The Problem with a European Comic Book Collection

Albums are big. Tall. Often hardcovered.

Bookshelves are tricky. They’re not made, by default, to handle books of this size.

I’m a member of a Facebook group of BD collectors. Recently, a thread started with people sharing pictures of their collections. It’s a beautiful series of images, with people showing off their libraries filled with wall-to-wall shelves stacked with rows of thin hardcover albums, often in sets with the spines showing a picture when lined up just so.

My comic book collection is a series of cardboard DrawerBoxes stacked three high.

It’s not the same.

I want a cool library.

Don’t get me wrong — I have hundreds of collected editions that could fill twice as many bookshelves as I currently own. But they’re all over the place in terms of size, design, etc. Most importantly, the books are all a smaller size. They already fit on the bookshelves I have.

As my collection of BD volumes increases, however, I’d like to give them priority on the bookshelves I have.

The Current Set Up

I have three different bookshelves in the room I’m writing this in. Two of the three are Billy bookcases from IKEA. You have a little wiggle room with where you put the shelves, but ultimately, there’s limited shelf space for full size albums. My six-shelf-high bookcase has two shelves that can fit full-size albums. I’m already using one of those at the bottom to keep Absolute Editions. One shelf is about a centimeter short of fitting full-size albums: An Asterix book will fit in there, but “Les Beaux Etes” (“Glorious Summers“) will not.

This is the biggest part of the collection. I’ve shown this in various forms over the years, I think, but here’s a snapshot of it today. The top shelf is dominated by The Don Rosa Library from Fantagraphics (which kind of counts as a European comic), Asterix, and Lucky Luke. I have even more Asterix books on another shelf I don’t have a picture of for this article. (Yes, it appears that the shelf is bending under the weight. Yikes.)

The second shelf has The Smurfs, some Francois Schuiten books, Blacksad, Spirou, and a lot of others. There’s even a Far Side book on there. No, it doesn’t fit the theme, but I cherish that book from my childhood, and that’s where I had room to fit it.

On top of the book case is a row of Smurfs figures, a couple Valerian Funko Pops, and some other mementos.

The other three shelves on that bookcase are comfortable for fitting standard trade paperback size books. I have some Papercutz books in there, but that’s about it. (I love “Benny Breakiron,” but I’d love it even more at full size. sigh. “Dance Club” Is probably OK at the Papercutz size, though.)

I can’t reconfigure it another way, because the center shelf is screwed in to the sides of the bookcase to maintain the stability of the bookcase. If I lowered one shelf to add room for the biggest albums then the shelf below that won’t fit trades.

The second and third bookcases each have three shelves of different heights. One can fit any album I throw at it, one will be just short, and the third is trade paperback size.

This is the start of a new BD shelf. Collections of Spirou Journal dominate, next to two books from the “Love” series and a couple of thin albums before it becomes a nearly random smattering of things that happen to fit there at the moment. I could see this shelf easily becoming the Spirou Journal shelf over time.

And, finally, here’s the top shelf of the last bookcase. There’s some American books mixed in there and the works of Will Eisner and Barry Windsor Smith. But after that, you get the collections of PIlote Journal, lots of Cinebooks (“Alone” is a favorite), and a bunch of French albums. Oh, and the great “Leave It To Chance” collections that they did at full album size back in the day. ( I see volumes 2 and 3 in this picture. I know have the first volume somewhere, too. I never said I was organized…)

Even if I could consolidate all these titles into one or two tall bookshelves, they’d still be a motley assortment of books. There aren’t too many long running series completed in here. I think Asterix may be the only one…

Wishes and Dreams

I’d love to have wall to wall bookshelves. It’s always been a dream, but an impossible one. Windows get in the way and, even more seriously, there’s at least one other person in this house who thinks I have too many bookcases already.

A whole wall of them?!? Outrageous!

I don’t think I could do one of those IKEA Billy hacks I see around the web and try to write that off as a home improvement project. Some of them are pretty impressive, though.

I can’t get a good picture of my total BD collection to share on that Facebook group because it has to be spread out across multiple bookcases on non-consecutive shelves, mixed in with some higher-end North American books.

I’m also trying to organize my collection a little better, and this project would help that. Sadly, I just don’t see it happening.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I’d love a bookshelf about six feet high with tall enough shelves to handle these albums. I know that means less shelves per case, but I’m OK with that. I understand math. Maybe we can help someone else in the comment solve this problem with their collection!