How to Properly Store Comics in Boxes

John Cohen: Hi! I am John Cohen from Beyond Comics, Maryland's largest comic bookstore. And I am here today to show you how to start a comic book collection. I am on the floor now because at this point you've learned how to put your comics into your bag and safely remove them.

The next thing you want to do is determine the box to keep it in. We sell comic boxes designed just for comic books. When you assemble them, you fold the lid on the crease lines first. Make sure it keeps the edge, flaps fold in, folds over into the tabs. Once you have done one, it gets really easy. Lid is assembled. Now for the interior there are several kinds of boxes. Most of them now come in this form for ease of shipping. You have to fold it out, and then you have to pop the creases. I usually pop them with my fist, you can cut it. You have to be very careful. Once that's popped, then you have to fold the bottom in. Fold the first flap over, push it in, then you pull the two edge flaps over, two and three and then four comes down over the top. Then you need to roll it and flip it over holding the bottoms together, so you can pull the bottom through. Flap one comes up, the edge flaps come up, in fact one goes down. There is your bottom. Pop the little handles through then you can often tape the edge around to hold that, but when it's full of comics you don't need to. Lid goes on, there you go. When you put your comic book in or in this case comic books, they go in vertically and they slide up to the front. Then you need to fill the back, you don't want them falling over because that can damage the books. Crumpled paper works well, often with the piece of board there. Long box will hold roughly 250-325 comic books depending upon the age and how fit the books are and whether they all have backing boards or not.

Other sizes, small kind of book box hold roughly a 150-175 comics, and then there is the magazine box which holds close to 200. Most comic collectors use this though to hold Mylar comics. But the main reason I show you this is because as you can see when you try to put a Mylar comic book into a regular comic box, it sticks out at the top and is often a little bit wider than the box itself. Putting it in here would damage the Mylar and possibly the comic. Hence, we use the magazine box, that's a little larger and fits comfortably. Same reason applies, fill the whole box, put the lid on and you are set to go. Now, that I have shown you how to build a regular comic book box. I want to show you how to build a drawer box.