Trevor

I haven't organized my singles in at least 10 years, and have been going through and adding those ~20 longboxes to my checklist.

In the past, I've labeled my boxes either DC, Marvel, or Independent; and then had them grouped by subject/character. So all my Superman titles in a box or three, Batman, Flash/Green Lantern, DC mini-series, Spidey, Marvel horror, etc etc.

It gets confusing with anthology series that rotate from character to character, wanting to keep tie-in event issues together, and several other examples.

I'm leaning towards going alphabetical, separating each company of course. But then, I have dozens of titles that spanned multiple publishers; I'd rather not have my Ms Tree books in four different boxes for example.

I want all my Superman books together darn it, not spread out under 8 different letters and in possibly the same number of boxes.

I'm currently paralyzed by indecision.

Josh-da-man

I go by title.

I don't bother separating by publisher since my collection skews more toward individual titles than universes.

So my full Hellblazer run (1-300, plus various one-shots and minis) goes together between Grendel (the Comico and DH series, including Tales) and Hitman.

I will also group miniseries and one-shots by creator, so I have an Alan Moore section and a Grant Morrison section (right next to each other, much to the consternation of the former).

Josh-da-man

If I were you, I would go by "universe." Have all of your Marvel and DC universe titles in their own area, then go by character and title. Keep all of your Superman books under "S" (again, seperated either by title -- Action, Adventures, Man of Steel, Superman, etc., or in chronological order) and all of your Batman books under "B" the same way.

For the indies, I would go by title/character rather than publisher unless they're in a distinct universe like Valiant (and in that case I would separate the various incarnations, like the V1 universe and the current Valiant universe).

BGPu

I have a mix of:

all titles in alphabetical order
titles organized by publisher
storylines collected together

Someday I'll have to sit down with 15 long boxes in front of me and do something to make it a tad more consistent.

Trevor

Yep, but with me at least, there would be dozens of short runs or single issues between those.

But I struggle with mixing Marvel and DC in the same box. That just isn't meant to be! Except for their many crossovers of course. And some are published by Marvel and some by DC, so where to file? I think at least one four issue series was two issues by each publisher. Problem solved! I'm going to keep all my intercompany crossovers in one box.
I, at least for now, do something similar where two different creators (Miller and Moore) have all of their stuff together, irregardless of company, story, cover only, etc.
Good plan! One thing I waffle on are questions like: does the solitary issue of Marvel Two-in-One that I own, just for the Black Panther appearance, get filed under B with my complete run of every Black Panther appearance, or under M for the real title, or with all my Fantastic Fours (Thing is the star of that title after all)? That was a fictitious example, but I have hundreds very similar quandaries.

mrhan

I go by publisher and then by title. Since I don't buy much these days except for SA and BA books I don't really have the need to insert the newer purchases into my collection right away. In the last two years I haven't even filled up one long box yet.

davidh777

I have few floppies at the moment so I just sort them with my TPBs, which are sorted by publisher then by character/title. I think I have Batgirl with Batman, but Catwoman may be separate, after Birds of Prey. This may not make total sense.

Stuff like Infinite Crisis is by itself, but the Crisis on Multiple Earths TPBs are with Justice League.

MTIO should be by title. I used to subscribe to it as a kid, and I was a big Black Panther fan (I have both the Showcase and Masterworks collections of Jungle Action, and will probably get the Epic too), but I didn't remember that issue. I was going to google it until I read your last sentence.

Trevor

No sense at all, but I get it.
Yes! Except for the whole mixing floppies and trades thing.
Found the issue. Forgive the weird shot, I was sitting at a weird angle and using my bad arm

Bronkster

Major character/team titles have their own boxes. For the rest, it's alphabetic broken between DC/Marvel/Everything Else. I use plastic tabs that I label - much like any comic store - and for single issues or real small batches, I just give the tab the letter for that alphabetic pile. I basically have a comic store in my room. Yay.

davidh777

mrhan

Another thing I do is place the books facing each other in the box. It takes up less space and looks a lot neater than having the spines all on one side. It's harder to look for books but since I don't collect much it isn't a problem.

Trevor

I love those plastic divider tab thingees. This re-organizing of mine is just stage one (cataloging and DC/Marvel/Other separation). When I get to the months long stage two, I'm hoping those dividers still fit in my drawer boxes. Although actually, the newer drawer boxes have something even better built-in I guess.
Sorry, couldn't resist! In my defense, I found a real Black Panther 2-in-1 for David later.
I do the same thing. Although I'm leaning towards ditching all my bags and boards and using magazine size bags for holding runs of a title.

mrhan

It also prevents spine roll and keeps the face of the bag clean from the tape goop that somehow gets on it when they are normally placed front to back.

The Valeyard

I organize by Publisher then Alphabetically. Imprints follow the main publisher (DC A to Z, Vertigo A to Z, etc).

Crossovers all go together (Crisis on Infinite Earths and all it's tie-ins).

If I have less than 10 of a specific company (like Caliber or Zenescope), those are in a Misc. box (Alphabetical by Publisher).

PhantomStranger

Alphabetical order by title, like most comic book stores. I don't separate my Marvel and DC items. I am not going to get confused and think Captain Atom belongs in Marvel, for instance.