The Major Spoilers Tour (Part 2 of 2)

Nerds of Doom – Answer my questions three!

Yesterday, we took the tour of Major Spoilers HQ. Today, Matthew gives us his tour of Major Spoilers East.

Hang on tight Spoilerinos!

My “office,” where all the serious work gets done, not that my work is ever very serious. Note comfy chair, MP3 player, and bottle of water, the three blessings that keep me able to do these daily (and write six-hour marathon Hero Histories):

My system setup, awesome laptop and 12 dollar scanner from the Clinton administration…

Before you can enter my hidden Vault of Comics, you must confront the fairy guardian and answer her riddles three… Today, it was Bouncing Boy’s real name, (Charles Foster Taine) Iron Fist’s lawyer, (Jeryn Hogarth) and which Defender actually debuted in a comic written by the same writer for another company (Devil-Slayer, identical in execution to Atlas comics Demon-Hunter from a few year earlier.)

Note: Stephen, I advise that you start whispering the mantra in the word balloon to Mason now when you’re trying to get him to sleep…

The room isn’t actually big enough for me to get a good angle on my entire collection, but this is pretty indicative of what we’re dealing with. I’ve transitioned to almost all short-boxes in order to lessen backstrain…

On the left, you can see the actual vault, long since outgrown, but it’s a good place to keep the new books as they come in each month, before they get filed away. The red thing in the middle left is my remote controlled Superman (nine bucks in the clearance aisle of Wal-Mart) which has never flown right. The stuffed lamb belongs to the room’s guardian, and we get a good view of my favorite collectible of all, the piece de resistance… my own spinner rack.

Probably the greatest perk of working at a comic store, even better than a discount (but don’t let Tom know that.) Most books that I have no idea what to do with spend some time here, until a suitable box can be found. As for the boxes themselves, with this many, you might expect that I have an intricate system of cross-referencing and indexing, alphabetized and subheadered… You’d be wrong, because I have my own stupid stone-age filing system.

I always have a black pen and whiteout in the room, in case I need to move stuff. It’s actually the simplest solution I’ve found. Up above, my collection of trade paperbacks (or at least those that haven’t been filed in longboxes as part of a run, such as my Essential Avengers trades and the Doom Patrol TPBs.)

Preacher, Sandman, and Walking Dead trades take up most of the space (three books that I got into late and found trades superior to read.) In the upper right you can see the stack of “tabloid” sized comics (like the Legion Wedding and original Battlestar Galactica Marvel Super-Specials) that can’t be stored anywhere without making me want to kill, beneath which you can see Howard The Duck, unofficial mascot of something or other. I have no idea why there’s a beer crate up there. I should probably see what’s in it…someday.

Remember when I said I had almost transitioned to all short boxes? There are a few exceptions, series that won’t fit in short boxes without breaking them up (Avengers and JLA, notably.) But there’s another exception, a run that won’t even fit in one longbox, and are kept next to the scanner for Hero History purposes… I give you, the nearly complete run of The Legion of Super-Heroes.

The junk on top is waiting for the glue to dry on the shortbox in the background (it was torn during a recent shuffle, and there’s no sense in buying a new one until it actually disintegrates.)

So, there you have it! It’s almost like being here, except I don’t have to straighten up and make tea and stuff…

And there you go Spoilerites – a double dose tour of Major Spoilers and the Nerd Rooms we lovingly store our treasures.

Do you have a Nerd Room? If not get one read as we have a contest coming up in the months ahead.