Tilting at Windmills’ column on periodicals at CBR got me thinking about my comic book buying habits. I’ve been making the weekly trip to the comic store for well over a decade, but that’s been changing lately. Since I’ve cut back to about 10 monthly books, it’s not uncommon for a week to go by with nothing on my list, or with only one or two items. It hardly feels worth it to go to the store for a single comic book unless it’s something I really want to read immediately, so I’ve found myself skipping those weeks and picking up several weeks’ worth of comics at once.

So how about you? Do you have to get your new comics “fix” every week, or do you save it up for one big monthly trip? Or something in between?

Update: The poll results are in. With 122 people responding, nearly half (43%) said they went to the comic store every week. The surprise was that the second-most popular response wasn’t every other week (7%) or even every month (12%), but those who only bought comics occasionally — a full quarter of those who replied!

In short, buying habits cluster around the Wednesday crowd and the bookstore crowd — and the bookstore crowd is a lot bigger than I expected. I don’t necessarily mean literally buying comics at book stores rather than comic stores, but people who buy their comics the way most people buy books: when they have the opportunity, or when something specific comes out.