Batman on the side

The big problem with collecting complete series is that when you are close to the end you hardly buy any books any more. Sure at the beginning it's all fun, 30 books here, 50 books there...easy when they're not that expensive....but considering issue #1 - #20 of most runs are worth more than the 400 books that follow put together it becomes very slow at the end as you need to consolidate and your dollar only stretches so far.
To counteract this I've always collected a series "on the side"...a cheaper series or a part of a series, just to keep the buying/collecting vibe going. I collected Thor when I was busy getting the last Fantastic Four issues and nearly got all the Thor books in the time it took me to buy 3-4 FF books...Now that I'm in the same situation with Amazing Spider-man I've decided to collect Batman as well...

Yes I know it's DC and yes I know it's hardly a "small,on-the-side-series", but first of all, Batman is so cool he could be a Marvel character (hehe). I've always liked Batman, trouble is that it's such a massive library (66 years and counting )who knows where to start. So I talked to some people and listened to others and I've decided to collect Batman #200 - #350. Most collectors agree that this run contains most of the really good stories/art and are not that hard to track down. I just want to collect the Batman flagship title and not all the satellite books, so from #350 onwards there are a lot of crossovers where you needed to buy 10 different titles a month just to figure out what was going on (which I hate). So up to #350 most stories are self-contained in the "Batman" book...and the reason why I'm starting at#200.....

well here's a typical pre-200 cover


See what I mean ? Because of the success of the TV-series (which I still like to this day) the Batman comic book was really dumbed down....sorry to say 60's Batman comics really suck. The other good period is the very beginning, the early 40's, the pre-gimmick days, but prices of these Golden Age books are in the thousands for a GOOD issue..so maybe in another lifetime.

Meanwhile here are a few examples of the books I've already collected, late Silver to Bronze-age Batman





And yes those are The Beatles on the cover of #222