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'I bought these items and I couldn’t stand them': inside the mind of a Batman collector

Darren Maxwell’s Batman collection spans everything from badges to branded ice-creams. But a new documentary shows fandom is not all fun and figurines

In the community and in the media there is widespread awareness about many kinds of addictions – from drug and alcohol dependencies to food, sex, pokies and video games. As far as I am aware, however, there is a dearth of knowledge about a more, erm, esoteric kind of addiction: collecting Batman merchandise from the 80s and 90s.

This rather niche fixation beleaguered Darren “Dags” Maxwell, a former collector, a Melburnian and an active member of the Australian science fiction fan community for more than three decades. He is, along with his extensive Batman merch assemblage, the subject of Batman and Me, an Australian feature-length documentary premiering on Tuesday 30 June at this year’s online-only Melbourne documentary film festival.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2VxGIFI

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