Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities CONFESS! To your crimes against comics!

In this case, CRIMES you have PERPETRATED against the physical properties of a comic book!

Have you...

taken a comic apart to make paper hats for the neighborhood dogs?

used a comic as a coaster? a fly swatter? back scratcher?

Confess!

Confess!!

**No action figure confessions, please.**

Okay, okay. Here goes:

I didn't take the best care of my earliest comic purchase, but I still have them and they're each in one piece. Doesn't matter though 'cause I claim immmunity under the Golden Years rule. Which as you know forgives a whole lotta sins in the first couple of years of comic-ing.

On the other hand I am completely guilty of cutting a picture out of a comic and using it on a card. (This was five years ago, mind you.) I have also intentionally thrown away a few comics (also a few years ago). Including the cut-up one.

While in sound mind, I confess to have up comics for wrapping paper. I also eat sloppy food while I read them, consign some to plastic bags in a damp cellar and even have thrown some out.

I have been tempted to compost comics, but don't want to use the good ones and am concerned about imparting bad vibes to the compost if I use the bad ones i.e. those which are disliked. (Are there bad comics, or only misunderstood ones?)

I've fallen asleep in the tub while reading a couple of comics...

In my youth, I would tear out the ads that were all back to back. They used to be printed perfectly so if you tore them out at the staple, the front and back of each side of the page was ads.

I let people scribble on them. You know, writers and artists and such.

I filled reams of tracing paper with sketches from comics when I was little. Eventually I caught on that I was indenting the covers I traced,and limitetd myself to copying from interiors... at least on the books that were my favorites.

And I still have that copy of S&LSH 224 where I drew battle damage on everyone with red magic marker...!

Wouldn't want the worms to become IMAGE-conscious, would we?

Are these crimes against the physical comic books or against the medium itself. I'm guilty of both.

My best friend Jim used to fold them twice over (to 1/4 their size) so he could fit them in his pocket and therefore sneak into his house without his mother knowing he was reading more of those "JOKE BOOKS" (her term, always spoken in a harsh, derogatory tone of voice).

The crimes, if any, are esthetic, and they're mostly inside the books, and I didn't perpetrate 'em

But I confess to being fed up with the Grit and X-Ray Specs ads, and to tearing out those back-to-back ad signatures in my VG condition, to-read-until-it-falls-apart copy of "Superboy" 226, Dawnstar's debut.

(As I've noted before, that's my fourth copy of five for that issue. The fifth, NM condition, is bagged and boarded. The first three, out of my 20s' and early 30s' self-embarrassment over actually reading some comics, ewww, I threw away {tsk tsk})

Put me down for this one as well. Man, I ruined a lot of Who's Who this way, back in the day.

Jamie

Oh I still tear out any ad pages that are back to back if the other half of the page (as in across the fold) are also both ads so in effect removing four pages but just one piece of paper. you can't do it often, but occasinally they'll have four pages of ads in the centre of a comic and they come straight out. I don't see that as a crime though.

I also have quite happily thrown away comics that i don't want or have duplicate copies of and stuff. And I dropped my copy of Mad Love in the bath. Luckily it didn't get to wet so even though it's slightly warped it's still perfectly fine for reading.

Of course I should also say I'm not at all precious about my comics either. I do have them bagged but only so that they sit on the book shelves more easily. other than that though I don't worry about them. I buy them to read them so I don't care if they end up not being in perfectly good nick. if I'm not likely to reread them I don't keep them. If I am going to reread them then, well, they're going to get a bit dog-eared over time so why worry? Not that I have any comics that are actually worth any great amount of money though (that I'm aware of). I have BoP #8 (I think. The first Babs/Nightwing date issue) which apparently is meant to be worth ten pound or something but it's not exactly going to pay the kids college fees.

In the mid 1970s, I used to carefully cut Element Lad appearances out of my Legion comics and put them in one of those sticky photo albums.
I have no idea whatever become of it, though.
Hopefully, it's still somewhere in my mom's basement.

Oh, the tracing. I had the cover image from the X-Men where Jean becomes Phoenix, bursting out of the water, traced and colored and hanging on my fridge.

I also would trace outlines from Marvel Universe and then use them as completely different pictures. Spiral, minus four of her arms, was a neat variation on Storm. Wonder Man, all hidden under plate armor, was a knight, for a D&D game (I liked his pose).

The worst crime against comics was not committed by me, but by my cat, who thought my box of comics was comfortable place to curl up and deliver a litter of kittens. Such a trend-setter she was, all '90s and Image-y, with those bloody covers. Ew. I remember the one on top was unsalvageable, and had Dawnstar and Wildfire on the cover.

When I was a kid I had a couple of DC Limited Collectors' Editions that I cut the characters out of the covers and hung up in my room... I had the JLA and JSA characters from one and Superman and Flash from another one... I also drew a mustache on Lightning Lad and Shadow Lass on another one that I still have...

I also used to cut out the figures ... and play with them like action figures .. and I would draw over the scenes making up new scenes ... I remember Green Lantern used to get really butchered.

but this is way worse ....... I was over my friends house in junior high, watching tv, and i saw him cleaning out his nails with the edge of a comic book cover (gross!) I promptly asked him if i could have all his comic books, (he said i could have them before)

Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't have got them ... who knows what he did with them !

This is the one I saw him cleaning his nails on:



It's beautiful, and the story is great! Why would someone clean out their finger nails with this????

So ... maybe this isn't real a *crime* story but more more of a *rescue* story. oopsie.

That's hysterical!

I too used to do the paper-dolls/action figurey thing with images cut from my comics. I could just kick myself!

Im assuming Freida Fingernails ended up gay... no straight little boy cares if his nails are dirty...

I have ripped back covers off. Tore out ad pages and thrown out unwanted second stories. Then had them turned into Hardcover books.

A crime to some...an awesome way to read comics for me.

I did make a couple of paper hats from comics. I did use quarter box comics though.

I accidently dropped a Mister Miracle comic in the toilet once.

I ordered things from comics - Grit, Seed and card selling kits, subscriptions. I always cut out the order form from the actual comic.

I filled out those Answer Man/Daily Planet crossword puzzles in ink. (Looking back, my handwriting was really bad).

I hung comic books on a cork bulletin board - poster style - using thumb tacks.

GASPPPP!

I am reminded... I recently placed a used tissue on top of a comic... that didn't end well!

Fortunately it was the DC New 52 promo giveaway comic!

Carbon paper...lots of carbon paper. Copied my favorite Legion drawings from the Earthwar saga. Since replaced those copies a long time ago.

So, so many jokes here.

I've certainly wanted to rip out those second advertisement stories or the huge multi-page ads with super heroes pimping productS. I hated buying a thick comic and then when i get home its not extra story but pages of extra advertisement!!!!!

Power Boy SMASH!!

I will not ask how this tissue was *used*. neither will anyone else.