Organizing Comics

One of my "hodgepodge" boxes

Not so recently, Alan and Emily Middleton went through how they organize their comic book collection on an episode of Shortbox Showcase. That seems to have touched off quite a bit of responses from their listeners on how each individual does it. Well, this is yet another bandwagon that I'm going to jump on, though I may have still a different take.

You see, I don't have a lot of comics any more. In fact, I only have three long boxes and three short boxes. That's it. Most "new" comics that I read now are digital, which means that I don't need to store or organize them. I don't have a lot of boxes, but I figured that I would go through a couple and show you how they're put together.

I tend to go by character, which makes it easier to find things, and then by chronology. Let's take one of my short boxes for example. This one is for Quasar. It contains his series as well as other appearances that I have for him, going from oldest to newest. That means that issues of Avengers that happen between issues of his series are placed in between those issues in the order.

Next we have a Superman long box. This is all Post-Crisis stuff, starting from Man of Steel #1 and moving forward. Many of the issues that I had were damaged in a flood caused by a little storm called Sandy, and had to be trashed. What I have left is placed in order of story, so you have Adventures, Action, & Superman all mixed in. The Triangle Numbering made it easier, but I went and did that to the rest of the titles as well. I also have any "Year One" or similar type issues placed in chronological order as to when they take place. There's even an issue of Wonder Woman in there, which sets up her Action Comics appearance. As this long box isn't full of Superman, I also have related titles, like Superman/Batman in the back.

I do have some boxes that are a mix of things (see the Batman Beyond/Batman/Nightwing/Titans/Outsiders/Aquaman box above). One long box has PvP, Liberty Meadows, Strangers in Paradise (Michelle's), and Concrete, among other things, in it. They needed to go somewhere, so that's where they ended up.

I think that about covers it, and I would like to apologize to the librarians in the audience for making their heads explode.

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