How to ignore lines in a file that start with "(*" and end with "*)"?

Question

I'm building a compiler and trying to parse a text file in Java. In this text file, I am looking to ignore comments. This is indicated by "( " at the beginning of the comment and a " )" to indicate the end, then continue parsing through. My lexer has 3 states: word, a number/operations, and now a comment state. I structured these in if-else statements.

I wanted to construct it like so:

} else if (input.equals("(*") {
    //ignore until find "*)"
}

however, I wasn't sure know if it would be best to implement it in my switch statement where these characters are already included to make it more robust ie

case'(':
    Token nextToken = totalTokens.get(totalTokens.size() - 1);
    boolean isAComment = isTokenAComment(nextToken);
    if(isAComment){
        //ignore input until find "*)"
    }

this option would be similar to how I differentiated between a negative number or a subtraction operator

case '-':
    // check the array of tokens if the last entry is an operator
    Token nextToken = allTokens.get(allTokens.size() - 1);
    boolean isOperator = isTokenAnOperator(nextToken);

   // if so assume this is a number and call isANegativeNumber method
   if (isOperator) {
        String isNegativeNumber = isNegativeNumber(input, i);
        if (isNegativeNumber.length() == 0) {
            throw new Exception();              
        } else {
            i += isNegativeNumber.length();
            allTokens.add(new Token(Token.TokenType.number, isNegativeNumber));
        }
   } else {
       allTokens.add(new Token(Token.TokenType.minus));
   }                                                                                    
   i++;
   break;