Another Case For Physical Media (reposted BW article)

I’ve mentioned my other website, BW Media Spotlight, in the past here at the Clutter Reports and even used a few reviews as filler posts, since reviews are part of what I do here and these reviews are things I own and considering whether to remove or not. The books I reviewed here were also reviewed over there, only the book reviews here are an overview while the other site goes over them a chapter at a time. Even the times I’ve shown off new art supplies and my art desk were things I use to make logos and comics for my other site.

I’ve defended keeping physical media in the past, music in that case, how while going all digital sounds good on paper (pun intended) there are negatives that don’t always work. There’s nothing wrong with a comic, novel, video game, CD/cassette/record, or home video library if they are things you actually plan to read, play, or watch. Recent events with popular digital comic site ComiXology are another example. I want to get rid of the comics I don’t want to read anymore, making a digital archive for my website’s purposes (it will easier to look them up and get the panels I need) but having that comic in my hands and knowing it stays mine is a good thing. What follows is my look at the changes ComiXology went through after being bought by Amazon, the recent huge layoff alert, and why the paper stuff is still a good option. I’ve made a few changes if I thought the more casual fans that would stumble on this site would find something hard to follow or don’t follow my other site. Here’s the original post if you’re curious. And now….the repost:

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I have no idea what’s going on with ComiXology these days. Just recently I posted a BW Ramble v-log about how they finally fixed the Guided View feature, which reformatted the normal comic page for cleaner viewing on smartphone and tablet screens, and even the larger computer monitor, a feature they dropped when Amazon bought the digital comics service and decided to integrate it into Kindle. Now they’re cutting a huge chunk of their workforce. Almost 75% according to Bounding Into Comics. Yes, with people being allowed into that area of space we call “outside”, which I vaguely remember visiting once or twice, demand for at-home media has gone down. Streaming services are not making as much money as they were during the lockdowns and that’s only partly blamed on some…questionable decisions by streaming services that a Clutter Report version of this article would be out of place going on about. Part of it can also be blamed on our current economic issues and I won’t go into a political rant here because, again, I’m reformatting this article for a decluttering blog and I don’t even like doing those kind of rants on the storytelling discussion site.

Even people currently working at ComiXology are complaining about the layoffs, not to mention high ranking types who are already hitting the job sites for work. That’s certainly bad news in this climate and I wish them all the best of luck, but BW Media Spotlight and The Clutter Reports aren’t business sites, it’s a storytelling or clutter organizing site. Digital comics, for some, have replaced physical comics because they take up less floor space and are a bit cheaper since there isn’t printing costs to deal with…I mean, in theory they’re cheaper. However, with such a huge drop in people running the site this is a format of comics that may take a hit of its own, and frankly just pushes my belief that physical comics are still superior in the end.

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Yet More Smaller Projects

I’m reusing too many of the same images for these.

This post is going to be written a bit differently, but in truth I’ll only know it from my end. With the last two I wrote down what I did after the fact. This week I’m writing down what I did after I did it before moving to the next project.

These articles are not as glamorous as the big projects, but I need to do some of these smaller projects to make the big ones easier to manage. I’m making room for these things and that’s what I focused on this week. For example:

Returning To The Clutter

Older picture. I’m reading a different book now.

Well, the Christmas decorations are all packed away until next Christmas and I already see my next batch of projects. Some will be digital but there’s also some physical clutter I need to organize because this year I really want to bring things together and make this a viable comic art and video making studio. This includes making a decent workspace and if there’s any “clutter” it’s the creative kind that sparks imagination instead of a mess that sparks apathy.

So the time has come to get back into clutter clearing. I hope to start selling some stuff off finally since the sale page here (not really surprising when you think about it) hasn’t been the solution. I might try eBay again or look into other options. I want to get back to listing comics for sale. I want to reorganize this space I’ve been working on into a better setup. I want to stop saying “I want to” and actually do it. Hopefully 2021 will a boost of a year to my organizing, just like when I started this site. When I began using my blogging to get myself to clean I was doing really well and got a lot done. I can’t say I’ve slacked off over the years but the amount of work that has to go into it definitely started to weigh on me. I knew this would be a long-term project but I don’t think I realized just how big a mess I made for myself in over 40 years. 2016’s medical issues didn’t help and I’m still trying to shake some of that off (like the hernia) but honestly I can’t simply blame the forced time off as the only reason I’ve fallen behind. It just gave me an excuse and it’s time I stopped using it as one now. It’s been five years since the diverticulitis kicked off the hell year (personal hell year, followed in the ranking by 2015 when I lost my mom and last grandparent, and 2020 for the obvious reasons). I think I’ve rested enough and even with being tired lately I need to force myself back on track.

I hope you join me on this journey, if not out of curiosity and cheer me on then to get you thinking about your own clutter-clearing journey. Let’s try to…

Okay, then let’s make 2021 the best year we can and finally get this party back in gear!

Cleaning Out The Folder Box

I have a couple of these boxes. You’re supposed to put folders in them and keep files in them. This one is filled with random stuff, and after looking for an instruction manual last week I decided this needed to be cleaned out a bit.

I’m not wrong, am I? I hadn’t intended this to be a third junk drawer. Two is more than enough after all. I wasn’t using it at the time so I stuffed a bunch of things in there I’m not sure I need anymore. So this week’s project was to put this in better shape. I ended up finding things in here that I was looking for some time ago, and learned something I didn’t even know, which kind of changes remarks made in the previous Transformer review. Which means I also found some memories, but more “I forgot that” than “I remember this happy moment”. Still, I’ll take it.

Quick Report: Moving A Pile

I had a lot of time-swiping events happen this week so I didn’t get to do a full project. I did however manage to do something with this pile left over from the manga and software projects as well as the most recent non-fiction book sorting project. I still need to go over that software but I’ve had this stuff in a rather inconvenient pile in the studio. A few things I actually managed to find a place for, like the video game books. Other stuff I still need to go over, mostly the manga and software. I still plan to but getting close to Christmas and having another project I want to get to after next week’s Transformers Universe review I at least made things a bit easier on myself.

There are times I wonder if once a week is enough but I tend to have a lot of different kinds of projects and a poor job managing it all.

Quick Report: Paper Project Complete

I wanted to be more alliterative but I ran out of “P” words.

Just a quick update on this project. I finally finished off the stack of loose papers and records. While there are a few things I need to go over or put with other things I’ve cleared out what I need to for now, put into recycle what should go there, and shredded the rest. That’s one less project to deal with. Next week should be another book review and then I have my next cleaning project already planned. That will hopefully be a longer report as I feel like I’m doing a disservice to email and WordPress subscribers as well as returning readers doing three short reports like this in a row. Hopefully you got something out of this anyway.

Light Maintenance Project

Not every clutter maintenance project is some big thing. With things I had to do for my other site this weekend I did some light cleaning, like finally cleaning out and packing away my humidifier for the season and going through some papers. I hope to have something more exciting to talk about next week.

Quick Report: Updating My Media Library

One problem I’ve had with doing article is finding the right image from my media library. I don’t always have to upload a new image every time, when the old images I have can work to showcase what a project was, especially a quick project like this one. However, there are a number of times when I enter something to search my media library and even though I’m sure I have it I can’t find it. When I just need an old picture to make a point it’s not to be found, although sometimes I can dig into my library and find it. Nowadays I’m pretty good at naming photos for tracking down later but in the old days especially I didn’t really think about it. So this week I went through my old pictures in my media library and updated the descriptions and in a few cases the title for better exploring. This may also solve the problem of the same handful of images coming up for a topic when I know I have more. This is something I was going to while taking time off from my other site (which also needs this project done, but more so because there are more images) but then my computer went down the same time as the laptop I use for my art corner which could in a pinch act as a back-up for making content. So I had nothing to work with. Now the images here at The Clutter Reports should be easier to find. I know this doesn’t affect you much but it will make things easier for me, which is the whole point of this project.

Comic Re-Integration Finale + Bonus Projects

There’s nothing more satisfying than a completed project, especially a big one that needed four weeks to complete. But complete it is. I wanted to sort my comics so they flow in a better order to properly go through them all, and I succeeded. I ended up finishing before the week was out so I took on some smaller project that I could only do once the comic re-integration project was complete. Let me take you on a short journey through my week and all I accomplished.

Comic Re-Integration Project: Week 3

This is going to be a short report. This week I was more interested in finally finishing my Christmas comic…which as you can guess from the posting date is already a few weeks left. If I can get it done for tonight I’ll be very happy. Not that I didn’t do anything. I did organize my letter “T” titles, which included two big ones: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (with at least four different continuities to sort separately) and some Transformers comics I came across, some of which I already pulled out since I know I don’t want them. Not that they’re bad (though some of them are) but IDW took the franchise in a direction I don’t care for, which is the opposite of what they did with the Turtles comics. And there’s still the border marking, mixed with my removable tape running out. I have to use regular tape and hope the bag doesn’t rip the next time I go to read the comics down this way. Removable tape is hard to find, if they still make it.

The plan is to finish off this phase of the project this week and move on to another project while I continue to slowly go through the collection, finding the comics I still enjoy and want to read again versus the ones I don’t care for and willing to go away, thus cutting down my oversized collection. We’re almost done with this one.