A Taste for Nostalgia: Frustrated Fandom

I've posted before about how pursuing aspects of geek fandom could be a difficult chore growing up in the Philippines during the 70s. Although, having read the anthology of anecdotes by Rob Kelly (Hey Kids, Comics!) and listening to gaming and comic book podcasts, I realize that my experience was far from rare -- even to residents in the U.S.

For me, frustrated fandom took many forms: comic books that I only encountered sporadically, science fiction / fantasy novels, RPGs and related books and gear, TV shows and movies from different countries, mostly from the U.S. and the U.K., etc. Fandom in these areas was frustrated due to numerous reasons:

• economic issues (not enough money, or statospherically priced objects of desire)
• accessibility (no stock -- often a lack of awareness that such things existed, distance to store, being allowed to travel t, store closing down, selection)
• constant travel or moving (comic book collections take up storage and luggage space)
• family resistance (fortunately, I didn't get this much)

Effect:

I can only speak for myself, of course. Though I've seen the same thing with others -- not being able to go after what I want as a kid somehow comes back as a mad collector fever. I would try to be compleatist and pick up copies of anything remotely related to my current obsession.

This is, of course, different from the actual collection obsession tied to something new. Like the 3rd Edition of D&D or the Fading Suns books when they first came out.

Some objects of my deferred collection obsessions were:

• D&D Gazetteers
• the complete run of The New Teen Titans
• all the Babylon 5 DVDs
• the complete run of Grimjack
• all MechaPress issues
• Mayfair's DC Heroes Sourcebooks
• the complete run of Nexus
• all the episodes of I-Spy
• all the episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• every Sapphire & Steel episode
• Fading Suns sourcebooks and war games

Ah, but it takes up too much space (and eats up too much money)!