Four years in and I’m coming off one of the toughest years I’ve had, at least on an emotional level. I find that when my anxiety and depression are on a higher setting, I tend to fall into bad habits of spending money, eating more, getting out less, and overally not taking care of myself. So the numbers for this year kept going up and I wound up ending 2022 with quite a lot more to uncollect than after 2021. But I can’t let that get to me too much; after all, this is not a performance review, right?

Well, let’s get into the numbers and categories so I can see exactly how I did this year.

Physical Comics
To read 1/2022: 0
Read in 2022: 92
To read in 2023: 231

Digital Comics
To read 1/2022: 471
Read in 2022: 0
To read in 2023: 471

When it comes to comics, just about all of the digital comics I have left to read are Star Trek comics, and that particular set of books is just sitting on my iPad, having stalled out. Then I had two huge comics purchasing days where I re-piled and wound up with somewhere around 250 books to read. I’m not upset about this or anything, especially since the comics are pretty random and in many cases likely to be offloaded after reading them. I’ve also signed up for Marvel Unlimited in addition to DC Infinite, so I’m going to supplement reading where needed with the digital books (i.e., finishing out the first era of X-Factor and the Chris Claremont Uncanny X-Men).

I’m also going to be following the comics months hashtags more closely this year, so a number of the books won’t get a highlight until their respective genre months (i.e. horror books in October). Still, the idea of getting really cheap comics that I might not hold onto kind of gives me a good feeling. Sure, I’ll hold onto more than a few of them, but getting rid of the obligation is nice.

Trades/Graphic Novels
To read 1/2022: 31
Read in 2022: 60
To read in 2023: 11

I bought quite a few trades this year, I guess? I should be cutting back on these because of my digital subscriptions and I kind of am. In the coming weeks, I only have newer original graphic novels on my list and I’m pretty sure that with the exception of a Deathstroke: The Terminator trade that I’m missing (and maybe the Total Chaos trade if I can find it cheap), I won’t be buying much in the way of DC back issue collections or Marvel back issue collections. But new stuff, especially that by Ed Brubaker, are definitely on the menu.

I’m going to get into this at a later date, but I did have the opportunity to move my trade/OGN collection down to my basement and out of our home office, mostly so that I could give my wife more room to work. That means that I actually do not have enough shelf space for my trades and if that is not motivation to get rid of a few, I don’t know what is. Check this space, I guess, for the verdict on what to get rid of.

Books
To read 1/2022: 120
Read in 2022: 51
To read in 2023: 123

I’m still piling on books and it seems like because I am reading way more trades than novels and other books, it’s taking me longer to whittle this down. In fact, it went up over the course of the year and while more books shouldn’t be an issue, I feel like I’m completely surrounded by them here. Maybe since I have only 11 trades to read, I’ll be able to knock out more than a few of these books.

Movies
To Watch 1/2022: 123
Watched in 2022: 30
To watch in 2022: 194

The number of movies that I’m going to watch shot up huge this year. I think that’s a combination of a number of things coming into streaming and also a more accurate recount of my various queues and collections. I’m still not done with my Netflix DVDs and will eventually get that completely knocked out; right now, my priority is those movies that are “Free to Me” via the streaming subscriptions followed by rentals that might cost … and even then, it’ll only be stuff I really want to see.

Movies are a little tough considering the limited time I have the TV to myself or the way that I’m trying to limit my iPad time and therefore only get a chance to watch a little at a time. Still, perhaps my wanting to take better advantage of my downtime will work out.

TV
TV Series to Complete in 2022: 37
Completed in 2022: 10
To Watch in 2023: 57

TV Seasons to Complete in 2022: 90
Completed in 2022: 15
To Watch in 2023: 104

I came back around to TV toward the end of this year, knocking out three series during the winter break and am going to try and spend time watching some of the mini docuseries and other small-sized shows before hitting some of the bigger ones, such as a complete rewatch of Scrubs that I’ve been meaning to do for a few years. I was going to do something similar with Cheers, but have decided instead to just pick up a few episodes here and there or when Ryan Daly’s Cheerscast comes around to something I remember enjoying.

Some of these series are a few years old by now or their latest seasons have left the public consciousness, such as Stranger Things Season 4. I go through exactly one episode of that before deciding that I needed to find the time to watch it during the day, especially since the episodes are the sizes of small movies. But others are more normal length and it’s just a matter of me knocking out a few a week.

Podcasts

Podcast episodes remaining 1/1/2022: 190

Podcast episodes remaining 1/1/2023: 232

I listened to 350 podcast episodes this year, and this included many new shows and new episodes. It’s amazing what gets put out over the course of a year. Part of me wants to just delete the remaining episodes of shows that I probably won’t get back to, I feel a little reluctant to do it because they’re shows I genuinely enjoy. But they’re also not taking up a lot of space in my life because they’re all on my iPod.

So where does that leave me? Well, still with piles of stuff and the commitment to keep a resolution I made to myself four years ago. I’ve decided to start a spreadsheet that shows the individual items I still have to get through, so my counts will be more accurate and I’ll be able to see where I’m going. Otherwise, I plan on writing more and doing at least one podcast episode related to this blog.