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For me, evaluation is a regular occurrence when it comes to the titles I read. After a time I have to look at them and ask, "Am I really still interested in this?" I believe everyone who reads comics asks this question from time to time. In my life the choice after that is usually to see where the current story goes and drop afterwards or continue. The third choice that happens now and then is when I "know" the title is likely to be cancelled (sometimes facts give this information, sometimes my gut does) and I stay with it to get the full run as I am a bit of a completist.
Well, life seems to be changing right now. It's a time of evaluation over all. I know I'm not going to quit reading comics. However, I think that with current prices being what they are, I have to really look at more options than just holding out on a series or dropping it completely. It is now time for me to look at the concept of reading via trades.
Reading via trades never really entered into my options before as I have been afraid that people doing so hurt the market due to their influx of money not being "regular" as with a monthly title. Still, it works for some and now it may work for me. The new glitch however is that companies like Marvel are taking the new hardcover route for their trades at times. Now for some titles, it's monthly issues first, hardcover trades second and softcover trades third. That means anything I decide to go the trade route with I may find myself waiting for for quite a while until I can read what I'm interested in. Still, that looks to be how things are going to work.
I have already made the decision that I will be going the trade route with Project Superpowers titles. It is likely that I will also go that route with any new Battlestar Galactica titles after the Ghosts series. A different concern with those trades is that companies like Dynamite and IDW sometimes have trades that can cost more than the single issues. IDW is really bad about that in regards to the titles I read from them. That is the risk I am willing to take though, as my other option is that of quitting a title.
With that being said I now know that I am dropping Thunderbolts, Moon Knight, Ghost Rider and Titans after their current stories are done or when I think it's a good enough point to drop clean. I'm a bit mixed about Titans, but right now it's more that I'm reading it for the characters than the stories and that's just not enough for me (same reason I decided to stop watching the Terminator television series). Deadpool is looking to already be going the way of the Dodo in my life as the first story was interesting but I don't care about the secret invasion AT ALL, and while the current take on Deadpool is unique, it's just not fun like the past series have been. I am not planning on purchasing any of these in a trade at this time either. If I hear good things about one of them it could happen, but I'm guessing that isn't going to be the case.
As much as I hate to say this I feel like this has a bit to do with "growing up" on some levels. It's time for me to really look at how much money I spend on comics (which is quite a lot) and what I'm getting out of them. There are some titles I know would have to go seriously awry for me to get tired of them, but the question is starting to change from, "Do I really want to be getting this?" to "Do I have to be getting this now?" That's always a tough point to come to. As I mentioned earlier I have had serious concerns about how trades affect the industry, but they seem to becoming more and more a part of how things go in the long run.
It took me a long time to get to a point where I could really say, "That's it, I'm done" with a title, but now I can do it more easily. Of course, now that I can do that more easily the new question of what I can put off until a trade comes out is the challenge. I guess that's why they call it evaluating though, because you have to put some actual thought into the process. Well, if you want it to be a quality evaluation it should have thought. I must admit that I never imagined I'd be at this point. Perhaps it is a natural progression in a comic reader's life. Time will tell.
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