Trevor

Almost rented a 5' by 15' storage site for my comic books (and some other stuff) today; but reading more about comic storage has stopped me. If I'm going to bother to keep them, I might as well try to protect them. I'm fairly sure that my extra room will have better temperature, humidity, and flooding control than a storage site. One tip said to never put your comic boxes on a concrete floor, due to humidity and temperature wicking, and I'd have no idea what to buy to keep them off the floor at a storage site.

Back to the drawing board on my space issues. Perhaps moving all my DVDs to binders is the only way to make headway.

TheBang

Just put them on bricks or cinder blocks. Or maybe a wood pallet.

resinrats

Get some of those metal shelving racks from Walmart/Target. Just don't assemble the shelf. Set them on the floor and comics on them. They are wire racks that will keep your items 1-2" off the floor. Close but air can flow under it.

Also, be sure to pay the monthly fee or Dave Hester will be coming for a visit. YUUUUPPPP!!!

Trevor

^ Thanks for the ideas on the the cinder blocks or metal shelves; I'll look into them.

Right now, I'm just trying to find enough non-comic stuff to get rid of or move to storage, and leave my comic collection here so I can enjoy it, and organize it. I imagine that I'm ready to sell about half of it; if I ever make the time to go through it all.

Of course, I may change my mind and put comics in storage tomorrow....

Trevor

Continuing my ranting/thinking out loud, I decided against putting the comics in storage. I think they'll be safer here at home, even though my upper floor does push 80 in the summers. Plus I really do want to get back into reading them and organizing them and filling in holes and probably getting rid of a good chunk of them. If I put them in storage I'll never make progress on those goals.

I spent good chunks of the last few days moving them downstairs to prepare them for storage, then moving them back upstairs; and briefly went through many boxes, getting re-energized about my primary hobby since age six.

I remember how close I once was to owning every appearance of my favorite characters (Swamp Thing, Spectre, Phantom Stranger, Demon, Man-Thing) and series (Plop, Micronauts, the original JLA, Nexus, Zot, Stig's Inferno); and how I've bought perhaps 5000 books since the last time I completely organized and indexed my collection.

I think I need to invest in drawer boxes. It's such a pain to move 40+ boxes around finding things. Can Valeyard or any others with experience with them give me their opinions on them, any tips, cheapest place to get them?

madcougar

I bought 2x4 pieces of wood and basically sit my comic book boxes on top of that. So the boxes are at two inches off the ground. I have no idea if that's a good idea, so I keep most of the junk on the last row of boxes.

The Valeyard

I love the hell out of the drawer boxes. So much easier to get to my books now. They stack nicely and are heavy duty. I met the guy who runs the company at SDCC back in 2005 (or 2006) when he was just starting out. He use to stand on each box to prove how strong they were. Definitely better the my older long boxes with the lids crushed in.

Also, each box comes with 5 comic dividers for your sorting pleasure.


Now the drawbacks:

• They are smaller than normal comic boxes (see my pix above). Meaning, you won't be able to fit the entire contents of a normal box into just one of these. You may end up with more boxes than you currently own. Ironically, their short drawer versions are little longer than a regular shot box!

• The books at the very back are hard to get to unless you pull the drawer all the way out.

• The top row of boxes will tip over if you pull a top drawer too far out. The bottom rows have the weight to hold them down but the top doesn't. The company, The Collection Drawer Co, have a solution for that now - BoxLox anchors. The anchors "lock" drawers together, side by side so the top won't tip.

• Cost. Drawer Boxes run about 13 bucks each. Pretty pricey. I've seen some stores sell them for as much as 15 each. Even if you order directly from the company, shipping brings it back up to roughly 13 bucks each. You can find a store near you here - Box Me.


BCW offers just a drawer shell that you can put the long boxes you already own into (sans lid). I've never bought one but I hear they're a little cheaper than the Collection Drawer. Also, they're designed to hold a regular size long box so you have more space to work with. They're a bit thinner than the Collection Drawer.


Personally, I stick with the Collection Drawer boxes because I like the uniformed look and "heaviness" of the box. Despite some of the drawbacks I mentioned above, I highly recommend them.

Hope that helps!

Trevor

^ Thanks!

Yeah, from the few reviews I've read I'm pretty sure if I did it I'd stick with the original (?) drawer box ones and not the cheaper BCW ones. I'd save money with those since I already have ~50 long or short boxes, but they seem much less sturdy.

I just got a quote from them and 49 drawers (45 long and 4 magazine) would be over $800 shipped. And that's with a volume discount and shipping discount. Holy crap. I've never seen them cheaper at a local shop but I'll look, and maybe start with just a few to make sure I love them $800 worth.

exharrison

I use the BCW houses. The BCW products are just more easily available to me. I have several of the collection drawer boxes and they are great, but not worth the money/hassle to get them.

I actually have my bcw short boxes/houses on an edsal shelving system, so they don't go more than four high and the durability doesn't really seem to be a major issue yet. I also have some of the long box/houses 3 high on top of my filing cabinets and they seem to be fine. If you don't stack them too high, the BCW is fine. I actually have several of them filled with TPBs.

I also like these business card holders. I put them on the end of the box so that I can keep a box identifier on them(i.e. SB07 for short box 7) and have all my content managed in a SQL database that I wrote some web scripts to manage and present.

It has helped me organize some of the mess that my collection started to become with boxes becoming kind of random and unorganized.

dfmaverick2

Similar to the business card holder pockets, I use clear packing slip envelopes to label my collection drawers. I cut off the one end and stick it on the front as a pocket so I can easily slide in an computer printed list of what is in that box. That way, I don't keep writing and crossing out what is in a particular box as things change.

Trevor

^^ great ideas on the box labeling! I've always used the little labels that are sharpie/eraseable; although I haven't seen them in the office supply stores for years and hope they still make them.

I'm still debating on what to do about organizing my comics. Those drawer boxes are closer to $17 each shipped to me in bulk, although I noticed the quote includes their BoxSort rails at $2 per box. I guess that's their system for allowing you to put dividers and have spaces as needed? Do I want those? Valeyard?

To be honest, I have several months minimum of other projects before I even start on the comics again.

exharrison

I personally say get them if you want to do drawer boxes. They are nice and you can use them to leave a gap at the back of the box so you can access all the comics without removing the drawer. And not removing the drawer is one of their nice features.

bluetoast

I have a couple drawer boxes, they're pretty damn good. I did get a pack of the dividers, but I can also use halves of manila folders for that (which I did with regular boxes).

The Valeyard

Personally, I haven't used their BoxSort rails yet. I was planning to once I converted over completely to the Drawer Boxes. Have you been able to find a local comic shop that carries Drawer Boxes? It might be a couple of bucks cheaper.

Also, using business card holders as box labels is BRILLIANT! Thanks for that, exharrison!

exharrison

I love how they look even though I was looking for something more like the packing list envelopes that dfmaverick2 mentioned. Overall I like the look on the boxes and it makes organizing a lot simpler. I will say that I did not come up with the idea. Somebody else somewhere posted it along with the company that they made. I'm just sharing someone else's good idea

Trevor

Went ahead and bought four of the drawer boxes at the local shop today. Figured playing around with them will give me a better idea on whether it's worth investing in the 40+ needed to house my entire collection.

I had more comics than would fit in my current boxes anyway, with my mini-splurges at the last few FCBDs.

I'll report back on them as I get around to reorganizing that room in the coming week.

The Valeyard

Best of luck!

Superman07

This may be a little off topic, but does anybody have recommendations for frames on comics and original art? I've found a few websites, and my friend has one, but I wasn't blown away by the quality (second link).

http://www.bcemylar.com/display_frame.cfm
http://www.frameitagainsam.com/produ...48135f96f119b9

Trevor

I think I love them. Put them together slightly wrong but realized my mistake quickly, watched some videos, and got them all set up fairly quickly. It may be awhile before I take the plunge, but I think ll eventually transfer all of my books into these.
I can't help, but I appreciate you posting this. I have a few pieces that I really should look into framing and displaying.

big e

What do you guys use for storing graphic novels? Right now, I have mine in a long box stored under my bed, but the books always shift around when I move it. I was thinking about getting a book case, but all the cases I've seen have fixed shelves, so I would end up with 5 shelves with a lot of dead space above/below them.

starman9000

I just bought a longbox so I have about half in that and half on book shelves. I hope to be moving soon and will go to all shelves after that, but the long box does the trick for now.

davidh777

Depends on if you're close to an IKEA, but I use their Billy bookcases, which have a fixed middle shelf and the rest variable. There's still some deadspace, but not too bad. I definitely like to look at them on the shelves.

PhantomStranger

This is only mildly related, but I was recently looking for a quality glass frame for a 24x36 Alex Ross Poster. Target has a nice premium line for $30 that fits perfectly and makes an excellent display.

Trevor

I keep my graphic novels in bookcases. I have a hodgepodge collection of 5 varying size bookcases now. Most have variable shelves so I'm able to Tetris them into an organization that doesn't waste too much space.

Bronkster

Bumping for a Public Service Announcement!!

I was rummaging through a box of comics today and came across my "extra" copies of Superman Forever (the one with the truly cool Alex Ross lenticular cover). But I noticed that there were spots - white-ish little spots all over them!! Pulling them out of the polypropalwhatzis bags, they appeared to have a powdery substance on them! With a soft cloth I was able to wipe it off and they look ... okay again. I'll be using mylar bags for them now, and hope there isn't some reaction to those.

Anyway, for those of you who have lenticular covers, you may want to check to ensure there isn't any weird chemical reaction going on.

Keep your comics safe!!