Skip to main content

Comic Book Storage

After you get into comic books, you quickly come to realize you need some way to store them. There are a lot of details on exactly how to store comic books to last years. Heck, there are even companies that you can mail your comic boo to, and will put it I a clamshell to last years.

Honestly, I get comic books to read them, share them with others, and get my kids into them. Some might be worth money, but we're talking about maybe $20 for a few comics, and pennies for others. I would never make back the money I spent. At the same time, I do want then to look brand new for as long as possible. So, focusing on someone who doesn't want to spend much, and keep them safe but accessible, here's what the comic store has taught me.

Bags (Sleeves)

You need to get comic book bags. These are plastic (polypropylene) bags. You should get the Golden Age size. Comics today are more narrow than they used to be, so the Golden Age size doesn't give you a snug fit. But it does give you room to store actual graphic novels or comic books that are thicker than normal.

Boards

The bags are good to keep dust off, but they won't give you support to hold the comic up. It would still flop around, and the spine could crack if the comic was on an uneven surface. So, along with a pack of 100 bags, you also need to buy a pack of 100 board backs.

My comic book store sells a bag and board for 20 cents per comic. Personally I buy a pack of 100 sleeves and 100 backs, since it's a bit cheaper (about $16 total) and lasts a while.

Boxes

To store comics, they have boxes made specifically to store comics. These are called long or short boxes. A long box is twice as long as a short box. I had a coupe short boxes starting out, and now have two long boxes. Most of them are 1/2 - 3/4 full, so I have a lot of room. A long box is really pretty big.

Again, these are pretty inexpensive. About $7 - $12 each. It's definitely worth picking up a small box. Even if you only get a few, you can box them up, put the lid on, and shelve them without worrying what might happen to the comics over time.

Storage

The recommendations I've read is to use a dry, warm environment. Essentially, keep them readily available to read, or at worst in a basement. Light will obviously fade them a bit. But I'm no where close to this being a problem since I'm so new. While a closet shelf would be best, I'm now using the floor in my office.

Have fun keeping the comics forever!

Peace.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Using an Array of Objects in C++

 I've been programming for years (over 35 at this point, which is crazy  to think about). My career right now is much more Software Architecture, and much less Software Developer, but I still get some time to write out GraphQL APIs in TypeScript, Vue 3 UIs, GitLab pipelines, and just generally making "big" decisions and helping make them a reality. It's nice every now and then to come across different articles and ideas that get me to remember life in college when I was using C++. Who would have thought C++ was the "hot new thing" right now (though I suppose it's more like Rust and Go, both great languages as well). One of the things I find frustrating with most technical posts is where they focus on the "how do I build an app" and not so much on "how do I do this one slightly useful thing". I figured I'd throw one together what was front of mind, using user attributes for permissions (i.e., Attribute Based Access Control - ABAC) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Red-Gate SQL Compare

Every now and then I come across a program that becomes so ingrained in my daily work that I hardly know how I'd get by without it.  I'll probably break down a couple over the next few days, but for database work, I have never found anything as good as Red Gate's SQL Compare and SQL Data Compare .  Essentially these tools let you compare two SQL Server databases (all objects, users, permissions, functions, diagrams, anything) and update changes to whichever database you want.  This is amazingly useful for deploying database changes to a test or production environment (do it to production with ridiculous care, even though it will generate a SQL Script for you and run all updates in one transaction), and making sure everything is synchronized. For releases we can just generate the compare script, confirm that the changes match the updates we want to go out, and store it all in one place with the release details.  This is true for both the structure and the d...
6 comments
Read more

Kids Activities

I find myself often in a situation where it's some morning, I have the kids for the afternoon, and I'm not sure what to do with them. We could go to a movie, or play Legos, but living near Washington, DC, I want the kids to love the museums as much as I do, or to see what else is going on. This Sunday, while my wife was travelling, I took the kids to the Chocolate Festival in Old Town Fairfax. I didn't even know there wad an Old Town Fairfax, much less a chocolate festival. It was okay overall, but the best was seeing any type of chocolate you could imagine, and letting the kids pick something for themselves and their teacher. For finding cheap or free stuff going on nearby with the kids, I have to say About.com has consistently been the best. I tried si.edu (the Smithsonian Website) which is also good, but a little hard to navigate, partly because they have so much going on. At About I did a search of what to do with my kids this weekend, and a bunch of items came ...
Post a Comment
Read more