31 and Counting: #22 - Trade Paperbacks

A couple of years ago, I made the transition of buyer of comic books to buyer of trade paperbacks.  What is a trade paperback?  A trade paperback is a collection of comic books that collect a complete story arc.  Although trade paperbacks don't grow in value over time like comic books, they tend to be cheaper and don't take up as much room.  

At first, I was really against the idea of buying trade paperbacks.  The only reason you would buy one is if you couldn't get your hands on rare issues and wanted to read the (usually important) story arc.  But after I got married and the number of boxes of comics began to grow in my closet (10 boxes!), I decided enough was enough.  It was no surprise that my wife wholeheartedly agreed.  But as time passed by, I realized that a few things were changing for the better.  First, I wasn't spending as much money.  Second, if the trade paperback wasn't good, I could sell it back to a used book store to get money to buy a new one. You can even filter out the bad stuff by reading reviews of the comics to see if you even want or need to read it.  Lastly, no longer do I need to wait to read a complete story.  It's all there.  Sure I have to wait a long time for the next trade paperback to come out, but that waiting time is filled with reading other trades.