Patman

Since my house got flooded on Monday, I have about 6 long boxes of comics that got water-logged because they were sitting on the carpet at the time. So, if you value your comics, please put them on blocks to raise them up out of potential harm's way in terms of water damage. Here's one room with some damaged boxes. I am too afraid to go through the boxes, and will let them dry out for a few days before I check for the extent of the damages, even if they were all bagged/boarded.

madcougar

Sorry to see that guy. I have a home office (toy room) in a back room that used to be a garage. Most garages are sloped in order to allow you to wash them out from time to time with a hose. My waterheater is also in this area of the house and is at the top of the slope. A few years ago, it sprung a massive leak and ruined the bottom six boxes of my collection. Fortunately, I had them all bagged, so the actual books were still OK. That next day I built a platform from 2 x 4 to rest the books on top of.

A funny married story... this little rig I put together is half-assed at best, but everytime my wife asks me to do handy work around the house she points to this thing as evidence that I am handy with tools. "What do you mean you can't fix the toilet? You built that platform for your comic books." "What do you mean you can't rewire the ceiling fan? You built that platform for your comic books." And so on.

Rogue588

Unfortunately, that's a pain I know. In fact, my heart is breaking just typing this.

On a lighter note...is that Rogue on your wall back there?

Patman

Yeah, back in the late 1990's, I got Bud Root (Cavewoman creator) to draw me a Cavewoman and a Rogue in ink, and I also have this really cutesy Wonder Woman in full water color. I'll have to post a shot of the WW piece once I get stuff sorted out.

Chew

Wow, that sucks.

I had a minor water problem a few years ago and the bottom of some of my boxes got a little wet as well. None of the bagged comics affected.

dadaluholla

I currently find myself more concerned about fire, as I have no real backup/catalog of what I own should they happen to be destroyed. I had a nice database going for a while but that fizzled out.

Patman

Well, I had to go home to meet a delivery man (delivering a new TV that I won't be able to set up for a few weeks until I get the new carpet in place), and took a peek into one of the long boxes, and was relieved to see no evidence (yet) of water making it through the plastic bags. I'll have to check other boxes tonight to see if I'll be bumming or just thankful.

My insurance adjustor suggested that I schedule my collection of stuff, film it, catalog it, and keep it in a safe deposit box, and periodically update it annually or so.

Bronkster

Wow, glad that the damage to the books might be negligible. I'd be freakin' out over something like this. None of my boxes are on the floor, so any flood would have to be over 3 inches to get to them. I've always kept my valuable stuff on higher shelves. Good luck with the rest of your boxes!

Josh-da-man

Now that is an image that makes me cringe.

A bit or warning, though... regular comic book bags are not water proof (though mylar ones are, I believe). If they are placed in water for a prolonged period of time the water will get into them.

If anyone ever find their bagged comic collection in a similar condition, I'd suggest getting them out of the water and wet boxes and wiping the bags dry as soon as possible. If they're only wet for a few minutes, it's likely that they'll be undamaged.

(Try this sometime. Take an old comic bag, and put either a worthless comic or newspaper clipping into it. Then submerge the bottom in a few inches of water. The paper inside of the bag will get wet.)

Trevor

Also everyone, remember to have good homeowners or renter's insurance. Don't think that just buying the coverage will be enough, you should follow the previous advice about a separate rider for it and document your belongings with pictures kept off-site.

Patman

With the blowers and dehumidifiers finally out of the house, I've finally summoned the courage to take a look inside the boxes that sustained some water damage, and it looks like out of 5-6 boxes, only 1 box has comics with water damage.

The water damage could not be picked up by a visual test, but if you do the Helen Keller test (let your fingers feel the bottom edge of the comics), you'd feel very, very, minimal wrinkling that comes from water-exposed paper that's been dried. Unfortunately, this long box has some classics from the 1970's and 1980's:

Marshall Rogers/Steve Englehart's run on Detective Comics
Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing (as well as the entire 1st vol.run)
Todd McFarlane's run on Amazing Spider-Man
John Byrne's run on Captain America
George Perez's run on Marvel Two-in-One
Misc stuff from those decades.

The damage isn't bad enough for me to claim them because it's minimal, and I'd forgotten I even had them, plus I flipped through the pages, and they are hard to even read because of the toll that time/humidity has had on them (faded printing on newsprint paper).

So, overall, I'm okay with light scar in my comic collection.

Josh-da-man

The printing on older comics from the 80s was shitty to begin with, so I don't think that it necessarily has anything to do with time or humidity. We're just accustomed to seeing the high quality printing comics get today, and it's easy to forget how bad the stuff from twenty-plus years ago looked.

One time-related thing that I have noticed, though, is that on certain comics it looks like the ink bled through the paper. Especially noticeable on the old Moore Swamp Thing comics -- some pages are nearly unreadable. Fortunately, that run of comics is preserved in six TPBs, and well worth an upgrade for anyone still holding on to the original issues.

Patman

I hear ya on the TPB upgrades because it's true, the newsprint of yesterday combines with whatever weird flexographic printing (plastic plates used for the printing) process they used in the mid-1980s just doesn't hold up over the decades.

Then again, Tyler Durden got it right: The things you own end up owning you.

I did find a couple of more long boxes with the same mininal water damage at the bottom of the issues, but most of the stuff is just probably going to be trashed or given away because I think it's time to clear out the hundreds of pounds of newsprint and paper from the collection. Perhaps it's good to cull the collection from time to time, too.

I literally filled 9 long boxes with DVDs today as I took them off their shelves in preparation for when all my stuff has to be moved out of the house for the carpet installation, and I still need some more boxes for the straggling DVDs around the house. I'm going to cull quite a bit of those DVDs in the near future too.

It felt really good to throw away a lot of clutter, filled up 5-6 big trash bags, plus my normal roll around trash bin, and also tossed an old PC monitor, and a PC case from years ago that has been soaking up space in my office room. Also cleaned up the kitchen cabinets, threw away out of date stuff (vitamins, and anything in the fridge with an expiration date).