The Sorting. The Fucking Sorting.

[Tom Foolery]

Added 12 drawerboxes full of 3,247 books to comic realm. Two boxes of Nu52 books, and 10 more of older books and stuff where I was missing a couple issues from previous runs. Took me roughly two weeks. I was writing a box worth down in my notebooks, then adding them to the website before I put it away. Because I’ve learned the hard way that some books have 30 some variant covers and it’s easier to have the box at hand to verify which issue, than going back and digging thru boxes I already put away.

Only a few surprises in the “value” dept. a couple of Star Wars books, like Dawn of the Jedi and some SW Legacy issues were higher than I was expecting. But for the most part, the books I thought were gonna be worth more, were. Like Old Man Logan and the Venom run in Ultimate Spidey.

Next, I have about 30 more boxes that I need to alphabetize into one big set. I had the 2016-2018 stuff, the 2018-2020 stuff, and half of the DC stuff that I had bought as cheap back issues in three different batches. Plus, I had stuff I had read, and stuff I hadn’t read in different boxes. So it’s a jumbled mess in there. If 12 boxes took two weeks, thirty should take another six weeks(?)

Here we go!

[Diabolical]

Holy crap, I had no idea some of the SW Legacy had any value.

[Tom Foolery]

I literally pulled an all-nighter and sorted all 30 boxes in one night. Holy shit. In a way, it was easier than the onesy-twosie issues in the first dozen boxes. It was mostly full run that were already in order, so it was just a matter of shifting them back and forth and hoping there was enough space in the boxes for them. But also it was hauling 30 boxes into the living room, and then hauling them back when they were sorted. I got my workout in for the day.

Now to write it all down and add it to cbrealm. That’ll take longer.

[Tom Foolery]

One month later. I added another 8,753 books to the 3,247 I already had from this batch, giving me an even 12,000 issues from the 2015-2020 run.
This brings my grand total of books to 68,773 “valued” a smidge under $400k.
The 12k is the second biggest run I’ve entered on cbrealm. Only my original 1987-1995 run was larger at 15k.

The only books I have left to catalog are the nine(going on ten) boxes of current books(which I also need to read) since I moved into the house, three long boxes I bought at the garage sale last September, and the stuff I bought a couple weeks ago at the mall. I would estimate that would put me over 70k at the least.

Whew!!

The next step(s) are to find room to move the sixty lid boxes from the original collection from my parents house down into my basement. I may or may not invest in drawer boxes for all of them. Then, somehow integrate ALL the books into one mega-collection. But that is a project for another time.

[jjreason]

It's very soothing, but also very tiring to work on it. Kudos for not just allowing yourself to drown in it.

[Tom Foolery]

“Gang War” the new Amazing Spidey event. There’s gonna be a bunch of miniseries tie-ins like Luke Cage, Shang-Chi etc. Should I file it under ‘G’ for Gang War, or just squeeze into the ASM box?

[jjreason]

How did you manage Secret Wars? Stick with the same plan. Personally I have an "events" box for all the limited series & tie in issues, but the crossovers books from main series stay with their own series. It would be pain to dig out a big crossover.

[Tom Foolery]

All my Secret Wars tie in books are filed under Secret Wars. Since they ended every Marvel book and then restarted everything after the event, it was a good cut off point for everything.

[jjreason]

I'm going to reorg again - just girding my loins for the battle. Marvel stuff only. I think I've tried this before & gave up. Everything is going go by era. Up to the end of 1989 in however many boxes that takes, followed by 90s & then the 2000s. No idea why I think this is a good idea, but it's been rolling around in my head for a minute & is now disturbing my sleep. Time to get moving.

Of interest, it's a Star Wars reorg that has me mulling this over. I had them all in bins basically by era, but they're all getting consolidated into environments now (Jabba's Palace has a bin, Hoth has 2 bins, ANH Tatooine has a bin, Endor.... you get the idea). This is theoretically helping me get rid of unneeded duplicates of certain figures (Tatooine Luke for example) and is going to help me decide moving forward if I "need" to replace my version of whatever figure we're talking about. It feels like I have 15 of the same Chewbacca. I'm sure they all came in different packages, but after a few years & my eyes getting worse it is literally impossible to tell them apart.

[Tom Foolery]

You could do Editor-in-Chief eras.
Stan.
The high turnover of Thomas, Wein, Wolfman, Conway, and Goodwin. (It’s like a law firm)
Jim Shooter.
Tom Defalco.
Whatever that nonsense in the 90s was and Bob Harras.
Joe Quesada.
Axel Alonso
and CB Cebulski.

[jjreason]

I"m between a quarter & a third of the way through it. I have decided on just using a google spreadsheet to get everything in, then I might use that to populate an app that can help with pricing & helping me not miss out on books that are expensive that I'm not aware of. I haven't found anything super surprising or exciting in my travels just yet. The Bruce Jones run of Hulk made me a little wistful. Those started the "GREEN HULK" era over at the other place.

[Tom Foolery]

The new ‘Get Fury’ MAX series by Garth Ennis.
Does it go in ‘G’ for Get Fury?
Or ‘F’ with the other Fury MAX books?
Or in with all the other Punisher books.

[Tom Foolery]

I’m updating my want list on my phone with a bunch of random DC series that have come out in the last five years or so(going back to the ‘Rebirth’ initiative, and thru No Justice, Infinite Frontier, Dawn of DC to the current All In phase or whatever.) Wikipedia is helpful because they’ll have lists of ongoings, minis, and even oneshots.

There was a New Super-Man ongoing that came out during Rebirth. I must’ve typo’d it on my list because I had it going up to issue 44. And I can never find anything past issue 22. Tonight, I saw the wiki page listed it as a 24 issue series, and I double checked on comicbookrealm. Sure enough, 24 issues. I also had an Annual and a Special on the list that also do not exist. The good news is now I’m only missing four issues instead of 24 issues.

[Tom Foolery]

There’s a new Marvel Event next year called ‘One World Under Doom’ with a kickoff mini called ‘Rise of Emperor Doom’.

So now I’m wondering where all this will go? In the ‘O’s?
Or should I put the entire event with all its inevitable minis and oneshots in the ‘D’ box with the Doom stuff.

[Tom Foolery]

I took an extra day off work this week, because I knew I wasn’t going to get it all done in one day. Or even two days. Last week, I cut another pallet in half and lugged it(them) down into the basement in preparation. The three remaining bins of action figures got moved temporarily into another corner of the basement, freeing up the space.

I borrowed my dad’s truck and made one trip on Thursday, as a trial run to see how long the process would take, and also how much weight the truck would take. I did two more trips yesterday. And finished up the final two trips this afternoon.

The process involved lugging them out of the basement at my parents. Loading them into the truck. Driving the truck to my house. Unloading the truck into my dining room. And finally, moving them down into the basement. So each one was touched four times.

But apart from the today’s batch getting moved downstairs, it is finished… for the first time since I stopped collecting the first time around circa 1994(when the collection was decidedly smaller, around 50 boxes)

ALL MY COMICS ARE UNDER THE SAME ROOF. IN ONE PLACE. ALL 75,000+ ISSUES.


The next phase is to purchase another large batch of drawer boxes and slowly transfer them into the new boxes while integrating the various collections into one giant alphabetical run. But that probably won’t be until early next year.

The photo is like 30-40% of what got moved over.