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.