Call me old fashioned, but to me collecting is not what it used to be.
I collect lots of things however comic books, toys and books are my favorites.
Whatever happened to comic books? When did they suddenly become 'events'? Whatever happened to stories that contained simple messages and were fun to read? I read comics to escape reality, not wallow in it.
Don't get me wrong, the art has never been better and the stories more complex nor the characters more fleshed out. It's just that the fun has gone out of collecting and reading them.
Comic books to me were an escape into my own private fantasy. Now, with mega-conventions, mega-mega movies, merchandising, etc. comic books have become a medium of the masses.
Comic book conventions were places where comic book readers sat around and talked comics.
Now they look more like artist galleries, the New York Stock Exchange and locations to act weird, dress weirder and raise hell.
Toys were originally meant to play with. No one worried or speculated how much they would go up in value. A kid could afford a toy. Nowadays toys hover between $10 and $20 for a simple action figure. Playsets, vehicles? Forget it-take out a second mortgage!
No one 'plays' with toys anymore. No, they hoard them away, unopened and wait for mystical Money Fairy to touch them with her magic wand and make them as precious as gold.
Books are meant to be held and read. They are to be cherished and saved. They are comfort food for the mind. They are meant to be looked at whenever the literary urge hits.
E-books aren't books. They are digital impostors that pop up and appear for a time and vanish back into the binary universe.
My point is-collecting has become an industry, not a hobby. E-bay, Craig's List - the whole social network phenomenon has successfully squelched the thrill of the hunt. Why hunt when you can find it at the push of a few buttons?
Collecting has transformed from whole, unfiltered milk consumed by a few to homogenized, watered down milk of the masses.
