Yes, it is a dumb question but one I have been asked a few times myself: "What percentage of your comics have you read?"
It may be that people confuse me with a collector who buys comics to bag and board and wax lyrical over details...but has never actually READ the comic. Oh there are PLENTY of those out there. I once chatted with a fella, back in the 1980s -I have mentioned him before as he invested in comics and years later found he practically paid to give them away- he told me how many hundreds of comics he had bagged and boarded so I asked which was the one with his favourite story and art?
There was silence as he just looked at me. It turned out that he had not (obviously) read any of the comics he had. Comics were hip and a big investment. Why would he handle and read them -this was a man who once took every copy of a specific title of a store shelf and took out a magnbifying glass to check the staples on a brand new comic.
Now, I have read comics since I was 5 or 6 years old? I'm 61 on the 6th. I have thousands of comics (as I have shown in the past) and many hundred comic albums, graphic novels and trades. Some not in English (but good sequential art SHOULD tell you the story) and, yes, I have read them all. I have forgotten more about comics than a hipster has hairs on his manicured beard.
WHY would I buy comics -when it comes to technical and other prose books you can add a few hundred more)- and not read them? I have to read review books. I can pick up a comic from 1969 that I have not read in 30 years and before I can start reading it I remember the whole story! I still read through it though.
Chinese, Russian, Korean, Polish, Finnish, French, German -doesn't matter. If I have had them I have read them.
I've had a very sad life!!
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