Well, since my virtual collection is (or will be by the time I'm done with this project) pretty much everything I've ever wanted, the stuff I'm currently collecting in the originals are mostly personal favorites and quirky odds and ends. Since I'll never be able to afford all the comics I'd ideally like to own, I've resigned myself to collecting attainable runs of characters and series to which I have a personal connection, such as all the Earth-Two material, Silver Age Marvel annuals, favorite indie titles like Nexus or Crossfire, and so on. As you say, the chase is half the fun and I still have plenty of chasing to look forward to.

Cei-U!
I summon the never ending quest!

I honestly think I am now. Or at least for the foreseeable future. I might aimlessly buy stuff and still get TPB's at the library. But every time I say online "I need to get that" I find that I can never justify it to myself at this point in my life. And when I think I've got 6000 comics and maybe 70 or so TPB that mostly have only been read once; how can I justify buying more. I'm okay that, barring extreme financial duress I'll never sell much of what I have. But I'm not going to buy much of anything else. Maybe Cerebus TPB at some point. But I'm in no rush.

And the only goal I had that I put any effort into at any point was owning anything with Starlin's name on it. Otherwise my buying was pretty aimless.

I've never been the kind of collector that has a goal. I buy stuff that I want to read when I find it for a good price... sometimes that means hunting down particular issues, sometimes it means cool stuff from a quarter bin, sometimes it means a good deal from an ebay auction from a seller has something else I want.

I have been trying to buy less impulsively while I catch up on things I've never read, and I do sometimes get rid of stuff I don't think I'll even touch again.

Msotly odds and ends, at this point, but there are quite a few of those, potentially. I doubt if I'll ever have everything I want because I keep learning about new things, here at the CCF especially. For example, I never thought I'd be interested in Savage Sword of Conan beyond the early issues I already had, until I read RR's amazing SSoC review thread: now there are many later issues I'd like to get.

One thing I'd like to do is track down more work by favourite artists who didn't work consistently form one company or have a long run on a few specific titles - Gray Morrow is a prime example. This can be a challenge, as the work tends to be scattered across a wide range of titles, a story here and and a story there, and you have to decide if you want to shell out for a comic that might contain only 5 or 6 pages of interest.

My primary "goal" remains filling in the holes of my batman run between 300-present. About 20 issues to go. I'm also after a few keys which I'll get probably sooner rather than later. That's reallly it. I'll likely end up looking to complete my detective run too by filling about 30 holes between 500-present, and I'm undecided but thinking of going for a complete original teen titans run.

I don't know that I have an end game in mind. I just kind of pick up stuff that interests me that I either want to read or experience from an artwork/visual storytelling point of view. Sometimes it's stuff I want to curate and display (things like the Darwyn Cooke variants or sketch covers I have commissioned), but most times its stuff I want to read that I never had the chance to before because I was too busy buying big 2 super-hero stuff or (in the case of the second tier super-hero stuff I am still interested in checking out) bigger name titles of the big 2 stuff.

I spent a lot of years amassing a big Silver Age Marvel collection and some pieces of a Silver Age DC collection, but once I sold it off in preparation for moving halfway across the country and getting married, I really lost any desire to own that stuff in original format. It just feels "been there done that before" to me now. I have some of it in collected formats and some available via Marvel Unlimited to reread when the mood strikes but I feel no desire or need to own it in original format.

At times I toy with recreating the "collection" I had as a kid in the 70s, the stuff I remember buying off the stands or getting form neighbors or in those polybagged 3 packs and having when I was kid between '73 and '79, and I do occasionally pick up some of those when I see them on the cheap at shows or stores, but I don't have a real drive to pursue it if it becomes costly, so I doubt it will ever get done.

I suppose I will stop when there's nothing else I want to track down to read or I lose the love of the thrill of the hunt and no longer get enjoyment form doing shows and finding new stores or revisiting stores I have been to. I've lost the love before and taken long breaks from comics, and I am sure it will happen again, and I am sure one of those times it does, I won't get the bug to come back like I have before. Until then, I'll jut keep on doing what I do as long as I enjoy it.

-M