Remember earlier this year when we wrote about How to Start Collecting Comics?
Well, at that time Ashley made the following TikTok highlighting our main comic book shelf …
@ashleyvrobinson From the #geekhistorylesson perspective! #ghl #podcast #podcasts #podcasting #podcaster #podcastersoftiktok #podcasters #podcastersofinstagram #podcasteroftiktok #podcasterlife #podcastersontiktok #podcastersunite #marvel #dc #image #jupiterjet #comics #comicsquad #comicbook #comicbooks #comicbooklife #comicbooktiktok #comicbookart #jonboymeyers #comicbooknerds #geek #nerd #nerdtok #geekgirl #geekgirls #geekgirlcareers ♬ original sound - Ashley Victoria Robinson
… and we have been bombarded with questions asking:
How Many Comic Books Do We Own?
You might be surprised by our answers!
For many people early in their comic book collecting careers there are two modes: you either enter the art of collecting with a completionist mentality and go all in on all things or you approach it in reaction to how much space in your life you are going to be able to part with in service of your favourite superhero stories. What better way to fully immerse yourself in these stories than making a place for them in your home?
For both Professor Ashley and Jason we have never had a tremendous amount of space to store our collections. We graduated from a single room in our parents homes to apartment dwelling in Los Angeles - which is to say: not a lot of space!
When it comes to collecting you have to pick your battles.
What do you mean by that?
You have to pick your format of choice.
Longboxes and shortboxes can multiply like rabbits and when geography is at a premium - as it is for us - they can sometimes be the first to go. Most of the longboxes we own hold our own work: Jupiter Jet, Super Best Friend, and Aurora and the Eagle win against everything else. They enjoy a closet of their own in our home.
This is often the blight of creators who are also collectors - sometimes you have to sacrifice the things you are a fan of in order to work at the highest level possible for fans of your work.
Yes, we both used to be those people with stacks of single issue comic books on our bedside tables and piles of collected editions on the floor. Ultimately, this just made for late night water glasses being knocked over and soaking through our floppies or stubbed toes on the latest collection of Robin or Superman stories we’d acquired. Trust us - you’ll lose the battle to the pile of graphic novels on the floor every time!
Most of the comic books we own are either in soft cover, hard cover, or absolute/omnibi. From a cost mindsight purchasing collections is the best bang for your buck. This is the reason we have so many of them! Bigger, most expensive options don’t always come along, but we’re passionate about snapping up our favourite runs in these oversized format.
As we are writing this blog post legendary artist, Tim Sale, passed away recently. A wonderful way to celebrate his work is the pick up to absolute collection. For her money, Professor Ashley prefers Dark Victory because it has a lot more Robin in it! To be able to lay out and experience the art close to the size it was originally created it really elevates your reading experience. Our only real gripe against the omnibus or absolute format is it’s pretty hard to read propped up on your chest cavity.
Total we have 40 oversized formats, the rest of the collections we have are hardback or paperback. We are definitely of the mindset to try and keep the same story collected in the same format - for example when Fables was released in hardback we were diligent about collecting the entire run in this same format. Don’t they look amazing?
Sadly, not all the comic book collections in the world get the hard cover treatment. We’re very sad to report our comic books writings have never had the honour. What’s nice about the contemporary comic book publishing industry is everything gets collected in one way or another. If you’re looking to display your favourite run no matter how popular or obscure there is a way you can do it.
TL;DR people often tell us they expect us to be swimming in single issue floppies littering every surface of The Mind University and that’s just not the case. We love digital comics for our weekly pull lists and we’ll use either Comixology, Hoopla Digital, or Libby to access comic books we don’t own, but need access to for Geek History Lesson. Our faves get picked up as collections and our fave of faves are often picked up in an oversize format for the best reading experience possible. What works for us might not work for you, but if comic book collecting is something you love our ultimate recommendation is to get your habits down to a science!
For more on access to digital comics:
header image courtesy of Erik Mclean via pexels