Final thoughts

Some thoughts:

• I started this on November 25, 2017.  My original math had this taking about seven years, so I clearly read faster than I first planned.

• Five years.  So that’s how long it takes to read my collection.  Three percent of my life for the last five years.  Not including the writing.

• I started with 11109 comics in my collection.  Ending with 11788.  Since I cut 1173 issues, I bought roughly 1852 comics in 5 years?  370 comics a year, 30 comics a month, 7 comics a week?  That sounds super high.  Though I guess I bought a bunch of trades in there too.

• The breakdown of ratings.  It’s reassuring to see that most of the comics in my collection are at least Nice.  There’d be something wrong if it were otherwise.  Note that this doesn’t include the ratings of the comics I cut.  And the Major Feels comics got equated with Pure Joy, which isn’t quite right.  (Transformers is objectively not a perfect comic…)

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• I don’t think I got any better as a writer from this.  If anything, my reviews got shorter and more perfunctory as time went along, certainly after my daughter was born.  But looking back at some of it, I’m still glad I did the review part of it.  It’s at least readable for me.  (And I’m really the only audience I care about for this.)

• I’ve still got a number of ongoing series that I haven’t reread.  I’ll probably review those as they finish up.

• I expect I’ll keep on reviewing new issues as I read them, as well as the odd movie/tv show here or there.

• I’m tempted to put all the Pure Joy/Really Good comics out on my shelves.  Now that I’ve confirmed what my actual favorite comics are.

• This was an amazing experience.  I stuck by my original plan of reading and writing every day.  I think I missed less than 10 days over the whole thing.  My love of comic books hasn’t wavered at all.  Indeed, it’s only reinforced my passion for this lifelong hobby of mine.  No regrets at all, I’m unduly proud of myself for doing this.  

• What’s next for me?  I’ve really been thinking about doing a little writing, maybe along the vein of Tom Beland’s True Story Swear to God strip.  I’ll give it a shot, at least.  Would need to find someone to draw it, though.  Maybe I’ll catch up on the shows and movies I’ve been putting off.  

• The only question left is: When do I do this again?  Maybe when I retire.