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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2022 6:33:44 GMT -5
One stereotype over the ages of comic book readers is that, shocking as this may be to hear, some of us are a wee bit on the nerdy side (I of course take umbrage with that statement, I am exceedingly nerdy!)
But light-hearted personality joking aside, I feel like I run into more people in this hobby who are not just "human encyclopedias" of comic book knowledge, but often have a fairly broad range of other interests with lots of other depth of knowledge, a bit the concept of the "polymath" if you will.
And I find that also to be one of the more pleasurable parts of the comic book community at times. I have a good friend who I met at work and similarly it started with just a "hey, we both like Star Wars". Now our discussions range from presidential histories to quantum computing.
I reflect on this not to necessarily stroke our egos (hey, we know we're smart lol), but more interested in others' opinions on the following as well as any other observations on the topic:
1) How prevalent do you feel this really is in our hobby, do you find this to be the case more broadly or is it more "birds of a feather flock together" at times like a community here where it feels like people seem to connect really well overall?
2) Did comic books themselves fuel any of your broader interests? In my case, I read Spider-Man at a very early age, and I still remember going into 1st grade in elementary school already really interested in learning science like Peter and hoping there would be a real laboratory I could see.
What do folks think?
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Post by commond on Apr 15, 2022 8:47:04 GMT -5
My hobbies are basically sports, movies, music, comics, TV and wrestling. As a kid, they were connected, but as an adult my hobbies have waxed and waned. I went 20 years without reading comics, a good 15 years without watching a TV show. I haven't gone through a film phase in a few years. I generally go through cycles when it comes to hobbies. I'm in the middle of a heavy comics phase but in a few months it could be something else. Occasionally, my hobbies overlap, but I find that's mostly with the music that's used in film and TV. The one thing they all have in common is my obsessive need to learn everything I can about said hobby and discover new things.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2022 8:52:14 GMT -5
The one thing they all have in common is my obsessive need to learn everything I can about said hobby and discover new things. Yeah, in many ways I think we are collectors of knowledge as much if not more so than the actual “collectibles” themselves many times!
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Apr 15, 2022 10:49:40 GMT -5
When I was younger I juggled a bunch of hobbies simultaneously-comics, wrestling, movies, sports, music-but when I reached my mid-20s I started to focus more obsessively on one or two at a time, and let the others fall by the wayside, sometimes for a few years, sometimes for many years. Music was my big focus for most of my 20s, wrestling for my 30s, and now in my 40s, after barely reading anything for about a dozen years, comics have regained primacy. Lately, I've also been devoting increasing time to baseball history, film history, and to following my beloved Philadelphia Eagles
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Post by MDG on Apr 15, 2022 12:09:51 GMT -5
Comics led me directly to my interest in 20th century illustration, esp mid-century illustration.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2022 14:29:12 GMT -5
I've got two geeky, nerdy hobbies....I collect comics and stamps, and don't care what anyone thinks.
And sometimes,both worlds collide
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2022 14:53:01 GMT -5
I've got two geeky, nerdy hobbies....I collect comics and stamps, and don't care what anyone thinks.
And sometimes,both worlds collide
Do you ever feel a little conflicted on where to focus your purchases between the two? Sometimes I'm like "I could buy this guitar, OR...this really nice Silver Age book".
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,051
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Post by Confessor on Apr 15, 2022 15:26:55 GMT -5
I don't know anyone else in the real world who is into comics like I am...that's why I come here to hang out with all you dorks! Seriously though, comics aren't even my main hobby; that would be music. Along with playing music professionally, I have a very eclectic range of musical tastes and over the years many of my friends have made note of my encyclopaedic knowledge of music from a wide range of genres. So yeah, I can hold forth and discuss a number of subjects in depth like I would about comics. I think really I just like learning and accruing knowledge -- especially when it comes to subjects I'm passionately interested in like music, history, politics and, yes, comics.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2022 15:31:31 GMT -5
Do you ever feel a little conflicted on where to focus your purchases between the two? Sometimes I'm like "I could buy this guitar, OR...this really nice Silver Age book".
Add jewellery, new shoes, my whole wardrobe to the mix......
The fun thing about comics, they help pay for themselves....I took advantage of the last boom and sold off quite a bit and made some decent cash...
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Apr 15, 2022 15:34:27 GMT -5
I've probably collected and retained more information in the industry I've worked a job in the last 22 years than I do any of my hobbies. It might really be why I can't retain other knowledge or memories of things I've read. I am always continuing to read in general; comics, poetry, novels, non-fiction (on various topics) to learn things. It's just retaining them. For example I can recall part numbers from a manufacturer that I worked for 20 years ago but have to think for a minute to remember birthdays when I go to the pharmacy to pick up medicine for my family. As far as actual hobbies its comics and/or reading in general and video games. I've focused on those mostly since around the time I turned 30, as the kids got older and I had to devote more time with them as they started going to school and such. But I thoroughly do enjoy both of my hobbies. As far as communities, like ours here, I enjoy because we all have different knowledge of different subjects and it amazes me a lot the things I learn here, not just about comics, because our conversations many times go off on a tangent from comics and I learn something new.
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 15, 2022 22:19:08 GMT -5
I can only speak personally; but, I tend to want to know more about subjects that capture my interest. My dad was like that. He'd pick up library books to learn how to do things, like a book on square foot gardening, after he and my mom moved into a duplex, after having a large garden, from years. He would grow beans and tomatoes, for their own consumption, while we always had beans, tomatoes, corn, strawberries, rhubarb =, and some other vegetables, from the garden behind our house, growing up. He introduced us to the joys of a library early on; so, I was always looking for something interesting to read, either a great story, an interesting biography or a non-fiction book. We also had a set of World Book Encyclopedias. I am from a family of 5, with one bathroom. I learned early on to get into the bathroom early, to have hot water and be able to eat breakfast on my terms. So, I was usually waiting on everyone else and often pulled out a random volume and started flipping through it, looking for interesting articles. World Book was very visually-oriented, so it was easy to find something of note. I started spotting entries about mythology and would then go looking for others. The entries on presidents would have a picture/portrait and then illustrations or images of events during their administration. That might lead to other articles. If something caught my eye, I usually wanted to know more and would look for other reference material or other stories by that writer or similar stories by other writers.
Comics helped introduce me to pulp literature and certain cartoonists and artists and a few writers. I also watched a lot of movies and they spawned interests in different things. We watched the film Zeppelin, with Michael York and Elke Sommer, on tv and I became fascinated with airships and started reading anything I could find about them. Ken Adams is directly responsible, along with some of the buildings of my childhood, in inspiring an interest in Mid-Century Modern Design. I loved those sets on the Bond films and the type of furniture generally used, the open spaces, natural and manufactured materials, and the shapes and things.
Movies got me interested in history and I would read about whatever event, person, war, or similar topic caught my eye. The 70s tv broadcasts included a lot of 60s movies (especially late or weekend movies). Those action pieces got me interested in the actual wars and what really happened. The Guns of Navarone had me fascinated with the gun emplacements and complex and then I stumbled across an article in our Encyclopedias, about the Maginot Line fortifications and support structures, complete with cutaway drawings and I saw where the filmmakers got their ideas. History also showed that, like in the film, the fort was too often built for one type of defense and couldn't handle things a commando attack, like the German neutralization of Eben-Emael, in Belgium.
I always loved comics; but, it was the late 70s before I saw a book about comics, either as history or pop culture and I soon devoured those.
I do think that collecting tends to appeal to people who have obsessive personalities, which fuels a desire to learn more about their interests, leading to in-depth knowledge on a wide array of subjects. Even if it isn't expert knowledge, it is conversant knowledge.
My personal interest, aside from comics and comic history, include: New Wave Music, pro wrestling, martial arts, concept cars, helicopters, the space program, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, book and magazine illustration/storytelling art, animation, sci-fi movies, Japanese hero tv shows, movie serials, pulp literature, French pulp literature, Victorian adventure fiction, military history, general history, biographies, Native American history and mythology, world mythology, archeology, graphic design, humorists, spy-fi literature and cinema, spaghetti westerns, Euro-Spy films, Macaroni Combat movies, movie serials of Louis Feuillade (Fantomas, Judex, Les Vampyres), Fritz Lang's German films and especially the Mabuse films (and the 60s series) and on and on. Some interests were spawned by comics, others by film, others by a mixture of things.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2022 6:44:12 GMT -5
I really love all the responses here, and as a number of folks have mentioned, there really is a great exchange of ideas here on many topics well beyond comic books themselves.
I think part of my reason for starting this thread is at work where I routinely interact with a large number of people, I don't find many of them have a lot of interests beyond say football and happy hour. And that's ok too if that's what folks like, so not a condescending observation, but I often just wonder "why" don't they have a little more curiosity about the world or hobbies or whatnot.
For myself, the big 2 are comic books and music. Comic books are probably my "happy place" overall, music is more something just in my soul even though I'm no longer a "working musician" in the traditional sense as a guitar player. I have a huge music library, a bit of that "encyclopedic knowledge" one gets when one is deep into something for many years, and a never-ending desire to learn more, plus I still love practicing guitar.
Science is probably my biggest calling after that, with wide ranging interests in astronomy, particle physics, evolutionary history of the Earth and paleontology, oceanography, zoology, marine biology, gems and minerals, and materials science. I'm truly happiest in a natural history museum.
Other major interests include mid-late 19th century US history and my coin and paper money collecting are primarily from this era. I enjoy studying the ancient world, with key interests in Mesopotamian history, and all of the varied Greek writings (history, philosophy, drama, etc.) I also actively seek out complete game footage of 70's sports, particularly baseball and hockey. Plus action figures and various other toys.
The list could keep going on, but again as others have said, it's the quest for knowledge that's really common to all of these.
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Apr 18, 2022 14:34:14 GMT -5
My other interest is hockey. I am a HUGE Leafs fan. Watch every game and have since I was a teen. I enjoy hockey in general and it is the only sport I would consider myself extremely knowledgeable of.
Outside of that, I am a teacher. I teach math. I like stand up comedy. Where I live I have not met many who collect comics. I have a close friend who collects though (and collects other stuff I don't like toys, mainly Star Wars and GI Joe). He is also a teacher. So I feel in that way we connect because neither one of use knows anybody else in our age range (30-45) that collect the way we do. Our city is not very large (75000) and we are a good 3.5 hours from any other major city of similar or larger size so we kind of feel isolated in our collecting ways. I wouldn't say I gravitate towards others who collect stuff though...I collect for me and while it is nice to have a friend with a similar interest, it is equally nice being "one of a kind" in a way for my area. Also ensures no one else is hunting for books which, are hard to find but definitely exist where I am.
A lot of people I have met or interact with or sell to nowawadays are my age or younger but I would not say I connect with them. They are always after keys for the most part, and even if I met them in person, I can tell that I probably would not hang out with them. They just don't seem like I am. Sure they seem to have an appreciation for comics but something about them I don't click with. Now, older collectors (in the 45-70 range) I could talk to all day long. I feel more connected to them despite being much younger.
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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 20, 2022 11:28:46 GMT -5
I was a contestant on Jeopardy! in 1994. That show is basically a polymath quiz.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2022 11:56:40 GMT -5
I was a contestant on Jeopardy! in 1994. That show is basically a polymath quiz. Totally...I probably could have called the thread "any other Cliff Clavins here?" lol! Very cool to hear you were on Jeopardy, would love to hear any other details about the experience including what it was like meeting Alex.
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