Hit up the old comic shop in downtown Denver yesterday and noticed the back issue bins were actually organized by story arc instead of just alphabetically

I spent 45 minutes just flipping through Uncanny X-Men from the 80s because every issue in the 'Mutant Massacre' storyline was grouped together in order, has anyone else's local shop started doing this or did I just get lucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_allen18d agoMost Upvoted

Hate to break it to you but this actually sounds like a nightmare for any serious collector... I spent an hour last week trying to find a specific issue of Amazing Spider-Man because the shop had grouped everything by story arc and I didn't even know which arc had that one filler issue in it. Organizing by title and issue number is the only way to go if you actually know what you're looking for in my opinion.

riley_schmidt18d ago

Hang on, isn't grouping by story arc actually more helpful if you're into the stories themselves? I get that issue numbers are easy for searching, but arcs tell you the whole picture without having to look up a wiki. A casual reader who just wants to grab a full run of Kraven's Last Hunt would be lost in a wall of single issues. Plus, most shops I've been to that do it this way also keep a digital list or a binder with issue numbers mapped to arcs. It sounds like your shop just did it poorly, not that the idea itself is bad. For new fans especially, finding a complete story beats digging through a bin of unsorted back issues any day.