Sort of Going Through a Thing as I Downsize my Comic Stuff Collection

my office from some time ago, when I was doing some other renovation work in there

The past few weekends, (when I didn't have food poisoning, anyway) I spent my time preparing for the de-superheroing of my house and the paring down of my collection.  I am still working through what this probably looks like, and I am sure, if I asked people who know and love me what they think is going on, I'd get a lot of different answers.

For clarification - the front room of our house had been intended to be a sort of reading room and casual conversation room, and the bookshelves were full of statues from DC Direct and other places, and it was a real conversation starter.  But nobody ever wanted to actually sit in there.  And for some reason the dogs go crazy when I go in there to try and read.  Also, I have my office, which was where I'd put my action figures, toys, comics and a whole bunch of other stuff.  

The decision I've made is to largely de-superhero the front room of our house and make it a usable room for reading and entertaining (ie: I'd like to put a bar cart in there).  I've decided to move the DC Direct stuff upstairs, and remove items from my collection that don't fit into the footprint of my office.  

They're not dolls!  They're action figures! (also, I'm keeping all the Superman stuff)

It's been a taxing process and not really what I expected.  

The truth is that I've wanted to do this for a long time, but laziness and other factors have gotten in the way, and now that I'm neck-deep in the work, there's not a lot of turning back.  So whether this is some natural evolution in the life-cycle in fandom, or whether (as I'm sure my folks would like to believe) I'm just "growing up", the end result is that there's going to be a lot less Justice League invading the lower floor of our place.  

I'm not taking pics of what's happening now, but I will as I wrap it up.

the closet where he keeps the precious's comics

I've had two incidents while working on the space and I'm trying not to read symbolism into either moment, but I've severely damaged two DC Direct items, neither of which I can afford to replace as both items have skyrocketed in price on the second-tier market.  In fact, I'm so bummed about it, I don't even really want to talk about it.  

The only good thing about it is that neither item was something I'd been gifted, and these days, those are the items that I value most out of the collection.  

The "collection", by the way, is really several smaller collections, and so I'm having to clean out or shelve whole categories.  For example, as you guys know, I'm a Batman fan, but what not everyobody realizes is that there's so much Batman stuff out there for sale, you'd be crazy to by even 1/4 of what's out there.  As Batman hasn't ever been the focus of my collection, I've just picked up Batmobile toys.  And, more recently, just early versions from the comics and the George Barris Batman '66 version.  But I don't really have space for what I think anyone would find to be a pretty nice collection of Batmobiles.  

Last night I decided to box up the last few Green Lantern toys, so they're going.  Today I looked at all my New Gods action figures and realized that as much as I love those characters and comics, even if I don't get rid of them, they're going in a box somewhere for a long time and they'll eventually go.  The Flash figures will go (except for a Kid Flash which Jamie got me long, long ago).  The Marvel Family.  I've got to clear out the various Galactuses.  

It's going to be weird.  

I've spent the better part of my life post-college collecting this stuff.  But at the end of the day, that's what it is.  It's stuff.  And while I've never been as ascetic lifestyle kind of guy, I also don't want to be a crazy hoarder, or live under some delusion that it's all going to come back and win me riches.  Well, maybe some of it.

Ha ha ha...?  

Help me.

Anyway, I can't believe how long this is all taking, and in some ways, it's really just starting.  Once I have the office how I want it, sort of, I'll be dealing with getting rid of the buildup of "things" and will work to find happy homes for them.  I've already got a taker for a bunch of my DC Direct Batman action figures, and he's going to also take my Animated series toys, too.  Wish I knew a local Green Lantern fan, because I could totally make their day.

And, at some point, I've got to get serious about clearing some of these bookshelves of graphic novels I'll never read again, too.