odds and ends: shelf porn, part two
Around a year ago, Comic Book Resources’ terrific blog Robot 6 featured my classroom in their Shelf Porn column. It was a great experience and I’ve been surprised at the amount of terrific feedback I’ve gotten both from folks online and out there in the real world, so I thought I’d show off some more shelves… only this time in my house.
I’m going to take it slow and easy first. This small bookshelf is in the corner of my bedroom.
I picked it up from Ikea about three years ago. When we moved to the new house, one of the luxuries that came with the place was a lovely set of shelves built into the walls of our living room area. I claimed a portion of those shelves for my geekier pursuits, leaving this bookshelf orphaned for a time. It’s gradually become a catch-all for smaller collections I’ve started, books that hold a certain amount of value to me, and trades and comics that have spilled out and over from the main collection.
We’ll start with the top shelf and work our way down from there!
This shelf looks pretty haphazard at first until you realize it’s a collection of all the signed books I have. Some favorites here are The Walking Dead Compendium signed by original TWD artist Tony Moore, The Nearly Complete Essential Hembeck Archive Omnibus, signed by Fred Hembeck with a Spider-Man doodle, and a sentimental favorite, Ignite Your Intuition by “extraordinarist” Craig Karges. I got a copy of that book signed when I was in college and I booked Karges for a Parents’ Weekend show. Most annoying book on the shelf is that Batgirl collection, which I got signed by inker extraordinare Murphy Anderson last September. Mr. Anderson graciously signed the book… but he signed it on the cover, and ink has NEVER dried. I’m this close to wiping the signature off, it’s still so smeary.
Next shelf: geral spill-over from the main library. A couple of these books (Vanessa Davis’ Make Me a Woman, Joe Matt’s Fair Weather) were donations to my classroom library but ones I deemed a little too… intense for some readers. Both books rock, but probably not for a 9th/10th grade classroom. Also enjoyable on this shelf… Kerry Callen’s Halo and Sprocket trades. I flat out love Halo and Sprocket, but the weird sizing on the second trade has always bugged me.
A lot of these are lucky/cheap Half Price Books finds. The Best American Comics hardcovers were both had for like $4 bucks apiece. The Big Fat Little Lit book was a dollar. Ben Snakepit’s The Snakepit Book was $2 bucks… a real bargain for that many comics. I remember laughing at how lame I found some of his ‘zines a few years ago, but when you read them all in one go, there’s something cool there. I wouldn’t ever want to live a life like that, but I can see the appeal of the strips.
In case you can’t tell, I love HPB. I will get the opportunity to try out stuff I wouldn’t in a million years from their wares. Case in point: The Sword by The Luna Brothers, a book that I bought primarily because I found it for $2 dollars AND I had a 40% off coupon… but one that I ended up liking quite a bit! Ditto The Summer of Love by Debbie Drechsler. You can’t get more of a range between books, but I enjoyed both immensely.
Oh, I should also mention that Tintin book on the far left, Explorers on the Moon. I’ve had that since I was like seven or eight years old.
This shelf is either superhero spillover or books I just finished reading. That trade of Icon, for example… I got it at Half Price Books for like $5 dollars this weekend.
Pretty much all my DC/Wildstorm books landed up here in an attempted to get the downstairs collection squared away. There wasn’t enough room on the DC shelf for Wildstorm and I couldn’t find any other place to put them. It’s a shame, because Wildstorm put out some of my favorite superhero comics of the 2000′s, especially Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips Sleeper series. I love that comic so much.
A lot of these books came from swaps on Swaptree.com (now Swap.com) a site Ellen and I used regularly for a long time. Heck, I used it so much, I drew a comic about it and won a Nintendo Wii! I haven’t used it much lately, although much like Half Price Books, I would use the site as an opportunity to try new comics that I wouldn’t normally spend money on. Case in point, the Dynamite Lone Ranger series, two collections which I got for almost nothing and think are just terrific.
Marvel’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Thor: The Mighty Avenger are two books that should be back on my classroom’s shelves, but I brought them home and loved ‘em so much, they haven’t made their way back yet. Chris Samnee is one of my favorite superhero artists drawing comics right now.
I like the smaller-sized omnibus books. Desperadoes is one Barnes & Noble was selling for next to nothing for the last few months in their Bargain Books section, so I picked it up. The Aliens and Star Wars collections I got for full price and I completely recommend you avoid the Aliens one at all costs. Very sloppy editing, confusing revisions… find the original comics, if you’re interested.
The Marvel/Stephen King Gunslinger book is classroom bound too- I found it at a used book store for $3 dollars and it was really not my cup of tea… which you will no doubt find strange in a few paragraphs, but I’ll leave it at that.
As you might be able to tell from the more recent Thrift Store Finds, I’ve recently become interested in novelizations of old movies. I keep the lion’s share of them on this shelf. Also included in that pile are a couple of old James Bond paperbacks- I went through an Ian Fleming period during my freshman year of college. Our college’s library did not have a ton of books for leisure reading, but they had most of the Bond paperbacks. I tore through most of ‘em over the spring semester.
The books standing on their sides are either books I found at thrift stores or remaindered copies found at big box bookstores. I’m still looking forward to reading The Given Day at some point before I kick the bucket.
Ah, my Stephen King shelf. I got into Stephen King when I was in the 7th grade. I read The Stand and was forever hooked on Uncle Stevie. Now, being that King is one of the most popular writers of fiction going, it’s infinitely easy to locate copies of his books. For the most part, I buy ‘em in thrift shops whenever I see ‘em. That copy of The Stand has been with me since 7th grade though.
Every once and awhile, I’ll stumble on a first edition of a King book and I’ll also buy those, no matter what the condition. That tattered copy of Carrie, for example, is a first edition… or it is insofar as I can tell from what I’ve gleaned from the web. I know it’s not a book club copy, at the very least. The Eyes of the Dragon is also a first edition.
Also for the record: If you’re at all a fan, that special edition of ‘Salem’s Lot is wonderful.
Final shelf: newspaper comic strips and comic strip paperbacks. All of the ones to the left are treasures from my childhood. The only one missing is the original Calvin & Hobbes. I keep that one at work, on the bookshelf next to my desk.
I’m sorry I didn’t turn out the comic strip paperbacks… but sooner or later, i’m sure I’ll write about ‘em all.
