dadaluholla

Having just recently moved into a new house, I'm finally planning on getting some shelves set up for all of my trade paperbacks and hardcovers. Although I'm not entirely sure how I want to organize them on the shelves. Do you keep yours alphabetically, by publisher, or what?

Travis McClain

I went alphabetical by author (first listed, in the case of multiple authors). Within each author's section, I have gone alphabetical by title. I've got entirely too many books for my insufficient shelf space, so there are plenty of things just sort of lying atop standing books. I've also converted a pair of old mini-DVD towers to house paperbacks. For the most part, I've kept the same system, though my Ian Fleming Bond paperbacks are currently sorted chronologically so I can easily lend them out to friends who have been borrowing them at different stages.

I like this system because it scatters things and keeps it from looking like all I read are Bond books and celebrity memoirs!

Travis McClain

Nevermind all that; it turns out that I'm illiterate. (Ironic, in Book Talk, no?) Anyway...my comics are sorted alphabetically. Some of them are in a longbox, but most of what I've got left is actually standing on the shelves of a couple small cubbies I converted for comic use. (I think they were originally intended for shoes or something.) Individual issues are all bagged & boarded; some TPBs/GNs/HCs are, but not all.

So, for instance, my Batman: Haunted Knight TPB comes before Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight individual issues. The Death of Superman is in the Ds, and The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told is in with the Gs. And I've got my TPB's and HC's mixed in with individual issues. I find the larger spines with prominently displayed titles helps me get a sense of where things are when I go looking for them.

dadaluholla

See my biggest issue is, while wanting to put everything in alphabetical order, I would still like to have my huge omnibus type books all together, or the big deluxe hardcovers all together, as the smaller tpbs might look somewhat "lost" in the shuffle.

Travis McClain

On the one hand, it's nice to have things that were designed in uniform grouped together. On the other hand, I find myself favoring the look that comes from different kinds of volumes mixed in together. It's a personal preference; whatever looks best to you, go with it.

dadaluholla

I'm sure once I get the shelves, I'll end up organizing once and then redoing more than a few times until it's aesthetically pleasing to me.

davidh777

I sort by publisher, by character, then chronologically. So all the Batmans together, all the Legion, all the FF, etc.

Meatwad's Ghost

This is how I do mine also The first shelf is all Marvel, 2nd is all Star Wars, comics and books, 3rd is EC and Horror titles on top shelf, 2nd is Dark Horse, 3rd DC, 4th all Batman bottom shelf is all random. The top of the 1 & 3 is the over size books like Sin City Library and Lost Girls Box and that sort of thing.

My mom dumped off some old Marvel VHS tapes, when she was cleaning, and I've put them on the shelf with that group of books.

You can see some year old pics here, missing a lot and the takes.:
http://a.imageshack.us/img62/7936/dscf3958.jpg

JasonF

Mostly alphabetical by character, but I have all the Essentials and Showcases in a separate section (also alphabetical by character), all the Archives in another section, a bunch of hardcovers off in another section, most of the non-superhero stuff in yet another section, and so on.

But if you want to have your omnibuses together, do it. You're organizing for you, not for someone else -- organize the way that makes sense for you.

davidh777

^Forgot to mention that I do the same: oversize on the top shelf. Absolutes, Calvin & Hobbes, Don Martin, etc.

majorjoe23

I tend to go by author or character. So Alan Moore/Frank Miller/Neil Gaimen and others get their own shelf.

Random Superman/Batman/other character books normally go together, unless they're something like an Essential or Archive or something. Those are all together.

Trevor

I used to use those for comics as well. 3 rows of 3, right?
That bothers me as well.
I constantly organize and re-organize everything in my life. Well, not constantly, but whatever is on a set of shelves probably gets re-organized at least once every two years.
None of them are really "set" yet, but my current plan involves setting up several "mixed media" shelves. Two large side-by-side bookcases, 5 shelves each, with a plan to pick ~ten smallish subsets of my collection and stock it with everything related to that topic. One shelf will be my Micronauts shelf, with the early collection reprints, a couple toys, and the DVD. One shelf my Godzilla stuff; DVDs, books, comics. One shelf for Kevin Smith; DVDs and BDs, comics, trinkets. Maybe two shelves for all the Disneys DVDs, BDs, and graphic novels. Etc etc

boredsilly

No order at all, except to keep series together. So my Strangers in Paradise HCs are all together, as are my 100 Bullets trades. The rest are just thrown on the shelf.

Quack

By hard drive.

fujishig

I can't stand the non-uniformity of different tpbs of the same series... changing the cover/spine design is something that annoys me but that I can live with, but putting stuff with different heights on the same shelf makes it look a little messy (IMHO) and wastes space.

I also put all my heavy stuff on the bottom, only because I'm afraid it's either going to eventually break the upper shelves or that it'll fall on my during a quake or something. Why do you guys put it on top? Easier to see? Those things are heavy!

I usually do it separated by company, then by type (Absolute, Omnibus, HC, tpb), then by title. Manga and smaller volumes (like Q&C) go on a different, smaller shelf.

Still have no idea what to do with my Bloom County volume, which is too deep to fit on the shelf spine-out...

Meatwad's Ghost

I try to get some of the heavier stuff on the bottom. But with the big stuff like the SinCity Library and Don Martin it's so tall that I would lose more shelf space. They're higher than the pre-drilled holes and I would lose a shelf, they could go into the center but I was making that my Star Wars only shelf (for now). I have also added a second thick board on the top of the two cases on the side. That way the weight of the shelf is on the two sides and I have them anchored to the wall.

For the bloom if you have space either put on the top or on it's side as a showoff piece.