Collector

I'm a collector.

Those of you who know me, or who have been to my place, can attest to this fact. It's an obsessive-compulsive thing, as are so many things geek-related. I've lined my walls with action figure. I have boxes and boxes of comic books and trade paperbacks. I had a pretty good video collection, before I gave most of them away. I collect stuff, or at least I used to before I dematerialized - when I started to rid myself of the stuff that was shackling me to my past.

All my life I've collected stuff. It started with cards. Superman, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. Action figures were next, particularly Star Wars figures. Then G.I.Joe and Transformers. By then I was getting "a little old" for toys (hah!) and had turned my obsessiveness toward the ongoing passion of my life: comic books.

When I was 12 I found out there were stores that sold comics. Only comics. I mean, you could get comics anywhere, but these stores ONLY sold COMICS. How cool was that?! I started going weekly, spending my allowance to get the latest comics, and the back issues (remember them?) as well. Completing my collection. Then Magic the Gathering, of which I hardly ever played but which I loved collecting.

For a while I went into denial and stopped collecting stuff. It wasn't worth it. It was immature. It wasn't anything I wanted to spend my time doing.

But then I started collecting action figures again. And from going into a comics shop once a month, came the inevitable addiction to comics once more. Only, you could get the whole story arc in one lump, with trade paperbacks.

And eBay... eBay was my downfall.

With eBay, you can buy the whole collection.

With eBay, you don't have to collect. You can just buy the whole collection and get on with your life.

It was a match made in heaven. No more worries about time wasted. I could surf for a night, buy up the collection in a few clicks of a mouse. No problem.

But recently, having been introduced and subsequently addicted to Heroclix, I've come to a conclusion. As I surf the auctions, seeing exactly what I want in front of me, mine for the click of a button and expenditure of a few dollars.

It's not the having of stuff. It's the collecting.

I love the finding of surprises. The buying a pack of cards and opening it up, seeing what luck has brought me. It's the getting a stack of comics, the ritual of reading and placing into the bad-and-board, the storing into my box.

Collecting stuff is my addiction.

And eBay, well... it seems like cheating. You go out, skip all the collecting steps, avoid the luck and ritual. Sure it's less expensive this way. You're guaranteed not to get any duplicates, and you pretty much wind up with exactly whatever you want.

But it's not particularly fun.