Using Poser to Make Comics: Create Custom Library Collections, pt 3

When I finished last week's tutorial, I didn't think there was a Part 3 to this series. But, as I thought about some of my other organizational techniques/practices, I realized that there is one other way I approach the Poser Library that might help give you guys some ideas.

In addition to creating lists of Favorites, you can also create a custom Runtime Library with assets that will be used in your project. In other words, a Project-Specific Library. This could include customized figures (Michael 4 and Victoria 4 are my favorites), poses, buildings, landscapes, and vehicles. 

In addition to making it easy to find the items you're looking for, it also offers you the opportunity to easily make back-ups of all the assets that go into that project. For example, here's a screenshot of my current Runtime structure.

Project-specific libraries are highlighted.
Click image for a larger view.

When I create a Library for a single project, I duplicate a lot of things that are in other Runtimes. For example, the Gutshot Library (shown in the image above) is a collection of my Western assets. This definitely includes duplication with my Architecture Library, and with some stuff in My Library (which is the Daz Studio Library). I tend not to worry about duplicates in this situation because I follow one basic rule: If I start off by using an asset from a project-specific folder, I keep on doing it. In other words, I don't get the Hat out of the Gutshot folder and then get the matching bandana from the Poser 11 folder. That sort of crisscrossing can cause problems in the long run.

At any rate, like the Favorites, I only tend to use this approach when it's a Larger project with a lot of potential for confusion later down the road. With a big visual narrative project, keeping stuff where you can find it is a powerful tool/practice that can really pay off in the end.

Creating Custom Libraries

I'm not going to go through the whole step-by-step process on this process because there are already LOTS of great tutorials on this subject. Here's one that combines text and a great video:  

https://www.posersoftware.com/article/476/how-to-manage-your-poser-library

Using Poser to Make Comics: Create Custom Library Collections, pt 2

 Continuing our discussion from last time, we're going to dive into the nitty gritty of exactly how you customize the "Favorites" tab in the Poser Library, and we'll look at the ways I categorize my assets for a comic book story.

How to Save a Favorite Item to the Poser Library

1. Browse through your Library until you find an item you like (note, it must be a single item, you cannot add a folder).
2. Click on the "Favorite" icon (it's a star) at the bottom of the Library window.
3. Open / Expand the Project Folder
4. (If the folder doesn't exist, create it by clicking on the "New Folder Name" button).
5. Highlight the sub-folder where you wish to place the item
6. (NOTE: This is VERY important and easy to forget, so be careful).
7. Click "OK" button.
8. The item is now available in the "Favorites" tab in your Library.

One thing of note is that this actually creates a duplicate of the object – not a shortcut. So, if you are short on hard drive space, you might want to be judicious with your Favorites lists.

PRO TIP: If you ever need to reorganize your Favorites, you can right-click on an object and select the "Show in Explorer" option. Once there,  you can move files around. 

This is just one of the methods I've learned to use after significant trial and error, and I know it seems like a lot of work. Really, I get it. There are times when it feels like I'm spending more time "shopping" through my Runtime than I do making art. But, this process delivers numerous benefits, including:

• Helping me see what I've already got, rather than rushing off to Renderosity or Daz to go buy something that I already have (like sunglasses... Randy needs a pair and I almost bought some, but looking carefully through my stuff, I found I already had a pair that were perfect for him).
• When I post the image to Daz or Renderosity, this makes it a lot easier to track back to the item so I can list it in the promotional credits.
• Also helps remind me that, when I do find a great asset, I should go write a review.

I know that a lot of you don't use Poser, so this article may be of limited value to you, but hopefully it will get you thinking about the logistics of creating a big, Visual Narrative projects. So, for you Daz users, the takeaway I want to leave you with is simply this: Using ANY sort of asset organization on a big project will be helpful in the long run.

Using Poser to Make Comics: Create Custom Library Collections, pt 1

 

Getting Started with a Visual Narrative Project

Using Poser to create a comic (or any project that requires a lot of images/renders) consumes a LOT of assets. There are figures, costumes, equipment, vehicles, weapons and numerous other items that will be needed. Like most of you (I imagine), I have MANY thousands of items at my disposal. Purchases, freebies, and who knows what are lurking in my Runtime and it's up to me to find out what's there so i can bring the story out of my head and out into the world.

One of the approaches I use is to think of it as a movie, mentally visualizing the places and people in my story, and then doing a deep search through my Poser Runtime to find the various bits and pieces I might need or want. And this includes selecting different options, especially for clothing. If I were working on a movie, these tasks would be handled by different professionals:

• For example, some standard movie roles include:
• Set Designer / Set Construction (interiors)
• Location Supervisor (exteriors)
• Wardrobe (clothes, sunglasses, wristwatch)
• Prop Master (guns, crucifixes, wooden stakes, possibly cars)
• Hair & Makeup specialists

I'm not even including all the lighting and other stuff, such as "casting" because we kind of create our characters, rather than find them (at least partly – I frequently do look for pre-existing characters in my library and use them if they look right for the part; this is especially true for minor/background characters).

So, back to the tip I'm trying to summarize.

Poser has a great feature in the Library called FAVORITES, which is a fantastic way to organize assets. For a new project, I will open the Library and, on the Favorites tab, I will create a Project Folder (in this case, "Devil Wing 2021"). Then, I will go through my Runtime and look for the various items I will need and save the various items to separate, organized folders. As you can see in the attached screenshots, the folder names are pretty specific to what's in them.

In this case, that includes places/locations (the two big scenes take place in a mansion and in a graveyard, but I will also need some other assets, like a cityscape (she flies over it on her way to the graveyard) and a Greek island (flashback) and I'll also need trees and shrubs to flesh out those locations), interior (mansion interior includes long hallway, library, occult "study" room, & some other room yet to be determined). I'm not sure I'll need a vehicle this time, but I might in the future, so I tagged a few that I like. And, of course, I need to dress the characters (wardrobe) – for them, I will have different folders for each character, and possibly for different scenes (for instance, fancy dress versus casual).

SIDE NOTE: If the project goes beyond this initial two-issue short story, I would create a more detailed "Call List / Catalog" in Excel or Word (or the Google Docs equivalents) to better organize things and make it easier for me to sort out the various references and image credits.

NEXT TIME: Step-by-step instructions on how to create custom collections in your Poser Library.

Need help finding some hardware

I think I love shelves. Yeah, I know that's weird, but I love the way they help organize stuff. And I've got a lot of stuff. I've got books, office supplies, hobby supplies, kitchenware, and so much more. I like my stuff, but it's hard to find what you want -- or need -- when it's all lumped together in a drawer or cupboard.

I think what I like best is the way shelves maximize the use of vertical space. By putting things in neat rows, one atop the other, I can see everything at once and get it when I want it.

These handy undershelf baskets add some
much-needed storage options to any closet.

That's why I love the Container Store's annual Shelving Sale. All their shelves are 25% off. This includes some great space savers, like Undershelf Baskets, which let me add more functionality by dividing an existing shelf into smaller spaces. Like here, where I can mount the basket under a shelf in my office closet to hold paper, labels and other office supplies.

They come in a variety of sizes -- I'm fond of the 20-inch because it will hold two reams of paper, side-by-side. Unfortunately, about an inch of paper sticks out over the edge, but in the case of the cardstock in this photo, it doesn't matter because it's thick enough not to curl.

This small plastic "Camel Clip" attaches beneath
the shelf to provide the basket with
extra stability and support.

There is a problem with these baskets, though -- they are held in place only by the metal arms that slide over the top of a standard half-inch shelf. Although the baskets are metal, the fact that they are supported only in the front limits the amount of weight they can hold. To get around this, I screwed a small clip to the back railing to provide additional support and stability. The shelves don't come with the clip, but when I bought my first baskets two years ago, The Container Store had the necessary clip (the sales lady called it a Camel Clip).

Unfortunately, when I went to this year's sale, I was told by two puzzled associates that they don't carry this any more. Furthermore, they had no idea what it was. Thinking that this would not be overly difficult to find, I headed over to Home Depot and discovered that the head of the Fasteners section had no idea what I was talking about (he asked if it was like a miniature conduit clamp). He sent me over to electronics to see if any of the coaxial or ethernet clips might work for me.

To be honest, I found two that might work, but they are not exactly what I'm looking for. So I cam home and hit the Internet, but that's where I ran into a problem. I'm not sure exactly what this is called. That definitely hampered my search. And describing it doesn't make matters any easier. A 2-screw clamp? Mini conduit slip? Wire support? Is it a fastener or some other type of hardware?

After an hour online, I gave up and just drew the following diagram and decided to post it here in the hopes that someone can help me find them, either in metal or plastic. I'm not picky.

Side-view of the fastener I'm looking for.

And before someone suggests this -- yes, I know I could fabricate my own with a simple strip of metal and drilling some holes in it with my Dremel. And that may be just what I'll have to do in the end. But first, I thought I'd post it here and see if anyone has an idea of what it is and where I can get some.

Thanks in advance for your help.

---------- UPDATE from later that evening ------------

A friend over at the miniatures page suggested I go back to Lowe's or Home Depot and look carefully in their shelving sections to see if I could find the part I was looking for. And, Lowe and behold, I found it at Lowe's. They call it a "C" Clamp, and I bought a bag of 20 for about $8, You can see it here:
http://www.rubbermaid.com/Category/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?Prod_ID=RP092055

It's just a little bigger than I was looking for (it's a 1/2 inch tall, rather than 3/8 inches), but I think it will work out fine for what I need.

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.

Comics Software: The Race Is On

When I look at the stats in my Collectorz.com software, I feel like I'm watching a race. A race between publishers and titles, mostly. Right now Archie is in the lead, but that can't and won't last because I entered almost all of my Archie comics first and I just don't buy that many of them any more. And even though I have not purchased a single DC or Marvel title for at least two years, I bought those two publishers almost exclusively for about 25 years.

Simply put, Marvel or DC will pass Archie before the end of May. As of this moment, here's how things break down for my top five publishers:

• 877 - Archie
• 869 - Marvel
• 729 - DC Comics
• 95 - Kenzer & Company
• 52 - First Comics

In all, I'm starting with 2,969 comics tonight. As you can see, Marvel could pass Archie in a matter of minutes if I just opened the right box. But that's not where I'm going tonight. Tonight, I've decided to finish sorting through Bat Box 2 so I can put it away -- and move back to Bat Box 1.  BB1 contains mostly older Batman and Detective titles, whereas BB2 contains a mixed bunch of titles mostly from around 1998-1999 (a lot feature in the famous No Man's Land saga), but also has some earlier material. But all of it is related to Batman.

Here's a glance at what I'm planning to enter in the next hour.

Mostly Batman Comics that need to be cataloged.

In addition to racing to see which publisher has the most comics, I've also decided to race to see how fast I can enter these comics into the system, and blog about it while I'm doing it. My plan is to stop at regular intervals to see how fast I'm going. I'll also mention any problems I have with missing issues or titles that I encounter along the way. Since Batman is very popular, so I'm not expecting any big problems.

Gentlemen, start your engines!
I spent about 20 minutes sorting them by title and in issue order. This should make it a lot faster to enter them. Also, I replaced a few bags that felt funny (I think I mentioned in the past that I have a few old bags that feel oily to the touch, so I'm tossing those out and replacing them). My goal is not to bag or board any comics, but just to catalog them.

3 p.m. Start Time:  I'm going to start with titles of which I have short runs. Here's what I got done during this time:

• 7 - Batman: Shadow of the Bat
• 15 - Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight
• 17 - Nightwing
• 9 - Robin, vol. 2

3:06 - 3:15 p.m. Finished those above, but am now spending more time than expected trying to find Robin II mini-series, only to find I'd already entered it. Same thing with another All-Star Batman and Robin #1. I did find that I needed to enter the second book of Robin 3000, along with 80-Page Giant Robin. All in all, 5 new comics entered.

3:17 p.m. - 3:28 p.m.: Things are slowing down as I'm having to hunt through a lot of miscellaneous Batman titles to find graphic novels and one shots.

• 3 - Anarky ( I know I'm missing some of these -- I'm pretty sure I've got all of them)
• 11 - Azrael: Agent of the Bat
• 4 - Batman: The Cult
• 10 - Misc. One-Shot Bat Titles

3:30 - 3:36 p.m.: More Bat one-shots like the Killing Joke, Other Realms, The Book of Shadows, Batman Chronicles, Gotham Knights, Dark Knight Returns TPB, etc. At this point, I called it quits and ran a tally on how many comics I had entered in about 30 minutes (I'll knock off about 6 minutes for blogging).

I entered 93 Batman comics today,
bringing my new total to 3,062.

Thumbnails of what I entered tonight.
Click for full-sized image.

I actually looked for more than 100, but some of them had already been entered while working on another box. I had transferred them to Batman Box 2 as part of my efforts to sort things out. Also, I used this opportunity to use the "Edit Many Comics" feature to select all the comics I entered today and set their location to "Batman 2." Combined with about 35 other Bat books (Birds of Prey, Catwoman, Batgirl, etc.), this box is about 95% full -- leaving me just a little room to tip in other titles of these series that turn up.

By the way, my top three publishers are in serious contention for first place:

• 877 - Archie
• 869 - Marvel
• 820 - DC Comics

Not bad for an evening's work, and I can finally get a box out of my office and put it up. Slowly, but surely I'm making progress on getting these cataloged and on cleaning out my office.

See ya back here for Netflix Friday!

Comics Software Review: Choosing Collectorz.com, pt. 1

Let's recap: I am looking for a database to catalog my estimated collection of 10,000 comic books. So far I've looked at Comic Collector Live and ComicBase 15. Both are solid programs and I think many people would be happy using them -- but not me. Let's recap:

• Comic Collector Live was a bit clunky for my taste. I specifically found the cover browser to be unwieldy and slow. It also seemed to be set up for people who wanted to sell their comics online through their storefront. Finally, is subscription based and would have run me about $30 a year. 
• ComicBase 15 is the most powerful of the two and has online reports regarding comic values and a nice, modern interface. But it uses a weird subscription-based pricing system that has some sort of limit or threshold for the number of covers you get. Honestly, I never did understand that part of their software, which is definitely a reason to pass. Most of all, it was too expensive. I suspect the version I need would run about $130.

The next product on my list was Collectorz.com. Now, I had some exposure to this product line in the past, as my friend Paul (the nicest guy on the face of the earth -- and I totally mean it, I don't care what the petting zoo police say about him) uses one of this company's products to track his DVD collection (this has the option to publish your collection to the Web, and here's his DVD collection). Yup, Collectorz has multiple products for tracking your collections. And each one is a separate product -- there is no unified interface with add-on modules: each piece is separate and distinct:

• Movie Collector
• Book Collector
• Music Collector
• Comic Collector
• Game Collector

This separation of programs is a good thing, as it allows each product to focus on what it does best, rather than trying to find some common one-size-fits-all model that would just leave me frustrated and wanting more.

Taking it for a test ride

At first, this diversity in their product line concerned me because I collect comic books and I want someone who knows about comic books. There are things about comics that are very different from DVDs and CDs. It turns out that my fears were not necessary. These guys know comics.

Like most products, this has a free trial download of the PRO version. The trial is limited to 100 comics and that is enough to kick the tires on this to see if you're interested in buying it. There are two versions available:

• Standard Version: $30
• Pro Version: $50

The differences are spelled out here, but it mainly comes down to the ability to edit multiple comics at once, customize which fields are shown, and customizing (&exporting) reports and lists. Most of the other features are shared between the two editions.

The download and installation on my Windows 7 laptop was a cinch: fast and no problems encountered. Opening the software gets you a start-up screen with their sexy mascot (see above) and then opens to a nice, modern program. There are three basic panels where you can access your collection and detailed information.

Click on image to see full-size screen.

The left pane is a standard tree-view that can be sorted in multiple ways. I prefer the most obvious sort: By Publisher. The middle pane shows either folders, covers, images, or lists (I'll cover these more later). The right pane is for details. In this case, you can see that I've got up the basic stats for my entire collection, again, sorted by publisher. In the image above, you can see the Folder View, where each publisher is represented as a folder. This is one of the few things I really dislike about this software: I really want customized icons for each of the publishers. This would make it a lost faster (and let's face it, cooler looking) than having to read the text under the unified parade of yellow folders.

Click on image to see full-size screen.

But the blandness of the Folder View is bypassed by the coolness of the Cover View.  There is just something super cool about seeing all the comic covers represented with a neat, Apple-like reflection below them. It looks slick and modern.

As you can see, when you're looking at the parade of covers, the collection statistics are replaced by the details of this issue. In this particular base, there aren't a lot of details available. This is one of the minor shortcomings of the Collectorz.com database, but one that is also shared by the other products I reviewed: Sometimes the info is there, and sometimes it ain't.

Click on image to see full-size screen.

As you might imagine, some subjects are better covered than others. There's a lot of info about recent comics published by DC and Marvel, but it gets rather hit-or-miss when it comes to old comics from second-tier publishers like Archie, Gold Key and Whitman. Take a look at this issue of The Avengrers from 1968. There is so much info that you have to scroll down to see it all (the cover has scrolled up, out of frame). This particular issue has a plot summary, characters and even a detailed creators list that includes cover artist, cover inker, interior artist/inker and even the letterer and colorist. Pretty detailed stuff.

In addition to issue details, there are series and collection details available in the status bar at the bottom of the screen. If you look at the Pals 'n' Gals cover screen shot above, you'll see that I've got 2319 comics in my collection and 89 issues of Pals 'n' Gals. Looking at the screenshot directly above, you'll see that (so far) I've only entered 7 issues of the Avengers (I've got a lot more Avengers comics, folks -- they just haven't been cataloged yet).

And that brings us to the next issue (pun intended): Entering comics into the system. And we'll cover that on Wednesday.

Come back Wednesday for Part 2 of my Collectorz.com review

Comics: Looking for a "Super Computer" to catalog my comics - Pt. 1

So I've decided to figure out what I've got and (if the Joker #1 has taught us anything) where it is. For this, I obviously decided to turn to my computer. Or maybe even a Super Computer!

Okay, I guess my computer doesn't need super powers, but it does need the right tools to do the job. Here's what I was looking for:

• Easy to use
• Must have database of covers (including variants)
• Windows based (online components are okay, but I want this hosted on my own computer)
• Extensive database of creators, plots, characters, publication year, etc.
• Lets me enter multiple comics at a single time
• Let's me record when I have multiple copies of the same comic
• Not overly expensive (I would prefer not to pay any on-going subscription fees
• Ability to enter "location" information so I can keep track which long/short box a specific comic is in (curse you, Joker, this one is a deal breaker!)

With these requirements in mind (yes, that's actually the way I think) I hit google and started to search for reviews of comic book database software. This was one of the first reviews I found at About.com, and it actually added a few items to what I already knew I was looking for:

• Browse and search capabilities
• Wishlist. This one is so obvious that I can't believe I didn't think of it. Just because I'm missing Marvel Comics Mighty Mouse # 7 - 9 does not mean I'm really in any hurry to find them. Oh, sure... if I found them in a bin for 25 cents a book, I'd pick them up because I'm that compulsive, but it doesn't mean I'm itching to get them).
• Determine the value of your collection. Okay, this one did cross my mind when I was thinking of my original criteria, but I wasn't sure it was feasible because comic prices are so darned subjective these days. Honestly, the only way to accurately gauge the street price of a comic is to monitor ebay and see what they're going for (my quick hunt for those Mighty Mouse comics shows them to be worth about $1 - $2 each, depending on condition; a similar hunt at mycomicshop.com concurs with those prices.
• Web access to my collection so I can use my smart phone at the comic shop before I spend money on a back issue.

This article also pointed out the fact that I wanted a flexible system that could handle graphic novels, digests and other formats beyond the "standard" comic book. I was also going to be aware of the fact that some of the software solutions were more geared for entering new comics than for cataloging vast, ongoing collections. Even though  I only buy a few titles a month these days, my horde is still growing and I need to make rum for my new stuff.

These were all cool features and reviewer Ben Sweetser did a very thorough job of examining three products. After reading his review, I promptly investigated each and every one of them (another bullet list? I think I'm setting myself up for an intervention: "Mike, your use of bullet lists is affecting the people who love you and we would like you to see help. Perhaps someone could help you re-learn how to make quick, valid points without them?").

• www.comiccollectorlive.com 
• www.comicbase.com 
• www.collectorz.com/comic

I now had a starting point for my quest... now it was time to soldier on and see which (if any of them) was worthy of putting on a cape and becoming my Super Computer!

Comic Talk continues Monday as I start to review each of these products

Netflix Friday is a blast as I review a cheesy little movie that is MUCH better than I thought it would be

Comics: Where did I put that copy of Joker#1?

One of the main problems I'm having is that, with 10,000 comics stored in about 30+ boxes, I just can't find anything. In general, the stuff I packed up prior to moving off to college in 1984 is actually in pretty good shape. Comics are boarded and bagged and alphabetized from A-Z (roughly Alpha Flight to Zot!). But after that, things begin to get a bit chaotic.

Even back in the early 1980s and 1990s, I was buying about 30+ comics a month. And sometimes significantly more than that. When I was single and had a good job and a low car payment and rent? Fergitaboutit! I was hauling in danged near 50 comics a month for quite a few years. Funny how marriage and a mortgage cuts into your buying power, eh? And no, I don't regret it a bit! :-)

But during these days, I didn't take the time to board and bag everything, and I certainly wasn't spending the time to go back and reshuffle things to insert new issues into the old alphabetized collection. This meant that I was just kind of putting comics together by title and general time period. For example, X-Men wound up next to X-Force from the same year, but if the box I was putting them in got filled up, I just moved on to a new box and continued putting them in there. So, about five years of various X-Titles are scattered through three long boxes. Along with lots of other stuff, naturally.

This caused a big problem whenever I might want to find something that had been put away. For example, there was the time I wanted to sell my copy of JOKER #1.

The Joke's on me!
Back in 2008 when they released the movie, The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker was setting fire to everyone's imagination. It was an amazing performance and rightly earned  an Oscar for it. At that time, interest in the Joker had bumped up the price of any early comics featuring the Clown Prince of Crime.  I happened to have The Joker #1 and #2 from his short-lived series from 1975. The comic, which normally sold for about $5-$7 on ebay had climbed north of $40. I reckoned that I could easily get $50 for the pair.

My plan was simple: I would sell the comic now at a higher price and then, later, when the price came back down, I would rebuy it. You see, movies and TV shows do not seem to have a permanent effect on comic prices. The interest they generate is artificial and any price spikes you see will almost certainly be temporary.

I went to my storage facility (that's where the books were at the time) and I moved all the boxes around so I could get to the J-M Longbox... and it wasn't in there! I cracked open the B box in the off chance I had stored it with Batman... and it wasn't there, either. So, there I was, with thousands of comics, and I couldn't find the two I was looking for. The movie passed, the price peaked, and the price of the comic has gone back down to about $10-$15, depending on condition.

By the way, I finally did find the book. Apparently I had moved it in with some miscellaneous Batman titles (Catwoman, Birds of Prey, etc.). So that leaves me with the another aspect of the problem I'm facing: It's not just about keeping my comics stored and safe from moisture and damage, it's about putting them into a system of organization that will let me find what I want when I want.

And for that, I've decided to turn to software.

Comic Talk continues on Wed. when I tell about my search for the "perfect" comic book database.
Netflix Friday continues with a surprising find that was much better than I expected it to be.

Comics: It's in the bag!

Storing 10,000 comics and magazines takes a lot of space, and a reasonable amount of time and money.  Basically, you need the following things to keep your collection safe:http://www.bagsunlimited.com/p-3160-regular-marvel-comic-sleeves.aspx

• Comic bags
• Backing boards
• Storage boxes
• A dry place to keep everything

The last one I can't help you with. I used to pay for storage to keep mine out of the house (and out of my wife's way), but these days I've got them tucked in the corner of a bedroom, stuffed in my office closet, and a few boxes just sitting around as I attempt to catalog what I have (we'll talk about my cataloging efforts next week).

Right now, I've been taking a slow and steady approach to getting things cataloged and bagged/boarded. The truth is, for about a decade, I pretty much gave up on bagging and boarding. I got tired of the expense, the effort, and I was just reading comics and putting them into storage boxes. Part of this was fueled by a movement back in the 1990s that was preaching that cheaper bags would break down over time and actually hurt your comics. The thinking was that it was actually better to put your books into a simple acid-free box and leave them in the dark, rather than have your bags slowly break down into some sort of petro-chemical goo over time.

So I was content to leave the books in the boxes for a few years. Then the moisture came. Even though I was paying $50 a month to have my stuff in a climate controlled unit at a Public Storage facility in NW Houston, I sill had a problem with moisture getting to one of the boxes. Now, to be fair, this was caused by a hurricane ripping the roof off part of the unit and water got into part of the facility. I can't blame them for that, and the hole wasn't actually near my unit. But they didn't fix it for almost EIGHT WEEKS! During that time, the entire "climate controlled" floor felt like a rain forest and the box of comics closest to the door got some kind of condensation thing going, which messed up about 50-100 books. It didn't ruin them, but the bottoms have a little moisture warping.

Fortunately, there wasn't anything super great in that box, but the copy of my thesis (and some other personal papers) were destroyed by the moisture. Naturally, their value was too low to claim on my insurance.  I would not rent at that particular Public Storage facility again (14451 Texas 249, Houston, TX 77086). That incident (and another that I'll tell you about next week) made me decide it was time to start bagging and boarding again.

Back to the bags

Right now, I'm buying locally. The fact is, if I want my comic book store to be there in the future, I need to support it. So, I've been buying my bags in small quantities as I need them from Bedrock City Comics. A container of 100 Ultra-PRO comic bags costs $5.99 plus tax. These are standard-quality bags (not mylar -- which I'll explain some other time). The Silver-Age bags also cost the same amount (comics have gotten a little smaller over the past few decades, so that modern comics are just slightly smaller than comics printed in the 1960s and 1970s).

A container of 100 acid-free backing boards sells for $9.99 (again, plus tax). These come in separate containers so I have to combine them (that is, slip one board into each bag). It's not a big deal as I usually do it while watching TV or a movie. It actually goes pretty quickly, and my wife has offered to help when I finally get around to ordering a whole bunch of them. And that is definitely on the horizon.

Right now, the combination of the board and bag runs about .15 cents per book. If I had to bag all 10,000 comics (and I don't), at that price it would cost me $1,500. Even though a bunch of my comics are already bagged and boarded (and as I revealed last week, I'm an unrepentant fiend who double-bags his comics), it's still a sizable expense.

That's why I've been talking to the nice folks over at Bags Unlimited about buying in bulk from them. I can get 2,500 bags for only $75 (that's 3 cents a bag). Likewise, their backing boards sell in bulk for about 4.5 cents each. These prices don't include the freight costs, but even still, supplies in this quantity run about half the retail cost of buying them locally. Plus, I actually need a few specialty items that my local comic shop doesn't carry, such as boxes and bags for storing comics digests (I'll talk about that some other time).

I estimate the storage expenses for my collection will run about $300. I'm planning to place the order soon and I'll fill you in on exactly what I order and what I think of the materials when I get them, so stay tuned True Believers!

Comic Talk returns on Monday
Check back on Friday for a rant about why I hate buying groceries at night!

Comics: So, you've got 10,000 comic books... now what?

I guess these are the spoils of my youth. Boxes and boxes of four-color adventures ranging from the incredible to the sublime, from the ridiculous to the Pulitzer Prize winning (yup, a comic book has won the Pulitzer Prize... look it up -- that's what google is for, y'know!). All stuffed into about 22 long boxes and 10 short boxes.

If you're not sure what I mean by "long box or shot box," then your life is probably geek-free. Long boxes are about 28-inches long and hold a standard modern comic book: L 27.25 X W 7.5 X H 10.8. I get single boxes from my local comic book shop, Bedrock City Comics in NW Houston. And I buy my bulk boxes from Bags Unlimited. These are the standards for comic storage. The good ones are made of white, acid-free card board and they are have handles cut in them so you can lug them around. Some of the newer ones even have pull-out drawers built in so you don't have to stack/unstack them to get at your stash. These are cool, but I decided it was not worth the expense because I would need to replace older boxes to make them work because I would have to replace a lot of my old boxes that are still perfectly good, even though some of them were purchased before 1984.

Here's a picture of a short box from the Bags Unlimited Web site. What's really cool (to me, anyway) is that even though I didn't take this picture, I actually have all three of the comics they show here. Wonder Woman #300, Action Comics #500, and Marvel Tails #53). I wouldn't call it a nerdgasm, but it's still pretty darn cool to see them in this photo.

Comics Talk is continued on Mon.
Check in Friday for Netflix Friday!

Comics: I was a teen-age comic book collector... and still am (a collector, anyway)

When I got married 12+ years ago, I was renting a house and my wife owned one, so we moved into my her place. At the time it was too small for all of my furniture, books and other stuff, so it went into storage. About two years ago I got a letter from the storage place announcing a price hike... and that got me thinking.

My stuff had been in storage for 10 years. It started out at $40 a month and was now going to hit $65 a month. Even if you go with an average of $50 a month for 10 years, that comes out to more than $6,000!

Since we now live in a bigger house, I decided it was time to bring it all home. I hired two guys for about $120 and they brought it all home: dozens of boxes of books, some furniture, and of course... thousands of comic books.

I've been an avid comic book reader since I was a kid, and a collector since my teens. I've got comics dating all the way back to 1939 through the present (although I don't buy as many as I used to, and even then it's not the stuff you'd expect). Most of the collection ranges from the late 1970s through the 1990s, with the bulk of it falling in my collect years from the mid 1980s.

Now, when I say I've got a lot of comics, people always ask, "How many?" The honest answer is, "I don't know." That seems silly, and yes, I can guess, but I really can't say for sure. I can say, at last count, I had 22 long boxes and about 12 short boxes. Most of these are jam packed with comics, but not all. Some of them have old paperbacks in them to act as "spacers," others have miscellaneous stuff and even empty boxes to make room for future additions. About half of them are bagged properly.

So, how many do I have? Let's do the math:
Long boxes hold about 300 comics. Short boxes hold about 180.
(NOTE: These are very subjective numbers. There's a good discussion of it here at the Marvel Comics Web site)

22 x 300 = 6,600

12 x 180 = 2,160

Possible total: 8,760

This doesn't include about 500 comics digests and a few hundred magazine-size comics. So, all in all, I've probably got about 10,000 comics in the house. Now, of course, that leave me with the question of what to do with them.

I mean, I could just leave them in boxes, or try to sell them, or (heaven forbid) actually reread them... But I guess the first thing I need to do is figure out what I've got, how much of it I want to keep, and figure out a way to winnow down the collection into something manageable.

For the next few weeks, I'm going to talk about this journey. I'm going to talk about the specifics of my collection (how I'm sorting it, how I'm cataloging it, storing it, protecting it, possibly monetizing it) and I'm also going to talk about the general issues involved with any type of collecting. Along the way I'm going to hit some of the physical, practical, financial and emotional issues that come with having a lot of stuff.

Comic Talk continues on Mon & Wed..
Come back on Friday for Netflix Friday!