MattGrant
Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 03:26 AM
I'm initiating a weekly pseudo informal sub-column here in general comics as I work my way through re-organizing my comics. As some of you know, I was separated from a large chunk of my comics collection for years, when I moved to a moister part of California (Eureka, and despite what the TV show, comics, and "Just the Ten of Us" depict, its really just rain and crack heads).
I left it with my folks, and wasn't re-united with it until about a year ago, and was appalled to find that a large portion of it was and unsorted jumble. I had also amassed a second unsorted jumble of comics that I had collected SINCE being separated. A daunting task was set before me, as I needed to take all these comics, and my sorted comics, and create one full and cohesive collection!
So naturally I procrastinated until yesterday.
What I expected to find, and what I did find were two very different things. In fact, it was like looking into a time warp and realizing that I'm not totally the person I remember being. I have piles and piles of comics that I don't remember buying, other kinds of back-issue type acquisitions that I have no idea where I got them, and long runs of series that I don't remember collecting! In other words... HOLY CRAP!
First step, bags and boards. I knew I wanted to do this so when I went to the LCS, I picked up a 100 pack each of bags and boards. Surely not enough to complete the task (by far) but enough to get me started! I had to break it down. I couldn't just at random start bagging this stuff, I needed to organize as I went through-- which is not something that comes natural to me (I'm sort of a take everything out, panic, and stuff it back where I can personality). So I decided to start with my favorite character. Someone who I surely had the most issues of, and also someone, who above all else, i wanted to find out what I had, and what I needed. The Flash. Knocked that out. I had a good 100 issue run with zero gaps, and the areas that did have gaps (at the end of my days collecting the series, before I started back up later on) were few and far between. Cool. Now I know what i need. Above all else, I am striving for a complete Flash run (second series, then hopefully the first).
I followed this by putting together longer-than-I-expected runs of JLA, Green Lantern (Rayner period, starting at about 70-- I must've been reading a friends before that), Nightwing, and Impulse. Whew! I also managed to get together my pretty much 100% complete Madman/Atomics collections (minus Adventures and Oddity Oddessey, which I have in trade, but do have both #1's that a purchased soley to get autographed at some point, apparently). A good start to say the least!
Cool thing I found for the week: Ambush Bug 1985 Mini-Series (bummer, missing one issue).
Funny/Odd thing I found for the week: A-Team (Marvel) #1
That's it for now, until I hit you up, hopefully next week, with more Tales from the Long Box!
I left it with my folks, and wasn't re-united with it until about a year ago, and was appalled to find that a large portion of it was and unsorted jumble. I had also amassed a second unsorted jumble of comics that I had collected SINCE being separated. A daunting task was set before me, as I needed to take all these comics, and my sorted comics, and create one full and cohesive collection!
So naturally I procrastinated until yesterday.
What I expected to find, and what I did find were two very different things. In fact, it was like looking into a time warp and realizing that I'm not totally the person I remember being. I have piles and piles of comics that I don't remember buying, other kinds of back-issue type acquisitions that I have no idea where I got them, and long runs of series that I don't remember collecting! In other words... HOLY CRAP!
First step, bags and boards. I knew I wanted to do this so when I went to the LCS, I picked up a 100 pack each of bags and boards. Surely not enough to complete the task (by far) but enough to get me started! I had to break it down. I couldn't just at random start bagging this stuff, I needed to organize as I went through-- which is not something that comes natural to me (I'm sort of a take everything out, panic, and stuff it back where I can personality). So I decided to start with my favorite character. Someone who I surely had the most issues of, and also someone, who above all else, i wanted to find out what I had, and what I needed. The Flash. Knocked that out. I had a good 100 issue run with zero gaps, and the areas that did have gaps (at the end of my days collecting the series, before I started back up later on) were few and far between. Cool. Now I know what i need. Above all else, I am striving for a complete Flash run (second series, then hopefully the first).
I followed this by putting together longer-than-I-expected runs of JLA, Green Lantern (Rayner period, starting at about 70-- I must've been reading a friends before that), Nightwing, and Impulse. Whew! I also managed to get together my pretty much 100% complete Madman/Atomics collections (minus Adventures and Oddity Oddessey, which I have in trade, but do have both #1's that a purchased soley to get autographed at some point, apparently). A good start to say the least!
Cool thing I found for the week: Ambush Bug 1985 Mini-Series (bummer, missing one issue).
Funny/Odd thing I found for the week: A-Team (Marvel) #1
That's it for now, until I hit you up, hopefully next week, with more Tales from the Long Box!