It took more than two years, but I finally managed to exert some control over my life.

Yes, that’s right: all of my comics, trade paperbacks, and hardcovers have been entered into my CLZ database and are all organized and neatly put away.

Over the past few days, I built up enough motivation to finish the job. Which is to say I got tired of having a room in which it was impossible to maneuver around the mountains of comics on the floor.

At times it felt like a Sisyphean task, particularly with the trades and hardcovers, as I kept making progress putting them on the shelves in alphabetical order and I’d get to the “S” books and suddenly stumble upon a “B” book and have to more or less start all over again.

And the alphabetical order itself is…well, I don’t necessarily agree with what CLZ considers “alphabetical,” mostly because it’s inconsistent in how it lists a book/series title. For example, Jack Kirby Mister Miracle is listed in the database as Jack Kirby’s Miracle Man, and is under J. However, Jack Kirby’s The Forever People is listed simply as Forever People, and is under F.

Still, even though I don’t always agree with the organization, and I’m not that keen on mixing the trades in with the hardcovers, I do think it’s best to maintain some level of consistency, so I followed the CLZ order. To the extent that I could, anyway, as individual floppies are stored separately from the trades and hardcovers, and the oversized books, like Absolute and Artist editions, are too tall and require separate shelving.

I also separated out some of the “special” books and gave them their own section. This includes omnibuses, Deluxe Editions, anniversary specials, and some books that are just especially meaningful to me, such as Promethea and the Reckless books (which are very clearly made especially for me in particular). And also, my Sandman hardcovers, as some of those are signed by Neil.

Lois Lane also has her own section, with my runs of Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane, Supergirl (in which she had a backup feature), Superman Family, and her assorted specials and minis separated out and stored in plastic bins, safely cordoned off from the riffraff.

And there are also the comics that, for various reasons, live on my spinner rack.

Somewhere along the line I need to get the motivation to start selling some of them, as I have enough room for what I have now – and, of course, I’d have even more room if it weren’t for all those meddling statues and figures – but that won’t always be the case and having gotten everything organized isn’t the same as keeping everything organized.

I do have some likely candidates already separated out and stored in plastic bins, but there’s more work to be done in terms of figuring out what I’m willing to part with and building up the motivation to do all of the work that would be involved in selling them.

I also have to get around to making more shelf signs for the spinner rack. The Brubaker & Phillips/Bettie Page section is the only one that has a full complement of signs at the moment.

If I had it to do all over again, I would have invested in a different shelving system way back when I bought the shelves I have, but hindsight is 20/20, and we all remember how terrible 2020 was.

Also, on a different note, I will get around to writing that post about my post-Spotlight Sunday plans, but for right now I just wanted to celebrate this incredibly minor hard-won victory, and I’ll close out this post with some pictures of that victory.

If you want to know what’s in my collection – including some mildly embarrassing items, some of which aren’t my fault – check it out here.