The Collector

Collecting things is a weird obsession. I don’t mean to use the term “weird” pejoratively, mind you—I myself have collected lots of things over the years.

Some children will collect toys, which makes a great deal of sense. Toys are the first thing a kid really owns, so a young mind might turn toward wanting to have every item from a set, for instance, or all the characters from a franchise. Some kids will leave a toy in its original packaging, preserving it for posterity.

I never had any time for toy collecting, possibly because I was far too busy dissecting and reconfiguring whatever toys I had (or just playing with them), like this picture my folks snapped of me creating a little makeshift prison for the Hulk: