Evaluating The Pull List

I’ve been mentioning for months now a growing perception that I’m not buying very much on a weekly basis. That feeling has certainly been supported by my annual statistics analysis regarding raw dollars spent, so it felt like time to do another one of these check-in lists. Here are the books I’m currently purchasing regularly, along with a few notes, caveats, exceptions, and some thoughts about what’s on the horizon:

Invincible Iron Man
Uncanny X-Force
Scalped
Wasteland
Northlanders
DMZ
Echo
Sweets
The New York Five

As it stands, that’s just 9 books that I’m currently buying with any semblance of regularity. By my totally subjective eye, 9 is a small number compared to what I used to be buying on a monthly basis, and it gets even smaller when you dig into it. The last two books on that list, The New York Five and Sweets, are mini-series which have just a single issue left, so let’s cross them off. While Echo has been an ongoing series, there’s just one issue left of that as well, so let’s remove it too. DMZ will be concluded in December. So if you discount all of those, we’re now down to just 5 books being regularly purchased. Wasteland has had a very erratic publishing schedule the last year or so; based on that I’m inclined to almost discount it based on not qualifying in the loose “regular monthly series” classification. Along those lines, I didn’t include the very worst examples of late-but-not-officially-cancelled books like Desolation Jones (which seems ludicrous to even consider now that WildStorm is no more), Fell (though Warren Ellis swears he’s working on the next issue) or Kabuki (though we don’t hear much from David Mack any more either way). We have to draw the line somewhere though and not speculate on technicalities, like what if the quality of Uncanny X-Force starts to slip and it gets cut, or what if something beloved like Scalped, Northlanders, or Wasteland were cancelled (gasp!), so let’s hold it there at 5. That seems reasonable.

As far as possible additions to the line-up based on what I see online or in Previews, there’s nothing much I know about that would be a guaranteed buy-on-sight sort of deal. Jonathan Hickman just announced The Red Wing at Image Comics later this year, a 4 issue mini I’ll likely pick up since I tend to enjoy his creator owned stuff, but at 4 issues that obviously won’t last long to boost my numbers. If Matt Fraction’s Casanova ever gets beyond the colored reprints and publishes new material, I’d be on board. If Batwoman ever truly comes out, I’ll be picking that up. Brian Wood had hinted in an interview about a new ongoing that would fill the gap in the line-up left by the departure of DMZ, so if/when it materializes, I’m obviously on board for that or anything else he might have in the pipe. Warren Ellis is always good for a mini-series or two per year, but none of these are very concrete at the moment. You also can’t count what you don’t know about, a new mystery book, something like a Wasteland coming out of nowhere that you’re instantly attracted too. Unknowns aside, you can see the problem here. As books are phased out of my personal line-up, they’re not being replaced by anything that could be characterized as a proportionate response.

I’ve never done this before, but even if I trying pad the list and bolster the numbers by capturing small press and mini-comics titles, it doesn’t really help. Most mini-comics just don’t function as ongoing series, and even fewer boast anything resembling a monthly schedule. It’s just the nature of the beast. So while I know for certain that I’ll be purchasing forthcoming issues of titles like Blammo by Noah Van Sciver, And Then One Day by Ryan Claytor, Trigger by Mike Bertino, Reich by Elijah Brubaker, or Jessica Farm by Josh Simmons, these books are quarterly or annual at best. In fact, I think Reich might actually be on hiatus, and Jessica Farm is actually only published every 8 years, so it hardly counts. Even if I do count a mystery Brian Wood or Warren Ellis project on the horizon along with one of these elusive mini-comics in an effort to artificially inflate the pull, it only pulls the total number from 5 to 7, which is still pitiful to me.

I feel like my regular weekly pilgrimage is hanging on by a frayed thread. Let’s be clear that I’m totally enjoying most of what I buy and I’m proud of the fact that I’m not buying a bunch of crap just to dismantle it with snark. Of course you can argue that this decline partially reflects things like a) the nature of the evolving industry, ie: the death of floppies and drive to OGN or collection editions, b) my loyalty to creators and not characters or properties, c) consumption of shorter term “special” projects stemming out of both those dynamics, d) less disposable income and thus decreased perceived value, and e) an actual decline in quality regardless of discretionary income. Judging solely at face value though, 5 regular monthly books purchased in weekly schleps to the LCS is nothing in comparison to the 10-12 books I’d purchase weekly just five years ago or so. You can argue this is a quality over quantity phenomenon or any matter of subjective criteria, but the bottom line is that it kinda’ bums me out. It’s almost as if I can feel a hobby just steadily slipping away and can envision a future in which weekly trips would just waste gas because I’m not actually buying anything. Maybe a monthly trip to the LCS would suffice, maybe trade-waiting for 30% off and free shipping with an online Amazon trip would suffice, maybe the single huge annual San Diego Con trip would suffice, or worse yet, maybe what would suffice is no trip at all.