Many people, including myself, subscribe to the comics they regularly read to save a trip to a comic retailer. I don’t know about anyone else, but I get pissed the hell off sometimes when my comics arrive in the mail.

There are a couple things that annoy me about my comic subscriptions. The biggest of which is when the comics arrive. There is absolutely no way to gauge when a new comic is going to be in my mailbox. Sometimes it’s two days prior to new comic book day, Wednesday, and others it’s a week after. Take this week for example. I just received New Avengers #42 today, which is set to come out on this Wednesday. That’s great. But where the hell is my copy of Fantastic Four #558 that also comes out this week? They’re most likely coming from the same distribution center, they should arrive on the same day. Most weeks, however, I don’t get my new issues in the mail until a week or two AFTER they’ve come out. I don’t know if the USPS or Marvel is at fault, all I want are my new comics the week they come out.

It also grinds my gears when the comics arrive bent. This is more the USPS’ and mail room’s fault, and not Marvel’s. It clearly says on the cardboard backing the comic comes with “DO NOT BEND”. That should tell whoever picks it up not to BEND my comic. Then why do I occasionally find my comics damaged? I found a copy of Fantastic Four literally crammed into my tiny P.O. box once. It made me sick to my stomach to see the book horribly malformed and bent in ways I don’t like to recall. I had to place it under a pile of heavy books for a week to get it to straighten out, at the cost of spine damage, but at least then I could open the book without tearing it in half. Also, my copy of New Avengers #42 I got today was also damaged even though this mailbox is very spacious. It feels like the post man went out of his way to damage my book. He must have because that mailbox is incredibly accommodating.

These things happen much to often for my liking. I can’t just stop my subscriptions, because then I would have to pay cover price for all those books which is considerably more. Whoever is at fault here, be it the distributors, the USPS, or some New World Order group, needs to get their act together and get subscriptions where they need to be on time, and in good condition.