Recently I have worked on a small project of both sorting through old comics and finding a new way to store them. The common way of storing comic books is to get boxes from a local comic book shop and throw them all in by whatever organization that seems fit. It is a good way, and the storage option I used for a couple decades. But, the boxes do take up space and aren’t too stylish. I wanted a way that was both nice to look at and easy to keep around.
I thought about magazine files since it would provide a shelf option. I had several bookshelves already, so this seemed to work with those. Ikea had some great and cheap options for the magazine files. Next was how to make it so I knew which folder I was pulling out. For this, I used full sheet shipping labels that I could print out. I wanted a visual label that both contained certain titles and would be colorful to look at. Basically, instead of using a label that has just a letter on it, like “A”, I represented the contained issues by the comic covers. The Internet has a plethora of these comic covers, so it wasn’t hard to find them. The type of labels I used were Avery White Shipping Labels InkJet 8165. That’s as specific as I could be with that.
I measured the dimensions of where I wanted the labels and made them accordingly on the computer. Once printed I cut them out and stuck them on. It was nice and easy. Some of the comics seemed flimsy within the folders, so I stuck comic backing boards at both ends to keep them all together.
I’m quite pleased with the result as it’s easier to pull out the comics I’m looking for and put them back nicely. No more pulling out a whole box, it’s just a simple folder now. And, as I pass by, it’s entertaining to stare at shelves of comics titles.
