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I'm behind on my reading. More than I'd kind of realized. I mean, I knew I hadn't been doing much reading the last month or so. Last week I started to get organized on my growing stack of comics to be read and this evening I this I have a reasonably accurate count.

To get to the count, I started by tracking the comics I've gotten this year and the comics I've read this year. That provided me a list to work with and I've just checked it against the two short boxes full of comics so I'm reasonably confident it is accurate. I'm not concerns with tracking when I read the comics I've read. Moving forward, the count of comics read might be accurate on a day by day basis or it might not be. It depends if I have the time to keep track of my reading or not.

The chart below shows the influx of new comics each week (in gray), the number of those comics that I've read (in green) and the accumulation of unread comics (in red).



As you can see, I started having a few items accumulate each week starting in March. Some stuff happened in April and May which required some of my time and more stuff in June resulting in one of the largest backlogs I've had in years. Typically I only get this far behind when I'm traveling but the last few months have been unusual.

The problem isn't too many comics to read but a matter of having virtually no time to read any comics. Note the green line going from 45 to 65 comics read a week to only a handful each week.

Hopefully my life will settle down after Comic-Con giving me a change to do a deep dive into my growing stack of comics and catch up on my reading.

Comic-Con is nearly here which usually leads to a three week build up of comics to read. My next batch of comics has at least 50 items in it. I'm not sure how big the other weeks in July will be.

Dear John,

You are not the only one behind on your reading.

Jason

John, sometimes things in life happen and we are forced to make some changes. This past year my reading time has gone down dramatically because my dad, who is 86, is suffering from dementia and my wife and I are spending a lot of time with him. At this point he is still able to live at his house with his dog, but we are over there a lot (primary caregivers you could say) and we spend time cleaning and maintaining, getting his groceries, hauling him around, and just visiting with him. It has been a hard time for the past year, especially because sometimes he is very mean to me. I made the decision to take his car away from him several months ago after he had a few incidents on the road and his short term memory is waning but the one thing he doesn't forget is that I took his car. The situation with my dad is only one thing that is going on in my world. It sucks but this is life and we have to deal with things as they happen.
All that being said, the point is we all love our hobbies and our passions, but there are times when a readjustment of current priorities becomes inevitable. Time keeps ticking away and falling extremely far behind on your reading can become like a noose around your neck, especially at the pace that the books are being released these days. And, especially with the amount of books you read. What you do for fun becomes too much like work, too much of an added burden. Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to do a bit of a cutback, at least temporarily. Allow yourself a chance to prioritize what is truly important to you.It's actually okay to not be all in on everything. Don't allow what is suppose to be fun and an escape from stress to end up being not fun and an added stress. Believe me, I'm right there with you. There are some books I have gotten so far behind on that I just decided to drop them. Guess what, it wasn't the end of the world, the sun still came up the next morning. I have lots of hobbies and things I enjoy but there are only so many hours in the day. Maybe in time there will be opportunity to go back and catch up on the stuff I missed. If not, there will be more coming out the following Wednesday with plenty to choose from.
Take care.

-Jerry

victorvondoom wrote:John, sometimes things in life happen and we are forced to make some changes. This past year my reading time has gone down dramatically because my dad, who is 86, is suffering from dementia and my wife and I are spending a lot of time with him. At this point he is still able to live at his house with his dog, but we are over there a lot (primary caregivers you could say) and we spend time cleaning and maintaining, getting his groceries, hauling him around, and just visiting with him. It has been a hard time for the past year, especially because sometimes he is very mean to me. I made the decision to take his car away from him several months ago after he had a few incidents on the road and his short term memory is waning but the one thing he doesn't forget is that I took his car. The situation with my dad is only one thing that is going on in my world. It sucks but this is life and we have to deal with things as they happen.
All that being said, the point is we all love our hobbies and our passions, but there are times when a readjustment of current priorities becomes inevitable. Time keeps ticking away and falling extremely far behind on your reading can become like a noose around your neck, especially at the pace that the books are being released these days. And, especially with the amount of books you read. What you do for fun becomes too much like work, too much of an added burden. Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to do a bit of a cutback, at least temporarily. Allow yourself a chance to prioritize what is truly important to you.It's actually okay to not be all in on everything. Don't allow what is suppose to be fun and an escape from stress to end up being not fun and an added stress. Believe me, I'm right there with you. There are some books I have gotten so far behind on that I just decided to drop them. Guess what, it wasn't the end of the world, the sun still came up the next morning. I have lots of hobbies and things I enjoy but there are only so many hours in the day. Maybe in time there will be opportunity to go back and catch up on the stuff I missed. If not, there will be more coming out the following Wednesday with plenty to choose from.
Take care.

-Jerry

Jerry - I am really sorry about your dad that sounds like a tough situation it sure puts things like comics in perspective - good luck and I hope it eases up on you

Sorry to hear about you dad Jerry. My parents area little younger than that but only by a couple of years. No doubt my sister and I have that sort of stuff to deal with in the coming years. My father has been having some health issues lately which have caused some of the lack of time recently. My sister has been dealing with that more than I have. Things are looking better on that front for which I am very grateful.

For me, having the unread material stacking up isn't a huge problem. Getting as far behind as I did on tracking the pile up was more of a problem. I hate reading comics out of order and if I'd realized I hadn't read Defenders #1, I'd have read it before reviewing Defenders #2.

I find reading comics to be relaxing and sometimes a much need break from reality. Not having time for that recently in addition to some stressful stuff going on hasn't been fun. Most of why I'm behind on my reading is because of that prioritization you mention. I had other things to do so I did them. As much as I'd like to stay current on my reading, there were things which were a higher priority.

I've been very fortunate to have cohosts which have been willing to work around my schedule over the past month or two even when it was in a constant state of change and I want to thank them for that. Drew, in particular, has been very flexible on recording times which I've really appreciated. Having the podcast as an outlet has helped give me something else to think about at times than some of the other things I've had going on and that has helped a bit too.

Fortunately, the events over the past month or two have been just that: events. There is some after effects from them but not in a major status quo sort of way. Hopefully after Comic-Con I'll be able to get back into a regular cadence on my reading. And if not, havingtoo many comic books to read isn't the worst problem to have...

I'm back from Comic-Con and, as expected, I'm even further behind on my reading...



I probably won't get a ton read this week since I've got a few episodes to record and edit. My current goal is to keep the stack from growing too much more.

Jeezus John you are so far behind you must think you are in first place

drew wrote:Jeezus John you are so far behind you must think you are in first place

High score wins, right?

I've been working on catching up on my reading:



Obviously titles we are reviewing on the Weekly Comics Spotlight move towards the front of the list. The main focus this past week has been titles set in the DC Universe. I've still got a few to issues left to read. I'm current on most DC Universe titles except for Supergirl, Superwoman, Titans, Batwoman, All Star Batman, Bane Conquest and Mister Miracle.

Note the focus on DC Universe titles and not all titles published by DC. I'm still way behind on titles set outside the DC Universe such as crossover titles (including the DC/WB crossovers), the Hanna-Barbara titles, the Kirby one-shots, Vertigo, etc. I've got a total of another four dozen or so DC titles across those areas. Many of them will probably wait until I make some progress on the Marvel Universe titles.

I've found that catching up on DC started to go quicker when I switched from a week by week approach to catching up on all of the unread issues for each title as I hit them going in a week by week order.

That approach isn't going to work as well for Marvel which is in the middle of the Secret Empire event and therefore has a lot more of a week by week continuity.

Your graphics make me laugh

I'm still chipping away at my stack of comics to read:



I'm now current on DC Universe titles but not all of the comics published by DC Comics.

The next focus will probably be on the Marvel Universe titles with a focus on the Secret Empire crossover event. I've got about 41 comics which are part of Secret Empire which isn't too daunting. That just leaves the another 101 comics in the Marvel Universe to read...

After that, it is a matter of keeping current on what I'm current on and knocking out other narrative universes as I have time.

Hurricane Harvey brushed up against Austin causing constant but reasonably light rain all weekend. It made a read weekend to stay in and read.



I read around 181 comics over the past few days. I'm now current on the Marvel Universe titles but not all of the comics published by Marvel Comics.

The challenge in not keeping current on what I'm current on while finding the time to start knocking out smaller narrative universes I'm still behind on.

It was another productive weekend of reading.



I read around 136 comics this past weekend and have around 165 remaining.

Odds are that I'll lose ground over the next week or two as I'll be spending this coming weekend working on the next Previews Spotlight and crunching the August 2017 sales data.

the red and green are getting closer - you are gonna cross the streams

drew wrote:the red and green are getting closer - you are gonna cross the streams

That is the plan...