My collection of comics is too big. I am hopelessly addicted. Whenever I see a good deal, I cannot stop myself from making a purchase. I have bought so many comics off eBay over that I cannot read them all fast enough. It has gotten to the point where I have comics that I got back in December of '06 that I still have not read yet. Every month, it seems like my pile of “To Read” books grows bigger and bigger. Is this normal? What’s the longest you have gone without reading something you bought? I have skipped meals just so I could save those six bucks for lunch to buy the week’s latest releases instead.
My addiction used to be even worse. I used to keep several random issues strewn about in every room in my home. Why? Just so I wouldn’t have to travel more than a few meters to get a comic book fix whenever I needed one. I had a stack of 40 comics on my toilet that I would read over and over while taking dumps. Sometimes I would try to take two or three dumps a day just to give myself an excuse to sit on the toilet and read some of those comics. I still keep a few comics in my glove compartment, though. I have never met a person who used the glove compartment to store gloves.
Anyway, my question to you all is the thread title. How do you all store your comics?
I have three bookshelves for my TPBs and hardcovers. One bookshelf has five shelves, one has three shelves, and the final one only has two shelves. I need to get another bookshelf soon because I just don’t have enough space to store all my TPBs. Does anyone recommend a good website that sells quality shelves made of sturdy construction? Two of the shelves I have, I bought from Target and Wal-Mart. They were cheap, and up to this point they have been very reliable. However, the amount of TPBs on a single shelf taxes the technical specifications. Some of the shelves are bending a little bit. It kind of worries me. My greatest fear is that my bookshelves will collapse because I put too much weight on them.
To store my single issues, I mostly put them in these plastic Rubbermaid filing boxes that I got from Office Depot. They don’t store as much as the standard long boxes, but I had a bunch of them so I put them to use. I label each box with a Post-It note so that I can easily remember what I put inside each box.
I know that some serious comic book collectors are anal about putting their comics into polybags with backing boards, and then taping the bags closed, but I am not that depraved. I have bags and boards, and I do use them most of the time, but I’m not down with taping the bags closed. Sometimes, it is just too much trouble for me to bag and board, though, so I just skip that step and leave the naked comics in the box. In that case, I place every other issue facing backwards so that the staples of consecutive issues do not align on the same side. (Saves space and I think it also helps keep the comics flatter.)
Taping bags just makes it a giant hassle when I want to reread something. I mean, it’s bad enough when I have to look at my boxes to decide which box contains the comic I want to read, and then I have to look inside the box and sort through all of the comics within it, and THEN I have to manually extract the comic from its protective polybag. That’s a lot of trouble. And when there’s tape holding the bag closed, that slows me down. Plus, I’m always ripping the tape off by accident and I hate when that shit gets all sticky and shit. That’s why it’s so much more convenient to get the TRADE, BABY. I can just pull it off the shelf, no problem. (I organize my shelves by alphabetical order by title.)
Right now I’m using about ten of those Office Depot filing boxes. Most of them are packed to the brim. I have a couple hundred issues of various stuff that are just stacked in piles next to the boxes. I also have one traditional comics long box that is completely full. Lastly, I have one short box that is completely devoted to Peter Milligan comics.
With the exception of my Peter Milligan Box, which I keep next to my bed, all my comics - my shelves with TPBs/HCs, long box, Office Depot boxes, piles of issues - are stored in the same room.
Is this a fire hazard? Would it be wiser for me to store my comics in separate rooms? My second greatest fear is that my comics will spontaneously combust and annihilate the city in a blazing inferno of wrathful destruction.
Anyway. That’s what I do with my comics, other than read, share, and obsess over them. How do you guys store/organize your comics?
