Tales of Syzpense #57

Parting with the comic collection... part of it, anyway. Plus: DragonCon, a new Vs series, and Spinning Wheels

Among the other things I’ve been wrangling since Comic-Con — including a weeklong bout with covid directly following the show — I sold something like 80% of my comic collection.

Now, most of what I sold off were the books acquired throughout my childhood, bought with the meager funds that a paper route and then a fast-food job provided back in the day. And for the most part, I sold off comics filled with stories that have been collected in books that line my bookshelves. So the stories themselves are still here in some form — multiple forms, in many cases, although I’m trying to get better about that, too — but I still felt a massive sense of loss after pulling aside the comics, inventorying all of them, boxing them all up (25 boxes, roughly 5,000 comics), and getting them all securely packaged and ready to ship.

I’ve been working toward this for a while — mentally, at least — and have donated a few boxes to the Comic-Con Museum and other places already, but still. It felt weird.

But it also felt good, in a way — at a certain point, decades of comic books start to overwhelm all available space. Especially since I’m still making comics and have plenty of new boxes of comps and copies to contend with, in addition to the lifelong collection.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are still a lot of comics here. The two spinner racks remain full; the boxes in my office cabinets haven’t gone anywhere; and anyone else would maybe be hard-pressed to notice the difference. I mean, this is the “after” picture in my office, where 12 short boxes and one spinner rack still occupy space:

In the early days of the pandemic, my version of making my own bread was organizing all my comics.

This was how I relaxed. First by adding dividers with logos, and then eventually bagging and boarding all of the comics, too. When we moved in years ago, the garage had these great drawers built in, presumably for actual tools or reasonable storage… but I also discovered that they held two or three rows of comics. I quickly filled all 10 drawers. Organizing everything just sort of drove home the point that it was all getting to be a bit too much.

When your collection starts to resemble a retail store, it’s maybe time to consider cutting back a bit…

It’s hard to do. And in the past when I’ve sold or donated boxes of comics, I find myself re-buying some of them at conventions because I missed ‘em. (And I’ll probably do that again at times.) After all, these were comics acquired over the course of my life, read and re-read, loved and re-loved.

But some of ‘em needed to go.

A lot, as it turned out. Once the seal is broken, and I either broke long runs by only keeping the ones I wanted or that meant a lot to me (Maria Kondo would no doubt be disgusted by just how many comics I held onto because they all still spark joy for me), it got easier. And after the boxes were finally shipped out, I’ll admit I felt relief more than loss. But loss was there, too. It’s funny how it works — I was okay parting with many of the more financially valuable issues — the first cover showing Spider-Man’s black costume (well, I already miss that one), say, or the introduction of Cable — but many of the comics I was determined to keep are worth next to nothing on the open market. The emotional value is much higher. Or maybe the cover just looks good in the spinner rack, which is my primary reason for keeping anything now.

Sadly, the 10 drawers are now down to 2 (well, the other 8 are now largely filled with Syzygy’s archives and backstock. I tell you, the missing 25 boxes of comics are pretty much only noticeable to me), and now categorized more for the spinner-rack themes than anything else:

It’s not like purging a chunk of the collection purged the collector gene, though—already, I’d decided that as much as the bulk of the money that the collection will bring in is going to go toward making new comics, well, some of it at least has to go toward picking up a few new/old books that’ll dress up the spinner racks.

And the cycle continues.

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Feeding the Beast

In October, Syzygy’ll be releasing The Feeding, David M. Booher & Drew Zucker’s horrific one-shot.

The creators did a new interview about the book at Dynamic Forces, which you can find here, and an array of nice quotes about the book are below, too.

Here’s a look at the story pages as well:

But prior to that issue, coming in September is Self Help 4, which I have to think is one of the first comics to have a cover (beautifully illustrated by Stephen Byrne) featuring a certain emoji in such a prominent place:

And then the first miniseries wraps up a month later with these covers:

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Comic News, Cons, and Miscellani

News first: Michael Eury, who’s worked in comics for decades — his work as an editor at DC was the first time I remember seeing his name, but it’s been his work running and writing for various TwoMorrows publications — my favorite being Back Issue — where he’s really done his most notable work, preserving and reporting on so many different eras, creators, and the assorted side streets of comics.

He’d mentioned that this day was coming and the reasons behind it, but this week, Michael announced his official retirement from the publications, effective August 30, and I just wanted to salute him for all of his great, entertaining, and important work from across his varied career. My wish for Michael is that he is able to enjoy many happy and peaceful days as he transitions to this next phase. Cheers to a life well lived, Michael, and thank you.

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Sergio Aragones has been largely absent from the convention scene since covid, as his family hasn’t wanted to risk him getting sick. Nor should they—the man’s a treasure, and has been for more decades than most of us may ever see, and I’d like that to continue on and on.

Sergio, who’s still drawing away for Mad Magazine, his own series Groo the Wanderer, and who knows what else, posted this picture, taken late July, and it made me feel good to see him looking happy amidst the beauty of Ojai, and so I wanted to share it here.

Here There Be DragonCons

I’m finally headed to DragonCon in Atlanta this weekend! DragonCon is one of those shows you hear so much about but I’ve never been able to go before now. I’ll be hanging with the below group of creators all weekend long, so if you plan to attend, please come say hey!

There’s still a little over two weeks to go for the Mounties vs Werewolves Kickstarter campaign from two of my DragonCon tablemates, Guy Dorian Sr. and Larry Hama, too. Check it out here!

Finally, Duane Świerczyński kindly sent me a copy of his upcoming 20th anniversary reissue of Secret Dead Men, his first novel. I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything Duane has written over the past two decades, but this one has remained a blind spot for me — I think Severance Package (2008) was my first, and then everything since (in addition to a couple of his non-fiction books about booze, which were a lot of fun, too). So this one is a welcome addition, and its arrival is perfectly timed with my long flights over Labor Day weekend.

Duane reworked bits of the novel, too — and in doing so, he said it spurred ideas for a sequel he’s now working on as well. (And anyone who’s read Duane’s Charlie Hardie trilogy knows well that his sequels get increasingly wild as they go).

Anyway, the book, now published by Titan Books, is out September 24. The new package looks great, too:

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Spinning Wheels

I may have sold some of the comics that helped comprise various spinner-rack themes but for the most part, I did keep many of those. And as I was going through the boxes in preparation of saying a final goodbye to ‘em, I noticed more than a few with rather ludicrous cars on the covers. Some where homages to the first prominent comic to feature a car on its cover, Action Comics 1, but others, well, it’s not really so much of a theme as it is just a motif that deserved a longer look here:

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Finally

Cartoon by Garrett Price from The New Yorker, 1949

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