The Mighty Scrapbook

 

There is something endearing about a comics scrapbook that lies beyond its function. The thought that someone would care enough about a title, sometimes a theme, to snip it from a paper and paste it into the scrapbook day in and day out evokes a warm smile.

They come in all forms, shapes, and sizes. Occasionally, you’ll find them pasted in an actual book, over the text:

Sometimes these careful souls went to great lengths in their preservation of these titles:

The layouts generally take on a straight-forward approach…

… but sometimes you’ll encounter some rather clever methods to maximize space:

Out Our Way, by J.R. Williams was, by far, the most collected title, perhaps for obvious reasons. I have at least a dozen such books myself.

Scrapbooks can sometimes fill holes in a collection, sometimes collect work that otherwise would be hard to come by, but always show care and attention beyond the pages of the work they collect. I grew even fonder of them after my failed attempt to collect Maakies back during my school days. These nameless heroes of archiving – the founding mothers and fathers of reprint –  have served history, and our collective efforts, to a greater extent than they perhaps could have ever intended, when all they may have wanted was simply to read their favorite comics again… like we all do, after all.

- Jonathan Barli