because they were great stories and I could pick up back issues really cheaply. Except for issue #8 for some reason. That took some work to find.

I would also like to get a better chronology of the (relatively) recent Marvel Cosmic stuff and read those in order once again. That was an awesome read.

[spid]

I do not do a ton of rereading of books these days, but I do spend a lot of time combing through issues I've read. I spend a lot of time over a Comic Book DB so I do a lot of quick flip through type of searches through back issues.

A book John brought, Morning Glories, I have to "flip through" every couple of months to make sure a character has not appeared before the present issue. It really helps to keep a book like Morning Glories straight even if I am not really reading the back issue.

[ctowner1]

I'll sometimes reread a series when it's relatively contained and coming to an end. For example, I read all of Ex Machina and all of 100 Bullets shortly before the final volumes came out.

I'm a little afraid to reread some of my much older beloved comic stories - for fear I'll think they suck now and lose a nice memory of them! lol

Aside from that, it's all I can do to read my new stuff and stuff I buy at shows. I have a TPB backlog at least 50 deep and a singles backlog of at least 200 or so.

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[fudd71]

I am continually rereading my collection. I read the new books I get for the week with in three or four days, this usually leaves me the weekend and Monday evenings when my wife is at choir practice to go back and reread something.

[ctowner1]

another thing that keeps me away from rereading my comics is that I'm also reading prose books - and there's plenty of those around to read! lol

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