×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
Manga space issues! Aaaaah!


Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Anime News Network Forum Index -> General -> Manga
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
RZetlin



Joined: 23 Mar 2004
Posts: 87
PostPosted: Wed Jul 09, 2014 7:11 am Reply with quote
Space is always an issue in my small room.

My suggestions are:

Choose the titles that you really want.

Digital Manga: No space issues. If you know what you are doing you can backup the content.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Buster Blader 126



Joined: 14 May 2005
Posts: 1206
Location: Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
PostPosted: Wed Jul 09, 2014 9:50 am Reply with quote
Ahh, a topic that I can relate to - and still cope with.

I've had to rely on double-stacking my manga, and I'm on the verge of running out of space to do that.

I'm also trying to prune my collection, which hasn't been as successful as I thought due to not having read a decent chunk of it. I'm prone to buying something blind so long as I hear it's good. To make it worse, I utilize my public library system to the point that I barely touch my own collection save for some ongoing titles.

I haven't resorted to storage for my manga just yet: I have for my anime however, which is much harder for me to prune and consume. I don't feel compelled to resort to shelves just yet, though I sure wouldn't mind an extra two or three.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9812
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:01 pm Reply with quote
I don't like to double shelve books. As a result I arranged for most of the book shelves in the house to be only one book deep. I do use the remaining lip in front of the books for figures and other "stuff" that does not hide the books.

One of the reasons I started archiving manga in storage boxes is that it was taking over the space I had allotted for anime DVDs. I realized that even if I put all of the DVDs in storage I still wouldn't have enough shelf space to display all of my manga. Also I rely on scanning my anime for finding what I want to watch more than I do with manga.

In addition I replaced a lot of large single anime sets with more compact later editions. This saved a lot of space.

I still have storage problems though. I'm running out of space in the portion of the storage room not filled with dolls and the specialized boxes for manga are no longer available. I think the next move is to get rid of some of the boxes figures came in.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
BrokenByDefault



Joined: 14 Dec 2012
Posts: 35
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Thu Jul 10, 2014 3:48 am Reply with quote
Tamaria wrote:
Did you get a Billy (or seven)?

Yep, two of the white BILLY shelves, they're definitely my favorite in the range. I haven't had the need to purchase the extensions yet, but I'm sure that day will come soon. I previously had a large EXPEDIT shelf, but it was odd in its dimensions and didn't fit books very well so a lot of space ended up being wasted, but the BILLY shelves are perfect and I love how the shelves are adjustable so I can choose which rows will hold my over-sized manga.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
thebeats42



Joined: 28 Jun 2014
Posts: 43
Location: Manila, Philippines
PostPosted: Fri Jul 11, 2014 9:35 am Reply with quote
WOAH. Guys, your collection is awesome. I wish I have enough money to buy manga too. Then I'll have space issues too xD
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Graceful Nanami



Joined: 24 Aug 2011
Posts: 303
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 2:16 am Reply with quote
Alan45:

What an awesome collection and it looks so organized and lovely! I have a ton of stuff myself but it's just crammed wherever I can fit it (still, SOMEWHAT organized at least...) It's awful. I love seeing collections like yours.

And high five for still having the old purple Lodoss War boxed set. ;p I need to get the newer one that actually shows the opening before each ep. and has nice neat chapter stops... And yay we're both in VA~
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 2:39 am Reply with quote
@Alan
Some of those boxes you have are interesting. For example, the ones that say they have Initial D and GTO. What kind of boxes are they and where did you get them? And how many manga do they fit?

I'm around 1200 myself, and about to hit up the comic shop tomorrow (the rarer 60% off manga sale) and Otakon in a week (damn!), so that will only worsen the problem. I also can't physically fit any more bookshelves in here, room's not big enough. All of my shelves are double deep (well not the super oversized one that has art books on it, but I do have room to put my very few figures in front of it). I have 6 comic book short boxes too (I found out the ones from one place can fit Sig sized books, hooray!). I mostly do the "ones I like more out", of course when I started collecting Berserk out of absolutely nowhere (I blame Right Stuf), I didn't even bother finding shelf space for it, I just gave it its own short box, boom, done. Can you imagine how much easier this would be if we had Pokemon style PCs to store this? I've been playing Pokemon lately...
I tried putting sticky notes on the boxes to label them, but the cat knocked them off and nommed on them, so I put letters on them instead. "B" has Berserk, but I don't remember what the other ones have off the top of my head.
I recently had to expand my ongoing series shelf, I took over half of another shelf and moved things to a comic box (and sold some things). I already put Skip Beat on the oversized collecting shelf. I move things when there's one or two volumes to go, so Ikigami and Bokurano are on the completed oversized shelf. But I had to put ongoing Wandering Son over there too. Really, it's an absolute mess, and that's not even counting all the stuff that keeps coming in that I haven't even started to find room for (let's see what do I have? Antique Gift Shop, Slam Dunk, Tramps Like Us, Chocolat and some other random things like Doctor Who omnis), which I need to clean up before Otakon and my friends come over to stay.
Honestly, I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. At least my Otakon list isn't too bad this year? Slam Dunk is mostly it and some ongoing ones, which I might wait for the comic shop to get in and sell half off like always (for example, I know they'll get in Kaze Hikaru 22 and Magi 7 at some point, less to carry at the con is a good thing). I'm mostly going to look for things that I don't think the comic shop will get in at some point. Older Viz qualifies.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9812
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 7:46 am Reply with quote
@Graceful Nanami
Well, it was organized. Sad Unfortunately organization is not a static thing unless the collection is static. I've bought a lot of manga since the photos were made and I've given away some manga so it badly needs reorganization at this point. I got behind on my listing of volumes so I'm not sure exactly how much manga I have now.

I used to have my location listed as south west Virginia until someone inquired where in southern West Virginia I lived. I'm in the Roanoke Valley actually.

@ classicalzawa
Good eye, those boxes you noticed were specifically designed to hold "standard" sized manga (5" wide by 71/2" tall). They hold two rows with the tops of the books showing. Each row holds 15 to 18 volumes depending on thickness. They came from the comic shop and have the weight and construction of comic boxes. That's the good news.

The drawbacks are that they wouldn't handle anything wider then 5", like the sigIKKI from Viz and you couldn't see the spines without emptying the box. While larger format manga is becoming more common that still includes the bulk what's available. Unfortunately Diamond has quit fulfilling orders for them and the owner of my local shop reports she is unable to find an alternate source. Sorry about that Chief. If you find a source let me know.

At this point I recommend the boxes that paper comes in. They have lids and three of them fit nicely on a 18" by 36" shelf. Absent a source for such boxes the comic boxes you are using are the next best bet. Four of the 18" deep comic book "short" boxes will also fit nicely on the same shelves.

For anyone looking at the shelves. They came from Lowe's. They are heavy duty and claim to be able to handle 5000 pounds total. When you are storing paper in bulk like this you do not want to use anything lighter.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 12:25 am Reply with quote
Yeaaah, I don't buy enough paper to really have those boxes. Last time I bought paper, I got like, 10 reams and that'll last us several years (They were $10 for 5 reams after a rebate, which did indeed come). Perhaps I could ask my step dad if his office gets those boxes, they probably do.

Yeah, I've not seen those manga boxes, none of the comic shops near me have them.

Ok, so, in prep for Otakon, I started clearing out all the manga piled high on my coffee table. Sure, some of it was ongoing stuff I had pulled out temporarily but had places to go, but I'm still stuck with like 20 non-Slam Dunk books and I'm going to be stuck with 31 of those Slam Dunk suckers after the con (I have 17 of them now, not necessarily in order, I took what I could trade for first). Only one is a library book, sadly, so I can't count on that clearing out a bunch of space.

I had one blank space from selling something, but Tramps Like Us will fit there perfectly (let's hope I can find all the rest of them at the con, need 6 more vols). I found a small nugget of blank space in one shelf as I was cataloging things (I started with my boxes and went "eh, why not do them all?", I simply must remember to change things in the list when I move or sell things). With my comic boxes, I don't want to just write on them what's in it, I'll likely change it eventually, and I tried sticky notes, but my cat tried to nom them, a printed out sheet of paper is the way to go here. I just put a letter on the boxes instead. Maybe I should've been more imaginative and named them after Pokemon or something.

For now, I'm going to have to put the rest of the manga underneath the coffee table (there's another shelf there, IKEA thing, but every time I try to move the damn thing to clean around it, one corner falls down an everything slides, it's a royal pain).

Not sure where to go from here on the collection, I can't really fit any more comic boxes around here (well, that might become false later once we get rid of that damn TV, it's a big tube TV, hence why we are having problems). I could fit them in the storage room, but it's prone to flooding disasters.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9812
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 6:56 am Reply with quote
@classicalzawa
Trust me, I don't use that much paper. I used to work in a large office, I got the boxes by checking the printers on three floors on a regular basis. The problem was getting to the box before some idiot tore the lid apart to open it. If your father works in an office he likely has access to them. Recently I get them from the comic shop since they have no use for them. Short boxes are probably your best bet. According to the owner of my comic shop, they can be stacked about five high before the lower boxes start to collapse under the weight.

I like how you mention comic shops. it is obvious you live near a large city. When I started collecting we had five comic shops here, now we are down to one.

I really need to go through my manga and get rid of the titles I will not be looking at in the future. Of course that means opening a new cat box in the subscriber forum which would likely not help your storage problems.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 12:29 pm Reply with quote
Hey, I'll take some of the burden of your unwanted manga Razz Space issues be damned!

I'd say I have a good five shops near me. My favorite shop actually runs Baltimore Comic Con. Probably the farthest away, a good 15-20 minute drive, but there's good food places around afterwards. I go there at least once every 4-5 weeks, always annoying them about manga and such, and of course always on black friday and free comic book day, but they typically have the best sales, 50% off! I got the Strangers in Paradise uber set from them for like $50 instead of $100 (or was that a 60% sale? It's possible). I will usually get my comic boxes here.
The next best one is the second farthest away. They used to have way better sales, I dunno what happened. They do stock newer manga more regularly. But the shiny part is that they have tons of random figures, including a good amount of Macross ones for some reason, and old school video games (PS1 and the like), and some random DVDs. They are the closest ones to Suncoast, so I can hit them both up fairly easily in that direction.
Third best is in Hamden in the city. I don't typically go into the city except for Otakon, but Hamden is the hipster part for sure. They won't carry any mainstream manga, you won't find Sailor Moon or One Piece there, but they do carry all the indy stuff. When I needed Mysterious Underground Men, I knew they would have it. They also carry Wandering Son and stuff. And an hilarious large selection of porn manga, oddly enough. Not yaoi, but the Bondage Fairies type stuff. They also have a used store they run attached to them too, where I got an embarrassing amount of used hentai DVDs as a gag gift for my friend's inevitable bachelorette party. And some manga is in there too, yeah.
Fourth best, well they kind of put away their manga that had gotten from storage for small local con use. But I like the people that work there.
I only go to the last one if I'm going to another shop in that shopping strip, usually Five Below or the liquor store or Rite Aid or IHOP. They have some manga, but they never have any sales.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9812
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 1:24 pm Reply with quote
I don't suppose the shop with the old figures has any Kimagure Orange Road or Maison Ikkoku figures do they??

When I started comic shops were the only place you could get manga. It was a couple of years before the book stores started carrying it. Also it was all issued in comic book form with no guarantee that a graphic novel version would be offered. Since some of the classic stuff had already come out I had to really dig to find back issues of the comics. I hit shops in Virginia, Washington DC, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida and on a business trip St. Paul Minnesota. That was fun in its own way. Now you can get almost anything on the net without leaving home.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
zawa113



Joined: 19 Jan 2008
Posts: 7357
PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 1:41 pm Reply with quote
Trust me, if there were Maison Ikkoku figures, I would've bought them already. I did get a Dragon Quest V mini figure the one time though.

Ugh, single issues, I don't know how US comic fans deal with it. I do collect a very few US comics, but I will not buy single issues, I need the paper backs that have at least 4 issues in them. Probably as a direct result of manga, the idea of single issues is just weird and foreign to me. Not even Japan does that, their single chapters are in a thick magazine with lots of other single chapters, which I think makes the most sense, but I understand was tried over here with US comics and failed. I mean, how can you tell what anything is without spines? And you can do all sorts of fun things with the spines, why wouldn't you?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9812
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 4:09 pm Reply with quote
I actually ordered a set of four Maison Ikkoku figures through Previews back in November 2002. The order was canceled though. Sad What ever they had probably went to a larger comic shop.

Comic singles were fun to collect but it is almost an exercise in frustration. You end up putting them in bags and the bags in boxes and then you seldom look at them again. It was to some extent different when I first started as there was no guarantee of a graphic novel version and if one came out when.

For example, Dark Horse started publishing Oh My Goddess! in singles in August 1994. It was September 1997 before they solicited the first Trade Paperback version 1-555-Goddess. The second half of Venus Wars never did come out in Trade Paperback form, nor did any of Chronowar.

The same thing happened to US comics. I collected Wildstorm comics for awhile. Large sections of the single were never reprinted in any form.

It was sorta like collecting anime TV series in singles. Expensive and time consuming but that was the only choice at the time.

This is how you store comic singles:


The paper boxes at the top hold action figures as comic boxes are a bit heavy to lift that high. Those in the photo are mostly Buffy figures.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Kruszer



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 7981
Location: Minnesota, USA
PostPosted: Sun Aug 03, 2014 3:39 am Reply with quote
I currently have 400, manga volumes. I have the series I'm collecting double stacked on shelves. Then, I have two big plastic bins for series I've completed and want to keep. I also have two bins which are full of my series that I have completed collecting but have not read yet. The series I completed and didn't like enough, or those that I dropped for that matter, I just sell.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> General -> Manga All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next
Page 2 of 4

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group