I try to not get caught up in following too many comics or TV shows, as I generally am a completist, wanting to read all the titles or watch all the episodes (ideally in their proper order). Fortunately, I am not an obsessive completist, trying to track down cover variants, etc., as I consider this a cynical scam played on fans.
It has taken a while, but I now have all the issues in the four main titles that make up Mr. X (fortunately I picked up most of them before postal rates went crazy). I am waiting on Dean Motter to gather up his latest material into a trade paperback (maybe in 2022 or 2023), and I'll get that also, but he has slowed down a lot on this title. While I have read the 1st series a few times, I don't recall getting around to the 3rd and 4th series, though I did just sit down and go through the whole series earlier in the year.
Futurama the comic ended just a few years back (outlasting the on-again, off-again TV show), and I have a complete run now, though I am sure there are a few I haven't actually read. I have all the episodes on DVD, of course, though I have apparently misplaced disc 2 from Season 8, which is super annoying. I'll have to go through a few piles of DVDs to see if it will turn up. Oddly enough I never did watch the extra-long specials that are essentially Season 5, but I will this time around.
As I mentioned previously, it appears that thee were a few Monty Python episodes I had missed growing up, and I'm fairly sure I hadn't seen several episodes of Blackadder IV (until watching them with my son). So going through them in order has been a bit revelatory. I think it's likely that I have seen all of Fawlty Towers and all of Father Ted (perhaps missing out on one), but I have most of Season 2-3 to go for Black Books and Season 4 for The IT Crowd, so a lot to look forward to.
But there are some things I know better than to even start, like Dr. Who or the X-Men comics and it's many, many spin-offs. That way madness lies...
I actually held off for the longest time from reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman (in part because there was so much to get caught up with), but I recently went through the main saga (the initial 75 episodes). I thought it was very well done and was impressed at how various myths and legends were interwoven. It's fairly high-brow for a comic series. I was a little disappointed but not that surprised that Gaiman and others have occasionally done spin-off series, though I don't think there is any indication that the whole thing will be rebooted. I'm less likely to pick up any of the spin-offs but you never know.
I follow Girl Genius regularly (and indeed Phil Foglio from way back when he was doing his What's New strip in Dragon Magazine!) and bought all of the individual books (even the Secret Blueprints issue) prior to the whole shooting match moving over to the web and going digital. It's been 20 years now, and I don't think they are much further along than 2/3 of the main story arc. (This is the sort of thing that makes me feel really old --- that I have comic books (that I bought new not vintage) older than my son.) I even have almost all of Foglio's Buck Godot episodes in print, and then just ordered the new digital versions of these titles, with the The Gallimaufry pages redone in color. The individual books or a bundle with all three titles can be found here.
My current obsession is The Venture Brothers. I've seen several episodes from the first two seasons, but certainly not all of them and not in the proper sequence. It looks like Cartoon Network has this weird thing, where they just stream them in a continual loop but there is no way to know where you are in the overall series. That's a bit too random for me. This is a case where I really wish that Netflix stuck to its original business model of sending out actual DVDs (even from most TV series), but those days are long gone. It looks like the Vancouver Public Library has Seasons 1-3, but the Toronto Public Library and even Chicago Public Library don't have any (though TPL does have a fairly complete collection of Criterion DVDs so it's not like I don't have anything to watch). I do find that I am watching 2 or even 3 episodes at a time. Perhaps I will break down and get the DVDs (though for the later series the Blu-Rays aren't that much more expensive). There is one other option I will explore next month, however, which is there is a Bay St. Video that is still in operation. I will email them about Venture Bros. and see if they are planning on renting out any of the discs or only selling them. Given that the series was recently cancelled at the end of Season 7 (though supposedly with a forthcoming special movie on HBO Max to wrap up the series), it isn't quite as much of an investment as some TV series. Though it is true almost any US series ends up being 2-3 times as many overall episodes as a Britcom (with Red Dwarf (another series I followed) being a partial exception, and indeed a 90 minute Red Dwarf special has just been released which I will order at some point in the near future).
Edit (5/22): I just learned that today and probably through the long weekend, there is a sale on iTunes to get each season of The Venture Bros. for $9.99 (even including seasons 6 and 7). This offer is good in the US and Canada but not sure of other regions. I'll have to reset my password as it is so rare I actually buy something on iTunes instead of just streaming it, but this should be worth it. The one drawback is that there are a couple of special episodes that really should have been made part of the Season packages or at least as stand-alone episodes. Well, a relatively minor annoyance.
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