Organized Labor

If you're a comics collector, one of the most exhaustive of your tasks comes from keeping your collection organized--not only as far as inventory, but making sure you can get to whatever books you need to find without shuffling through them in boxes, closets, or other crammed places. Having custom-built shelves for my collection was, and still is, one of the best decisions I could have made for it; but, from time to time, I have to rearrange the shelving space to accommodate changes. (Not to mention quantity.)

Or, to use the old phrase--"out with the old, in with the new."

There's no getting around this task--sooner or later, as your collection grows, you have to face this daunting work that simply can't be put off any longer.

It would have been ideal if my shelving space could hold all of my collection. But as it stands, it serves as more of a "revolving door" that reflects my current buying habits, as well as availability for special projects. The key is to leave enough room for new books of a series, while taking down those books that are either no longer in print or that I no longer collect.

So after hours of work, and enough leg and bending movement to satisfy a gym regimen, here's the reorganized final product:

Which means that what was removed had to go somewhere:

Take it from me--these long boxes are no small exertion to move about if you should happen to need a book you've stored away. I have to be careful not to stack them too high. Having to call an ambulance because I had to get to a copy of Strange Tales would be too embarrassing. I can hear the hospital staff around the coffee machine now: "Haw, haw! Guess he didn't have super-strength, did he?!"

I think my dream is to have the library space that Henry Higgins had--complete with rolling ladder. Having your library in a guest bedroom is not something I want to present when I finally appear on "Cribs."