Comic Reviews by Walt

Over the weekend, I finally finished re-sorting/re-arranging the bookshelves. Having a more "concentrated" space as well as the largest number of "dedicated" shelves available, I was able to do stuff a bit differently this time through.

I also grouped things a bit differently, and while I pointedly had the shelves themselves spaced the same on each bookcase (3 of one model, two of another), I have a configuration that works fro me, though I can see this "system" going at least slightly awry fairly quickly. Still, the collection’s been a constant evolution anyway.

Follow on below for a shelf-by-shelf "tour" of the entire graphic novel portion of my comics collection.

The TMNT stuff, as well as the newer Dark Horse Usagi Yojimbo Saga volumes. There’s basically just enough room to add the fifth Usagi Yojimbo volume or the second TMNT by IDW volume, but not both. However, I expect acquiring and adding the second TMNT volume will be the final nudge at purging the other IDW floppies from this shelf–I stopped buying those at all when the first volume was solicited, as it is a far superior way of getting the series. Then on top of that, they’ve now got triple-sized paperbacks coming out for only 1.5 times the price of the skinnier ones. Go figure.

The first Superman  shelf. I start the shelf with some of the various/general collections that span the years without necessarily being chronological/ordered collections or runs of books…at least for what I own. Then the Chronicles volumes, the Showcase, and the Superman vs. _______ volumes. Some of the other Silver/Bronze age stuff, and then the post-CoIE "continuity" run begins.

The second Superman shelf continues the post-CoIE continuity stuff. I have the Death and Return of Superman Omnibus "out of order" as a divider of sorts, following it with more generalized Superman stuff, including Superman/Batman collections. The New 52-era stuff is here, because I only own the two volumes.

There’s some slight "overflow" of Superman-related stuff into general DCU. I start with some general DC Universe stuff, then go roughly alphabetical by "property" (grouping Deathstroke with Teen Titans for obvious reasons).

There’s a slight bit of "overflow" of "general DC" onto the final shelf of this bookcase…and I decided to use the entire shelf in that regard-as the DC stuff expands, I’ll "wrap" stuff through to this shelf, hopefully avoiding the need to completely redo the bookcase anytime soon simply to fit more DC books!

Batman tops the second bookcase with his first shelf. Given its quasi-non-continuity nature, I stuck my numerous editions of Dark Knight Returns at the start of the shelf, then shift to general Batman collections before the major "continuity" run of stuff.

On the second Batman shelf I have more general stuff again that–for me–works better here than at the start of the Batman placement, and into related Batman stuff. I then finish the partial shelf with Omnibus volumes as bookends, with the Robin bust bank as extra decoration. This also allows plenty of space for the Batman collection to expand without much issue, as the bust can be relocated and the Omnibii can as well.

I decided to separate out the main "event" books. While I have the Crisis on Infinite Earths paperback with the general DC stuff, I have the Deluxe Edition oversized hardcover here to begin the run of major DC events. For lack of better placement but similar nature, I put my various prose novels of DC stuff here as well…most of them adapting the various events, and generally being a good fit in this space.

Rounding out the nearly two bookcases’ worth of DC material is the green stuff…Green Arrow and Green Lantern. The vast majority of this is the Geoff Johns-helmed Green Lantern era, with a handful of other stuff. I never got around to getting the complete run of Blackest Night collected volumes…but I’m happy with what I do have, and have not felt any great need to track those down. With both Blackest Night and Brightest Day being firmly entrenched in the Green Lantern side of things, they’re here rather than with the "general DC events" books.

Topping the Marvel books, I’ve separated out the Thanos and Warlock Infinity stuff, heavy emphasis on the works of Jim Starlin. As these only make up a partial shelf, this is a prime spot to accentuate the books with two incredibly cool banks that have obvious relevance.

I’ve got the X-Men books is roughly chronological order, with the Essentials on up to the individual story volumes.

The second X-Men shelf continues things up to roughly present-ish stuff.

I then have a third shelf of "X-Men related" stuff…dominated by Wolverine and X-Factor. While I originally didn’t care for yet another "trade dress" on the Essentials, I’ve come around to actually preferring this latest, where emphasis is now on the character/title and not the word Essential; it allows the books to look a lot better grouped with similar volumes for a series and not stick out as being alphabetically out of place.

As the smaller paperbacks and digest-sized volumes would get lost in the shelf with the full-size volumes, I separated them out here. Due to their smaller size making them physically lighter, they’re actually grouped on top of a bookcase. I ran out of actual bookends, so fit the "comics reference" books here as well for the moment.

The first shelf on this bookcase is Annihilation and Avengers volumes…including the Heroes Reborn volumes. I have the Avengers stuff in a rough quasi-continuity order rather than any strict title-order. Since I have both the run of X-Men: The Complete Onslaught Epic and the singular Onslaught Omnibus, I decided with so many other thick and/or hardcover volumes, the Omnibus was a better fit here than with its paperback counterparts; and works as a split with the story impacting both the X-Men family of characters as well as the Avengers family of characters.

Following the Avengers books, I go mostly alphabetical by property for the rest of the Marvel books. I would have sworn I had the two volumes of Captain America: Fighting Chance but turns out I only have the Operation: Rebirth "classic" volume…which is a bit disappointing. There’s another large Captain America paperback I was picturing that I thought I had, but obviously do not. At least with everything back together, I have a better idea once again. I left space on this shelf for the Captain America: Man Without a Country paperback and the third volume of the Black Panther by Priest series.

Continuing the Marvel run from Hulk to Thunderbolts.

Since neither would fit well, I separated out the Spider-Man books (included Spider-Woman as a Spider- book) and Thor. There’s some space left over on this shelf that will allow for some expansion of the Marvel stuff without any major rearranging.

The Ultimate Marvel stuff now has a shelf to itself, with the gem of the collection being the near-complete Ultimate Spider-Man run…I just need to track down volume 8 to complete it! I have a handful of miscellaneous other Ultimate books in a loose-ish order, but I’ve actually mentally lost track of all the quasi-reboots and said the heck with it. Perhaps it displays my own ignorance of the books if there’s any glaring out-of-order elements.

Though it’s a lot of "shelf real estate" to "give up," the Aliens and related get a shelf entirely to themselves, along with some Aliens toys.

I have a near-complete Hellblazer library…I believe the entire 300-issue series has now been collected, and is represented in this run of volumes. I’m pretty sure the only thing under the Hellblazer heading that I’m missing is a Vertigo Resurrected collecting a mini-series set in the future. I also tossed Swamp Thing, Starman, and Watchmen here primarily for space and singularity. I hope to expand my Swamp Thing library in the next couple years, knowing that all the Alan Moore stuff is available, as well as a couple other major runs of the titles.

I managed to cram several "series" collections onto another shelf. The pre-Vertigo entirety of Astro City (unless I’m forgetting a volume); then complete runs of Preacher and Sandman in older editions (my parents gave me this 10-volume Sandman run between my birthday and Christmas in 2001!) Though I’ve loaned out several volumes, I otherwise have the complete run of the Walking Dead "serialized paperbacks." Volume 5 was THE newest one when I "discovered" the series…we’re now 20 ADDITIONAL volumes into the run. Kinda hard to believe! Finally, there was (for the moment) just enough room to squeeze the four Serenity hardcovers in.

This shelf is a mix of Disney Ducks stuff, into Archie and similar physically-sized volumes, then GI Joe, Star Trek/Star Wars, and finally Transformers.

Breaking from the vertical grouping/progression I mostly followed, I have two shelves where I intermingled "indie stuff" that basically makes up "everything else," and where no particular series truly separates itself from "the bunch" for now. I primarily alphabetized by series title, and order within that for the few that have multiple volumes.

Knowing that there are now six of these Savage Dragon Archives volumes, if I do wind up getting the rest, I will likely end up splitting those off somewhere. For now, they’re just the "brightest light" in the bunch offhand.

The final graphic novels shelf wound up with several miscellaneous volumes that don’t really fit anywhere else…and Valiant. I’d originally "intended" to keep "classic Valiant" elsewhere, as I don’t really have a problem with it, but as stuff was grouped and sorted and arranged, it came down to just clustering Valiant as a whole together. I am still extremely unhappy with current Valiant over last year’s stunt with Legends of the Geomancer, which stopped me in my tracks on the collected volumes. As it appears that the Book of Death hardcover does NOT have that mini included, I’ve basically written off Valiant in general, and may wind up purging these from the collection at some point–Time will tell!

Separate from the main collection, I have a shelf of "coffee-table" style books and such that are primarily comics-related. Most of these I’ve acquired in the past year or two, though the Great American Comic Book volume I think was a Christmas present during college, and the Buffy volume is simply far too tall to fit on a standard shelf with anything else that makes sense, so gets grouped here.

All in all, a massive collection far beyond anything I’d ever imagined growing up…or even within a couple years of college. Where once I’d dreamed of a generic personal library made up of all sorts of books (not just graphic novels), I now have enough of both to truly have the personal library and then some.

In doing all this sorting/organizing/arranging, I also yanked another couple shelves’ worth of books that were either duplicate, older editions to which I’ve gotten the newer, or generally decided I don’t need/want in the collection anymore for whatever reason.

This leaves me–still–with needing to get the actual comics collection sorted, but there should be time for that later after stuff in the personal life settles a bit.

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT, The Weekly Haul | Tagged: book collection, books, collection, collections, comic books, comics, graphic novels, Library, personal library | 2 Comments »