"You Gotta See This!": Tom Spurgeon's "50 Things That Every Great Comics Collection Needs to Have"

Tom Spurgeon has an extensive and fascinating list of must-have items for the comics collector over on his website The Comics Reporter. My somewhat-nearby-neighbor has some great items listed too. Here's the text for item 38:

38. A Stack of Comics You Can Hand To Anybody's Kid

If I were President, I would mandate that every household in America must have a white wicker basket holding an approximately 24-inch tall pile of beat up old comic books for kids to read. So certainly someone with a sizable comics collection should be able to offer a stack of old funnybooks to their sister's kids -- or their neighbor's, or their employer's and so on. I don't think the comics have to be rigorously excellent when they're aimed at this audience, because the repetition that signifies such comics as uninspired might be lost on fresh eyes. That being said, really bad comics might not have what it takes to capture anyone's attention, let alone a kid soaked in today's visually-saturated media offerings.

I'm happy to say I've got a little of many of the things I should have according to Spurgeon (and am excited to rise to the challenge to get the other things!), and I'm not afraid to prove it. My entry for "Item 22: A Selection of Comics That Interest You That You Can't Explain To Anyone Else:"? A Pearl Jam comic book that I am proud to own. PJ fans understand, but anyone else? And how can I defend my stack of Defenders comics?