Money vs. Collecting & Future's End Thoughts

This week I did something I never thought I might do.  I dropped Buffy The Vampire Slayer from my pull box at the Comic Shop.  I have been collecting Buffy TVS since the very first issue back in the late 1990's.  I stuck with this title through thick and thin.  I was able to get B&W advance issues in the mail in the early days of my reviewing adventure.  It is the book that brought me to my current shop when the place I was at started to not have it in my pull box.  I was in Divinity School and would pick up my comics as I drove back on breaks back home.  Yet, I dropped Buffy.  I also cut X-O Manowar, Wonder Woman, The Phantom Stranger, and Witchblade.  

These cuts were about money.  I found out Phantom Stranger was ending anyway so that was a moot point.  Wonder Woman had been meandering for me and I felt i could look to trades now for that book.  Otherwise these were just cuts due to the cost of the titles.  I have had to become strict with what I will purchase over the $3 price.  When in reality you get 22 pages of story it needs to capture my attention every week.  I am not going to get drawn in by the crossover fever that hits every company.  It just isn't in my ability to buy all your books for you "BIG EVENT" that happens every couple of months.  I had to start cutting deeper.  

Future's End might have a different effect on my DC buying.  I still am digging the Earth 2 books.  This five year jump probably will not bother me there.  I am looking to stop my Lantern buys possibly.  The paths and ends these books took seem to be away from what draws me to love those stories.  Might be time for a clean break and look to trades.  Aquaman is a toss up.  It might be good, but I liked the Mera that was not so battle scarred.  I liked the balance of her in a grocery store buying dog food or threatening to feed a terrorist to a sea monster.  I just am not sure that Future's End will keep me at the levels I have been.

Money is tight.  Medicine is a constant.  Pay is stagnant.  I have to cut my one enjoyable thing, comic collecting.  It is sad.  Especially when I have so little that can give me a break from worry and stress.  Some love to hit little balls over pastures, others run/peddle/etc., some catch fish and other things.  Me, I collect stories.  I savor them and love just falling into those worlds and getting lost for a bit.  

So fare the well, Buffy.  You have been a constant companion since the TV show Savannah was canceled and I watched the replacement in that now gone dorm room in Buies Creek.

BDS