I Can't Get No Satisfaction....

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I Can't Get No Satisfaction....
By Philip Schweier
January 25, 2009 - 17:11

The animated cast of Star Trek

As comic book fans, it’s safe to say we’re all collectors, and as such it is important that our respective collections be as complete as possible. It’s likely that a Star Trek fan will collect not only the original series on DVD, but also the subsequent feature films and spin-off series, including the animated Star Trek.

Two things are common to collectors. For one, we all like to enjoy our chosen item. It’s not enough that we have it stuck up on a shelf or filed away in a closet. We want to take it out and look at it and appreciate it. We flip through our comic books, listen to our record albums, and watch our John Wayne movies.

The other thing is we appreciate the completeness of a collection, even if portions there of are more than a little suspect for one reason or another. Someone collecting X-Men titles might also include old issues of The Champions from the 1970s, simply because they also feature Iceman, the Angel and the Beast.

With that in mind, why is it I have such a hard time remaining satisfied with my collection for more than a day or so? For instance, I’m in the process of replacing my old taped-off-cable-TV VHS James Bond films with pristine new store-bought DVDs. Since in some instances, only two movies will fit on a video cassette, I have already replaced one film but not another. I find this intolerable, and am just itching to get my hands on some of the later Roger Moore films, even though I never cared for him in the role.

My comic collection is also a challenge, especially in the wake of certain crossovers between Batman and Detective Comics and Superman and Action Comics. It’s a filing nightmare to have part of a story in one box, and alternating chapters in another. I guess that’s just another argument for why waiting for the trade isn’t such a bad idea.

Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me

Of course, ebay is a great place to scrounge up items to include in a collection, but often that proves problematic. Not long ago, I found A View to a Kill at an extremely affordable price, but my anal-retentive filing system required that I make a special effort to locate Octopussy. And I’m still waiting to add Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Live and Let Die to my collection.

Meanwhile other films are quietly backing up on my shelves, waiting patiently for me to crack them open and enjoy them, as well assorted comics in long, involved story arcs. Remember the Bat-murderer saga from the mid-1970s? Kinda pointless for me to read only disjointed sections of the story, until I get all the chapters.

It makes me study my want list endlessly, trying to figure out a way to buy the least number of issues and consolidate some lists while disposing of others. A year ago my list came in at a whopping (for me, anyway) 17 pages. Since then I’ve managed to trim it down to 12. But by buying a handful of key issues (six, maybe?), I can discard another three pages.

Call me OCD, call me anal retentive, it just reminds me of another character trait among collectors – we like order. Everything follows a system of some sort, whether it’s alpha-numeric or by the thickness of the dust that eventually gathers upon.

Steve Guttenberg and Daniel Stern in Diner

If you’ve never seen the movie Diner (1982), there’s a scene with Daniel Stern and Ellen Barkin as he chews her out for getting his precious record collection out of order. He’s appalled at how carefree she is when filing his albums away. “Everything’s a procedure to you,” she argues. “I just wanna hear the music.”

Of course my wife and I have never had any such discussion in our house. She knows better than to get my comic books out of order. As for my Diner DVD, it right where I left it last time I watched it: top shelf of my closet, far right, between A Christmas Story and The Hudsucker Proxy.

Who’s crazy now?

Praise and adulation? Scorn and ridicule? E-mail me at philip@comicbookbin.com.