Crossed a Milestone: 6,000+ comics

It's been a while since I've reported on the progress with cataloging my comic book collection. Back in February I had 5,660 comics. Since then, work and other factors have really affected my progress. But tonight I devoted a half hour to it and finally crested the 6K mark. As of this moment, I've got 6,026 comics in my collectorz.com software.

I entered about 65 comics tonight. The bulk of them included:

• 23 issues of Power Man and Iron Fist 
• 39 issues of Darkhawk

These are mostly new comics to me. Well, sort of. The Darkhawk comics were a moving gift from my buddy, Paul Mauer. By that, I mean he gave me two long boxes of comics when he moved because he didn't want to haul them to Seattle. I've been slowly going through them, keeping some (and reading them now). Others (like the Image series Brigade) I'm just going to sell at my next comic/game convention.

The Power Man and Iron Fist comics, however, are new to me. They were in a bargain box outside the local Half-Price Books store on Free Comic Book Day (which was Saturday, May 4). I've always liked that series and recently picked up the PM&IF Essential collection, vol. 1. These issues I picked up are definitely reader copies and well worth the 25 cents per issue I picked up. 

To be honest, there were three duplicates in the run (that is, I already had them). But at 25 cents a book, it honestly wasn't worth the effort it would have taken me to call up my current collection and confirm what issues I already had.

The fact that I'm stopping to read and reread so many of the comics is probably why it's taking me so long to finish this project. On the other hand, that's part of the reason I started this project to begin with. The reason I bought all these comics is because I enjoy reading them. Rereading them -- and in the case of Power Man and Iron Fist -- filling in the blanks on books I missed the first time around is what this venture is all about.

R.I.P. DC Artist Carmine Infantino

I just heard the sad news that veteran comic book artist (and onetime publisher of DC Comics), Carmine Infantino, passed away. He was 87.

New Flash and Old Flash meet on
one of the most iconic images
ever to grace a comic book cover.

Carmine was a legend in the field for many reasons (aside from helping create the new version of the Flash character and launch the Silver Age of Comics), one of which was his ability to tell a story in clean, simple lines. I don't recall ever having to look at a page he drew trying to figure out what was going on. This simple storytelling is something that many new artists could learn a lot about by studying Carmine's work.

Although I never directly spoke to the man (or met him), I have always suspected that I had a tiny influence on his work on one occasion. 

In the 1980s Carmine was drawing the series Spider-Woman. I was a fan of this series and liked it's dark artwork and unusual themes. But I wasn't always thrilled with the fact that the lead character was always getting her costume torn up, then she was captured and tied up (I like a little teasing artwork every now and then, but it was really getting ridiculous at how often she was knocked out and tied up). 

Being a geeky fan, this bugged me because Spider-Woman can't fly: she can glide with the wings built into her costume. But, that costume had been torn to shreds dozens of times so that she would start the issue in tatters, but as the story progressed, the outfit would seem to magically fix itself (and no, it wasn't self-repairing nano-fibers or unstable molecules). 

Anyway, I wrote a letter to the editors and complained about it. Low and behold, within six months, the title page of an issue opened with her sitting in her apartment, sewing her costume. I loved it!

Without having the issues handy (I still haven't cataloged and reboxed the "S" comics, yet), I don't have the issue references for you. But I still fondly recall how the series addressed my geeky concerns. Whether true or not, I always supposed that my letter was the impetus for that scene... and I thank them.

And I also thank Carmine for all his great years of work in providing solid entertainment and being a guiding force for good in the comics industry. He rightfully deserves to be called a legend and he will be missed.

Update: My Top Series

The holidays were a busy time and I didn't get as much sorting and organizing done as I would like. However, things are picking up and I'm getting back into the swing of things. I've put together more comic short boxes (if you recall, I bought a case of 25 of them last Halloween and I've now used 10 of them).

Right now the hardest part is the organizing. I'm trying hard to resist the urge to enter comics in my software (the awesome collectorz.com) and then just toss the comics into generic boxes. That really wouldn't help achieve my goals of figuring out what I've got and -- importantly -- where it is.

It's slow going, but I'm getting it done.

Current Count

As of this moment, I've cataloged 5,660 comics. That should put me over the halfway mark, but we'll see.

These are the series I have the most of:


186 - Knights of the Dinner Table
133 - The Defenders
106 - Daredevil
101 - Jughead's Double Digest
93 - Archie's Pals 'n' Gals Double Digest
93 - Batman
83 - Archie Double Digest
82 - Betty & Veronica Double Digest
72 - Spider-Girl, Vol. 1
68 - Detective Comics, Vol. 1

Keep in mind, I have not cataloged all of the Batman books, nor have I even started on the various X-Men titles. When I come across these books (and they are scattered everywhere) I just toss them into a Bat Books Stack and plan to come back to them later.

JLA/JSA Surprise

I had originally put JLA and JSA in the same box, but now have to split them. I've just got too many of those titles (and their various spin-offs and related titles like Elseworlds Graphic Novels, Day of Judgement, etc.) to fit into a single short box. I'm also have some similar issues with Superman (there's just so many related comics and titles -- like Superboy and Supergirl) that he's outgrown one single shortbox.

Nevertheless, it's slow going, but it's going to be worth it in the end.

I'll keep ya posted.

Another Collection Update

I've spent a busy two days entering a lot of comics into the system, and I find I'm running smack-dab into one of the pitfalls of many collectors: I'm obsessing with the numbers. You see, a long, long time ago, I was like most young collectors and I went through the "investing" phase of collecting. Even though I had little immediate desire to sell my comics, I would buy extra copies of important issues. This was obviously tied to a higher-than-previous income, which is why I have at least 4 complete set of Frank Miller's run on Daredevil during the crucial DD/Elektra era (I've even got copies autographed by Frank Miller at Lone Star Comics during the 1981 - 1983 years).

I picked up four of these during
my "investor" phase.

I then matured a bit and gave up investing to just focus on what I enjoy reading. That doesn't mean I never bought multiples again, but I definitely cut down on the practice.

When I quit investing, I also quit counting how many comics I had. They were just there for my enjoyment, so it didn't matter how many there were. The last time I did a count I was between 6,000 - 7,000 comics, but I just sort of lost track after that. It wasn't until recently that I stopped to do the math and realized that I probably have between 10,000 - 12,000. I really won't know for sure until I figure out a faster way to access and sort them (hence my recent posts about getting custom cabinets).

But back to the numbers game
My evenings have been a bit free for the past week, so I started entering comics into the system with a bit more vim and vigor than usual. And once I started, that's where the "numbers bug" hit me. You see, I might enter a range of comics and then do a count to see how many I had done, and if it was 98 comics I would feet cheated until I went to grab 2 more to make it an even 100.

Likewise, I might enter that 100 comics, only to see that the comics total for my collection was at 4,376. Only 24 comics away from passing a milestone of 4,400? I'd go grab another series and quickly enter them into the system so I could pass another milestone in sheer quantity of books. That's one thing the Collectorz.com software makes easy -- counting comics. And it feeds the Numbers bug in other ways, too. Not only have I been buggy about total comics entered, total in collection, but also with comics by publisher and comics by title.

Let me go back to the Man Without Fear to give you an example. Last night I finally decided to tackle my Daredevil comics. He was mostly collected (bagged & boarded) in one box, but some later issues had gotten scattered throughout other boxes and I thought I had finally collected most of them into one new box. So I set out to document them, and that's when I realized just how many multiples I had purchased between Daredevil #173 and into the late #190s. I have as many as 6 copies of some of these books (although 4 or 5 is more common). So, I go through them, reboard & bag some of them (some cheap old bags were getting tacky and oily feeling) and, when all is said and done, I only entered 89 issues of Daredevil last night.

Huh?

I would have sworn I had at least at least 150 or more in my collection. But even if not, the thing that irks me is that I only entered 89 issues, not 90 (or 100, like I thought). But 89? I just feel gypped somehow. Now, when you factor in some older Daredevils, I actually made it to 103, plus I'm pretty sure I've got a few more issues hiding in other boxes, but still. I just thought there were more.

And you see, that's the Numbers Bug talking. I really don't care how many I've got. Those are great comics and I've got a slew of them. I'm even planning to pull them out and reread them (I peeked at a few and dang it, they look good!).

Biting Back at the Numbers Bug
I had a lull today after work and decided to continue entering comics. I was determined to make it over 4,700 comics today (I've no idea why, but it's a threshold I wanted to pass). To do that, I went into some of my older boxes where the comics are already bagged, boarded and sorted. I was able to pick up huge stacks and just do a fast visual count to see what was there and then quickly enter it into the Collectorz.com software.

Here are the big titles I've entered the last two days:

• 89 - Daredevil
• 42 - All Star Squadron
• 38 - Arak, Son of Thunder
• 31 - Misc. (Action, Adventure, Tales to Astonish, etc.)
• 24 - Arion
• 14 - Amethyst (includes annual & DC team-up with Superman)
• 12 - Uncle Scrooge (the AWESOME "Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck series by Sam Rosa)

TOTAL: 250

I used this one to "Feed the
Numbers Bug" & make it to
250 comics on my list above.

By the way, I had originally only entered 249 comics in that list above. But I couldn't stand being 1 comic short, so I went back and grabbed a lone copy of 1975's Omac #8 to finish off that number. This brings me to a total of 4,717 comics that have been cataloged.

I feel a little closer to the halfway point than I did before. Maybe the collection is actually closer to 11,000 than to 12,000 after all.

One thing's for sure, though, the Numbers Bug won't be happy until I know for sure.

UPDATE: Another bite from the bug! I was watching TV late tonight and decided to enter some more comics and hit 4,850 comics! 

Collection Update

Today's sorting efforts, part 1

Had a little downtime today while waiting for a work call, so I took the opportunity to continue trashing the guest bedroom with piles of comics. Heh. At least I think that's what my wife and the housekeeper think.

In truth, I pulled three boxes out of the bottom of my office closet and finally cracked them open to see what was in there. For the past two weeks I've been going through them, reading graphic novels and enjoying some of my stash. But today was about finally taking a stab at organizing the titles so I could continue cataloging them.

So I did what any fanboy would do -- I sat on the bed and went through the boxes, tossing the comics into piles of related titles or publishers. In this case, most of the boxes were full (or half-full) of DC Comics titles.

In particular, I found my stashes of these titles:

• Green Lantern: 23
• Green Arrow (all three major series): 70+
• Impulse: 48
• Young Justice: 22*

I also found a lot of the Bat books (Batman, Detective Comics, Batgirl, Nightwing, Robin, etc.), but I didn't enter them into the system. I'm creating a huge Bat Stack and will handle them later. After sorting the comics, I entered some into the computer. Sorting by index, I was able to determine that I entered 159 comics today, most in those series mentioned above.

BTW: I put a star by young Justice because it includes that pesky "Sins of Youth" series, which includes nine comics that have a #1 number. That means nine different series, which makes it that much harder to catalog in the Collectorz.com software.

My Stash Statistics

My other stacks, including lots of Green Arrow, Green Lantern
and a big bunch of misc. publishers like Bongo.

So, today I crossed a threshold by having cataloged 4,006 comics. By my rough estimate, that puts me at the 40% mark, but to be honest, I'm thinking it looks closer to 30% of my total. I've got a LOT of boxes I haven't even touched, yet. And lots more to sort and catalog from what I have touched. As I said, that Bat Stack is getting bigger all the time (although I have entered a lot of Robin and Nightwing comics). Time will tell, though. I still think that my collection is around 10,000 comics.

As things stand, here are my top 5 publishers:

1. 1,260 - DC Comics
2. 1,105 - Marvel Comics
3. 969 - Archie Comics
4. 198 - Kenzer & Co.
5. 52 - First Comics

And my top 10 series are:

1. 162 - Knights of the Dinner Table
2. 130 - The Defenders
3. 97 - Jughead's Double Digest
4. 92 - Archie's Pals-N-Gals
5. 79 - Archie Double Digest
6. 75 Bett & Veronica Double Digest
7. 66 - Green Arrow, vol. 2
8. 66 - Fantastic Four, Vol. 1
9. 66 - Betty
10. 62 - Archie Comics Digest

The Archie Comics are disproportionately represented at this time because I started with the Archie Comics. I have yet to enter any of my Daredevil or X-Men comics, and as I mentioned previously, I have a lot of Batman books sitting on the sidelines in my Bat Stack.

In other news, I plan to make a big purchase of boxes and shelves in the next month so I can finally have everything lined up and can start putting this stuff away for long-term storage and finally get a grip on what I have in my stash.

Storage Woes

I've heard it said that one of the signs of insanity is to keep doing the same thing but expecting different results. I either need to keep cataloging my comics, or stop briefly and change how I'm doing it because -- even though I've entered almost 4,000 comics in my database software -- I'm still in the same situation where I started.

I can't find what I'm looking for.

Case in point: The Spiderman / Nova crossover event from 1977. A week or two ago, I found one of my copies of Nova #12. I say "one of my copies" because I'm pretty sure I've got at least two of them. At least I think so -- right now I've only found one copy and I'm pretty sure it's filed under "N" for Nova.

A really cool first meeting between
Web Head & Bucket Head.

Today I found a copy of The Amazing Spider-Man #171 which includes the second half of that epic meeting. As you might guess from the cover above, Nova ended with them being tied to an anchor and being tossed into the ocean (you know, this sort of thing happens more often than you might think in comic books -- maybe someday I'll collect all the different covers I can find where this happens). This was a cool first meeting, by the way, that had the obligatory introductory fight followed by the expected team-up and mutual admiration. It was really one of the classic first meetings in recent comics.

But you see, I'm just not sure where both halves of the story are (fortunately, I do have the story reprinted in a copy of Essential Marvel Team-Up, but that's really not the point, is it?).

But back to my organizational woes.

Some of my stash.

The problem is, though, my comics are stacked in the corner of a room and are still difficult to access. At least they're out of the way for the moment, but that's really defeating the purpose of my attempt at organization. This photo doesn't even begin to show the bulk of my problem. Right here you can count about 10 long boxes and xxx short boxes. There are actually more out of the range of the photo, plus more in other rooms. But even if this is about 60% of my collection, you can get the gist of my problem: I just can't get to anything.

And that's got to change.

I'm thinking of a two-pronged solutions: Short boxes & Shelves.

I was measuring the boxes today and the space where I plan to keep them and have started working on a plan. I'm not yet sure if I'm going to buy resin shelves (cheaper and easy to set up), but won't fit perfectly), or whether I'm going to look into modular shelving (ELFA, IKEA, something like that), or whether I'm just going to buy some lumber and build something myself. Each method has its pros and cons, which I will be looking at (and sharing with you) in the future.

Next time: I'll discuss my decision to switch to short boxes.

Scaling Back

I need to slow down. Back in february I decided I want to try blogging on a regular basis, so I made a commitment to blog 3 times a week for 3 months. And I have kept a commitment. But now it's time to slow down and take a break. The truth of the matter is I just don't have time to read material wright interesting reviews while maintaining the schedule.

 So I'm going to take a break and slow down. I'm going to make another commitment to blog once a week, but to blog with substance. I'm going to think about what day of the week I want post on and then make a commitment to post on that day for another 3 months. I think I should have an answer by next week.

Talk to you then.