View Full Version : The Dangers of Christmas
... Christmas comic gifts, that is.
First let me say that I'm pissed that I saw a Christmas commercial on Halloween night and that the stories were putting up Christmas displays a few days before that. My crotchety old feeling is that the Christmas season starts the day AFTER Thanksgiving unless you're Tim Burton.
But when it comes to comic related gifts, I think buying trade collections are a dicey proposition since the giftee may have already bought them as singles. But I guess I have a longer view of that. Depending on when your fan started buying comics, there's plenty of older trade collections.
If you can, go for the cool/expensive stuff that they'd buy if they had the money. Absolutes, hardcovers or art hardcovers by their favorite artists.
A word on money orders - this is appropriate advice to pass onto parents or non-comic friends who don't know about specific comics. Find a store with a large trade backlog. I go to two different shops. One is the convenient Wednesday shop, the other I hit less often but while the walls are lined with periodicals the center of the store is all trades. Unfortunately, when I've been given certificates it's been to the first store. Using a certificate to buy your regular comics is like an invisible present. You're grateful but there's no special connection to the purchase as a gift. Does that sound weird?
A gift certificate to a store with trades lets the buy try things he's been curious about but fall outside his weekly budget. "Hey, here's three volumes of Stylish Vittles, I've been wanting to try that out."
Statues - that's a matter of taste. Dangerous territory for presents.
six-gun
11-05-2007, 03:16 AM
I make a list
jimski
11-05-2007, 03:46 AM
Amazon wish lists have changed the face of Christmas for my family. In ye olden days, I would as a child mount lengthy explanations of what a "Masterworks" was and have to all but write Mom a script to read to the bookstore guy to get that extra-special back issue or trade just right and not end up with a subscription to Archie. I'd have to cut pictures out of catalogs and do a song-and-dance number. Now, she just calls me the week of Thanksgiving and goes, "Make sure your wish list is updated."
This year, she bought me the DVD of all the FF comics ever and season five of Angel. Angel! My mother is 62 years old! She bought it and had it in her home, and she still doesn't know what it is. Contrast that with 1986:
"You want a Metroplex? What's a Metroplex?"
"It's a city that transforms into a robot. It is the last Transformer-- and the last toy-- I will ever ask for before entering junior high and leaving childhood behind forever. Twenty years from now, I will have no idea what ever happened to it, but I will remember it with great fondness."
"I dunno. Sounds stupid."
"Oh, it is. But I won't know that for another ten years or so. Don't make me beg. Give a kid a break."
Mom also likes to do this thing where you open your present and she tells you a twenty-minute story about how hard it was to get, about how they were down to one last "Super Mario 2" at Toys R Us and she had to thumb-war another lady for it before blinding her with some silly string and running out with it. In case you weren't grateful enough to begin with. It's sort of charming, but if you can use amazon to remove it from the equation, so much the better.
As for the "Christmas comes earlier every year!" thing: yes. I used to be right there with you. But then I got to thinking: peace on earth. Good will toward men. Generosity and buying stuff for people just to make them smile. Decorating. Singing corny songs. You know... if something like that happens for three extra weeks a year, I'm not gonna ***** too much about it. Marketing ploy? Sure. But who gives a crap, really? Start in August for all I care. Pass the nog.
Lists are great for getting what you want but I'm talking about comic related presents for someone else.
But here's to thumb wrestling, silly string spewing mothers!
jimski
11-05-2007, 05:37 AM
Lists are great for getting what you want but I'm talking about comic related presents for someone else.
I know no one else who I could buy comics for! I'm jealous of you!
labor_days
11-05-2007, 05:39 AM
I know of no one else to buy comics for or anyone who would buy them for me.
humphrey-lee
11-05-2007, 09:41 AM
Last year I bought and handed out at least six copies of Pride of Baghdad. It's just a matter of finding something universal like that to hand out to readers and non-readers alike.
paper
11-05-2007, 01:02 PM
Yeah, I don't have a lot of comic fan friends either. It's really a case by case situation. I'll read a book and go, "Hey, Joey Peg-legs would love this."
(I don't actually have a friend named Joey Peg-legs.)
So, when I do lend or gift a comic book to a friend, it's similar to an astronaut bestowing a moon rock to his nephew. It's an otherworldly thing that he had no idea he wanted in the first place. But now that he has it, he's going to keep it under his pillow at night. And hopefully not get cosmic cancer from it.
If that makes sense.
six-gun
11-05-2007, 02:09 PM
I know of no one else to buy comics for or anyone who would buy them for me.
what about your gf?
labor_days
11-05-2007, 03:29 PM
what about your gf?
Nah, she's not into them too much. She'd probably consider comics more of a gift for me than her. I'm too old for list making.
Most of time I just give away comics to people who might enjoy them. Which is a little self serving on my end as I just want to get rid of single issues and the like. But on occasion a friend will remark that they did fact enjoy an issue of Local or Criminal.
superfriend82
11-05-2007, 03:42 PM
well Tad my friend i agree with you 100% with the Christmas commercals thing. As for giveing comics way Iam with most people on this thread so far in that i have no other comic book friends to give too. Every year for chistmas my dad gives me a gift certificate to my local comic book shop.
mikegraham6
11-05-2007, 04:01 PM
As for the "Christmas comes earlier every year!" thing: yes. I used to be right there with you. But then I got to thinking: peace on earth. Good will toward men. Generosity and buying stuff for people just to make them smile. Decorating. Singing corny songs. You know... if something like that happens for three extra weeks a year, I'm not gonna ***** too much about it. Marketing ploy? Sure. But who gives a crap, really? Start in August for all I care. Pass the nog.
I'd agree with you except for the fact that everyone are such assholes up to christmas day. sure they cheer up on the 25th but up until then, you find people throwing elbows in malls, disregarding their fellow man and overall acting extremely grumpy because of the shopping and their upcoming debt. (and the crowds.....oh god... the crowds...)
Christmas is fun, the buildup towards Christmas sucks. I say postpone it for as long as we can, don't make it any earlier than we have to
I also gave Pride of Baghdad as a present to a non comic reader. It probably works better with indy books instead of superheroes but, for instance, a music lover of a certain age is probably going to be interested in Phonogram.
Conor, if you do the Christmas suggestion show... and I guess you can't put it off for too long... I say concentrate more on "comic gifts for non comic readers." Especially since several people have stated a sad lack of comic reading friends.
drwally
11-05-2007, 06:31 PM
Conor, if you do the Christmas suggestion show... and I guess you can't put it off for too long... I say concentrate more on "comic gifts for non comic readers." Especially since several people have stated a sad lack of comic reading friends.
I second that motion, being one of those with the sad lack of comic reading friends....
esophagus
11-05-2007, 08:28 PM
I managed to get one friend, a massive horror buff, into Walking Dead. I think he's started picking up a few other things on occasion now, but mosrtly he just loves Walking Dead. The downside, he's decided it's what we have in comic. I mean hey, I'm a comic fan, and he's a Walking Dead fan, so what else could we talk about? Blech. It's become boring and annoying.