It can't rain all the time...

As a comics collector when storing books in my basement I did everything I could to make sure that boxes were not left on the floor as flooding is a book lovers’ worst enemy. I bought a plastic shelving system, made sure everything was up off the floor and in boxes, and I thought all was safe.


Then a pipe burst in the basement ceiling, and water dripped down onto my comics. Ugh.

Ok, in all honesty my boxes acted heroically, taking the brunt of the damage and saving most of my comics. I had many boxes downstairs from years of books accrued while working as a book club editor, visiting the weekly comic shop, and from random purchases. Compared to the amount of books in my collection the damage wasn’t that bad. I lost about 60 books, most of them manga samples given to me while researching that area of the comics world.

Well, aside from needing new storage boxes, containers, or maybe a carbon freezing chamber, it’ll be alright. Life goes on. Another crisis averted.

And this situation forced me to go through each box and check for water damage. I went book to book, comic to comic and set out all the books on a table. The next step was to see which comic book issues I deemed ‘sellable’ and finally have that sidewalk / garage sale I’ve been talking about since last year. Maybe I’ll actually get out and do it this 4th of July holiday weekend – and take advantage of the extra sidewalk traffic. I have plenty of extra books and I obviously need to scale down the obsessive collection.

As I look back on this near disaster, I realize one must be diligent with his or her book collection. Living in NYC, storage space is very tight and I will not have access to a basement always, so I must do what I can. Buying new books and getting rid of old ones…and most importantly keeping favorites. The struggle continues.