Quick Report> More Comic Pricing Organizing

Not much of a report, and this only took all day because I couldn’t get to sleep until late Friday night which meant waking up late Saturday.

Anyway it was about pricing that first set of comics. I got the prices last week. This week I went through and found out which miniseries or storylines would be best served if I sold them as a bundle rather than individual issues. This is still something I need to consider. By selling one storyline as a bundle anyone wanting that whole series gets the storyline all at once without hunting individual issues. It was also a good idea to reduce the price a bit to get that storyline together in one set. That’s just marketing.

On the other hand what if you’re someone who has parts of the miniseries or story arc and just wants the single issues he or she is missing? Well, would there be more benefit in selling the comics individually? Next week the mission will be to go through the various options, pick one, and start loading items so that’s when I’ll make the final choice there. I also had to resort the comics back to how I had them (with some minor variations) because the stack wasn’t in alphabetical order. Between the original bag breaking and having to just shove them into another bag (which also broke) they got all jumbled up. So that had to be fixed to make them easier to get and send out.

That bring us to next week and finally deciding on where to sell them and to make the account and start listing stuff. I may try a few different options or go with the one…we’ll see what happens.

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Pricing Comics For Sale (Or Trying To)

This week’s entry into the Comic Organizing Mega-Project involved the decluttering phase, namely it’s time to sell some of these. I have way too many comics to enjoy, a product of having money and not being prepared to not like the comics. I couldn’t have known that when I ordered them of course.

I tried to take the easy way out and sell them to a local comic store since I trust the owner (in fact most of these were probably bought from his store back in the day after my previous store of choice closed down) but what he could get for them was a fraction of what they were worth overall. He has to worry about what will sell in his market, how long they’d sit there, and it doesn’t always match what it could be worth online, a clearly larger market. If decluttering was the only goal I’d have said the heck with it, get what I could get, and move on to going through the next batch. However I have been out of work for many years and I really need the money, so for me it was worth the extra effort to at least attempt to sell them myself. So that’s what this week was setting up.

What To Consider When Selling Comics [filler video]

Today I was going to talk about selling comics, namely MY comics and some issues I had and needed to consider. Then I didn’t get much sleep Friday night which basically killed all of my time on Saturday as I woke up late and still needed a nap later in the day. There was no time to write anything but I didn’t want to miss another week. Barring similar or other problems I’ll do a full discussion on what I’ve gone through next week.

Instead I bring you the following video about what you should consider if you’re going to cut down or eliminate your comic book collection. It’s a good video for any of you not as knowledgeable about comics as I am or people even more in the know than I am. The video by Zen Watercooler goes over the various ages of comics, ways to grade comics to find out what they’re worth, and different methods of selling them, all info I could use frankly.

Hopefully I can update my own quest next week. It’s an important step in the Comic Organizing Mega Project after all.

Comic Organizing Mega-Project New Phase day final

Still an old photo. I don’t even have that air conditioner anymore once it started leaking.

Well, it wasn’t the victory I wanted but at this point I’ll take what God gives me and thank Him for it. I did succeed in getting the comics all organized…for now. All the comics I’ve already reviewed from Phantom to Zoids is all in place, the stuff I need to review still is separated and ready to be reviewed…all is well with the world more or less.

I was hoping to get all of the comics out of the studio and put them all in the bedroom. This did not happen. It’s not going to hurt anything but it isn’t helping anything either. I broke even, something a gambler may pray for if the game drags too long with a losing streak. I had to use all the plastic drawers, including the one my lamp is on in the studio. Now I’m sure they’re all in the right order because as I did this project I got smarter and learned from my mistakes.

Comic Organizing Mega-Project New Phase day 5

I didn’t get a lot done today, but I think I actually have a good defense. To help you understand let’s go back to 2016. If you’ve been here long enough for stumbled upon those days in the archives you know this was a hard year for me. Diverticulitis, an inflamed region of colon that had to be removed, with the rest connected six months later. Between those two surgeries I had a blood clot that put me on thinners for a year, minus the reconnection surgery and some dental work. This left me with a hernia that wasn’t removed until 2021, with a mesh added in there just for fun. And not dying I guess.

All of that, probably more the hernia as it restricted how much I could lift without major risk, led to me not doing a lot of physical labor over the past few years. So understand that running back and forth between two rooms with huge stacks of comics books takes a toll even when we’re only really working on half the collection. I was sore last night and had trouble falling asleep. So forgive me if I needed to take it a bit easier, and it may take two days to finish up depending on how much I overdid it. Still, I got something done or there wouldn’t be a report.

Comic-Organizing Mega-Project New Phase day 4

Okay, yesterday hit a setback. It happens. You roll with it, try to get back on track, and press forward. That’s kind of been my life lately anyway, after all the medical issues. So decluttering is like life…or something. I write sci-fi superheroes and snarky media commentary, not poetry.

After spending yesterday organizing one series I thought was all set, today I targeted the Ts, finish out the alphabet, and figure out the storage arrangement for my current goals. The Ts were easy, though that’s because of how I’m doing the storage part currently. After that the remaining letters were a breeze and so we moved on to the second half. I accomplished everything I wanted to do today under the new plan, so pressing forward actually happened. Let me tell you about it…because that’s why I have this site, talking about decluttering and organizing to get myself to declutter and organize.

Comic Organizing Mega-Project New Phase day 3

Zoids on guard duty.

Well, apparently I didn’t just shoot myself in the foot…I used a machine gun.

I thought today would be relatively easy. It was time to start shuffling the comic storage arrangement and everything would be fine. I don’t think I’m done sorting but I didn’t have to do any with today’s goals.

So I spent most of the day sorting.

I can only stall so much for the intro so let’s get into it. The plan was to take the comics in the magazine racks out and put the comics I need to review in their place. That would make them easier to get to. This would be more sorting back into the collection when it was over but I was okay with that. Then I start going over the comics and that’s when the wall came up and said hi to my face.

Comic Organizing Mega-Project New Phase day 2

Day two started off a bit later than I wanted. I had trouble getting to sleep last night so I woke up a bit late, even for me. On the plus side I didn’t have as many chores to do during the day (Monday’s include taking out the trash and folding the laundry) and my dad didn’t take any naps so I had all of what was left of the day to dome some denting in this project.

Yesterday was about the letter S, though going through things today showed me there’s still some goofs in the sorting for S titled comics. I tend to put shared universes together in chronological order or there would be even more here with Superman and Spider-Man among others but they go in the DC Universe and Marvel Universe sets. I do have a section for crossovers and I used to have one for movies but I decided to just put them in with the other letters except if they’re part of a group like DC Universe. So what did I get done today?

Comic Organizing Mega-Project: New Phase Day 1

So I’m going through the comics I want to review for next week over at my other website and I can’t find stuff. Like, a lot of stuff. Not because they’re missing, though a couple of things appear to be at the moment, but because I reached the part of my collection I gave up on organizing during the last big sorting. It was just too much for me at the time but I thought I was going to go back and get to it eventually.

Guess what I didn’t do and came back to bite me.

With all my major medical issues behind me I really haven’t done a good job getting myself back into shape, so I could use the exercise, but it’s been a long time since I’ve done a lot of heavy lifting thanks to the hernia that is no longer an issue and not having the drive. And possibly a bit of laziness that settled in after all I’ve been through the past few years. So this week is a must-do on numerous fronts. I put a hiatus on the comic reviews over on the other site and this week I’m focusing on getting the rest of the organizing done, plus a few alterations I’m going to institute. I’ll get into that as the project goes along. Forgive me from using old images rather than taking new ones. At this point I’m just breaking up the text wall and you may or may not notice anyway.

I’ll be posting updates all week for two reasons: I haven’t had a decent article lately and I want to encourage you, the readers, not to make the same mistakes with your own project. If you need to take a break from the heavy work, fine, but please remember to get back to it at some point or you’ll be doing what I’m doing this week.

Another Case For Physical Media (reposted BW article)

I’ve mentioned my other website, BW Media Spotlight, in the past here at the Clutter Reports and even used a few reviews as filler posts, since reviews are part of what I do here and these reviews are things I own and considering whether to remove or not. The books I reviewed here were also reviewed over there, only the book reviews here are an overview while the other site goes over them a chapter at a time. Even the times I’ve shown off new art supplies and my art desk were things I use to make logos and comics for my other site.

I’ve defended keeping physical media in the past, music in that case, how while going all digital sounds good on paper (pun intended) there are negatives that don’t always work. There’s nothing wrong with a comic, novel, video game, CD/cassette/record, or home video library if they are things you actually plan to read, play, or watch. Recent events with popular digital comic site ComiXology are another example. I want to get rid of the comics I don’t want to read anymore, making a digital archive for my website’s purposes (it will easier to look them up and get the panels I need) but having that comic in my hands and knowing it stays mine is a good thing. What follows is my look at the changes ComiXology went through after being bought by Amazon, the recent huge layoff alert, and why the paper stuff is still a good option. I’ve made a few changes if I thought the more casual fans that would stumble on this site would find something hard to follow or don’t follow my other site. Here’s the original post if you’re curious. And now….the repost:

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I have no idea what’s going on with ComiXology these days. Just recently I posted a BW Ramble v-log about how they finally fixed the Guided View feature, which reformatted the normal comic page for cleaner viewing on smartphone and tablet screens, and even the larger computer monitor, a feature they dropped when Amazon bought the digital comics service and decided to integrate it into Kindle. Now they’re cutting a huge chunk of their workforce. Almost 75% according to Bounding Into Comics. Yes, with people being allowed into that area of space we call “outside”, which I vaguely remember visiting once or twice, demand for at-home media has gone down. Streaming services are not making as much money as they were during the lockdowns and that’s only partly blamed on some…questionable decisions by streaming services that a Clutter Report version of this article would be out of place going on about. Part of it can also be blamed on our current economic issues and I won’t go into a political rant here because, again, I’m reformatting this article for a decluttering blog and I don’t even like doing those kind of rants on the storytelling discussion site.

Even people currently working at ComiXology are complaining about the layoffs, not to mention high ranking types who are already hitting the job sites for work. That’s certainly bad news in this climate and I wish them all the best of luck, but BW Media Spotlight and The Clutter Reports aren’t business sites, it’s a storytelling or clutter organizing site. Digital comics, for some, have replaced physical comics because they take up less floor space and are a bit cheaper since there isn’t printing costs to deal with…I mean, in theory they’re cheaper. However, with such a huge drop in people running the site this is a format of comics that may take a hit of its own, and frankly just pushes my belief that physical comics are still superior in the end.