Start Collecting Comics

The world of comic books is a universe all its own. It's a world that has its own language, its own celebrities and even its own universe. This is a world where artists and creators are honored for their work in god-like status and a few pages bound together with a staple or two that can leave a person drooling just to look at it through a glass case. But how do you break into this world? How do you begin collecting these little pieces of art and literature?

The first thing to do is read. Read the comics that you are interested in. Go to any comic book store, or even a book store, and find the comics you truly enjoy. Find a character that you like and can get into. Find a character that in some way, shape, or form speaks to you, and you want to follow his adventures. Because when it comes down to it, a comic book is an illustrated blog of a person who has extraordinary powers living a day to day life. However, that day to day life is interrupted by equally amazing people trying to destroy the world, and that character has to stop it.

You don't have to pick just one. Pick two or three characters if you really enjoy them. But, this is where you must be cautioned by your wallet. Comic books come out once to twice a month, depending on how the publishing dates fall. A comic book nowadays costs between $1.50-2.00. That means a that if you are going to collect one character's title it will cost you that much per month. However, if you're going to branch out to 2-3 characters, well, you can do the math.

Once you start reading a title, it is inevitable that you will want to know what happened before you started reading this magazine. For example, Amazing Spider-Man is now on number 565. That is 500 comics that have a lot of history that you know nothing about. What did happen to your character last year to make him think this young man walking down the road seemed suspicious? Why does your character not want to talk to that person, or that pizza delivery guy? The more you read the more you will want to know. That's OK, every comic book store will have a huge selection of back issues. You can go in and thumb through these back issues and start buying them as well as your monthly selection. As you do this, you'll notice the art change, the wording change, and even the story lines change. You become deeper and deeper into the character's life. Soon you're gathering a collection of your favorite character.

Again be cautious, these back issues are only cheap in the more recent years. The farther back you go the more expensive the comics get. The basic rule of thumb is that the older the comic the more expensive it is. Now you are really getting into comic book collecting. Suddenly the one issue you really want, that says the one thing you wanted to see in the comic; or the number 15 book to continue your run of 50 books is something you just must have; you are now in the comic book collecting world. You now understand the reason why a person would pay 10, 20, 50, 500 dollars on one comic book.

So go out and enjoy the adventure of collecting comic books. Most of all, enjoy the story, the art, and the way that the adventure is put together. Enjoy the history of the character, and know that this is one of the few genres of collecting in the world where publishers, artists, and literary word smiths are revered as the talented people they are