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From: jkr@gitpyr.UUCP (John Kenneth Riviere)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: About little plastic bags
Message-ID: <1116@gitpyr.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-Nov-85 12:13:34 EST
Article-I.D.: gitpyr.1116
Posted: Fri Nov 29 12:13:34 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Nov-85 06:38:07 EST
References: <3200009@mirror.UUCP>
Reply-To: jkr@gitpyr.UUCP (John Kenneth Riviere)
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 64
Summary: Plastic bags are well worth the investment.

In article <3200009@mirror.UUCP> rs@mirror.UUCP writes:
>Now I'm scared I'll degenerate from a comics fan and
>reader to a comics collector.
>
>What can I do?  What do YOU do to keep your comics safe,
>yet there?
>--
>Rich $alz

I don't have any reservations about being a comics collector instead of
a comics reader, so I have had my comics in plastic bags for years and
don't regret it.  I think it does limit spontaneously reviewing an old
favorite, but with over 9000 comics and getting dozens more each month
(in addition to working, raising a family, and keeping up with usenet)
I don't think I would have much time for rereading all my back issues
anyway.

Back in my college days when I was living in the dorm I kept my comics
in the basement of my parents' house since I did not have room for them
in my shared dorm room (I had about 3000-4000 comics at the time).  I
came home one weekend to find that the dishwasher had backed up and
flooded the kitchen which was right over my comics.  The water had leaked
all over my comics, but because I had them in plastic bags they suffered
very little damage.  These were not the kind that are sold everywhere 
nowadays with the fold-over flaps which people tape closed (I don't tape
mine, that would *really* restrict getting into them).  These were some bags
I had bought from a plastic bag company which were about half-an-inch taller
than the comics themselves and the plastic just stuck up above the tops of
the comics.  When the water started falling on the comics the extra lip at
the top of the bags just folded over and the water sat on top of the comics
with the weight of the water holding the bags closed so that none got in
the bags and onto the comics.  Out of the 3000+ comics only about 6-10
comics bags had the two sides of the bag fold in opposite directions so that
water could get in.  That one incident paid for the cost of the bags so many
times over that I feel that they are more than worthwhile.

As for an overall storage scheme (as opposed to using bags for individual
comics) I have a variety of containers which I use to store comics in upright
positions so that I can put the comics on bookshelves.  The containers allow
me to store anywhere from about 12 up to almost 70 comics together, so I
can keep my longest runs together in a few large containers while still having
small containers for my titles which only have a few issues.  For the truly
miscellaneous titles of which there were only a few issues I have misc
sections wherein I store the titles alphabetically with multiple titles
stored together within the smallest containers so that they are still
accessable without having to dig through lots and lots of comics.  I don't
care much for those three foot boxes that many dealers sell because it is
just too difficult to look through them if you keep enough comics in them
to make sure that they don't sag, and as a collection increases in size it
is too difficult to shift comics accross large numbers of boxes in order
to maintain an organizational scheme.

Obviously, any storage scheme that works for you is probably best.  If you
really want to have good copies of comics that are readable many years from
now, even after repeated readings, I would suggest buying multiple copies
and storing the extras carefully until you tear up the current copy, at which
time you can get out another copy to use until you tear it up.  Comics are
generally too cheaply produced to stand up to years of active handling 
without showing lots of wear.

-- 
J. Kenneth Riviere   (JoKeR)
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!jkr