Ryan Bailey’s love of comic books began when he was about 10 or 11 years old. “My parents discovered I had a reading problem,” he explains. “They sent me to a specialist who told them to let me read whatever I wanted to read – if I was reading [at all], it was a good thing.” On a drive to a family vacation, they stopped to get gas and young Ryan wanted to know if he could purchase something. His father told him, “As long as you can read it, you can have it.” Ryan perused a rack of comic books and selected three: Action Comics #509, Superman #349, and DC Comics Present #22.

From there, a passion for comics was born. To this day, Ryan still favors Superman as his favorite, but he loves a variety of superheroes. He collects mostly DC comics, but he’ll indulge in a smaller publication if it catches his interest. “I used to collect Star Trek,” he explains. “Sometimes, there will be a Dark Horse series that I like. But 80% of the collection is DC comics.”

Over the years, Ryan went from being a comic book lover to a comic book collector. “It wasn’t until my parents said I was spending too much money on comic books where it dawned on me that I was a collector!” What’s special about Ryan’s collection is how organized everything is. “People are shocked that everything is as organized as it is!” he shares. Everything is bagged and boarded and stored neatly in boxes, all in alphabetical order. What’s more is that everything is nicely catalogued in a database. This organization is thanks to the one week every year that Ryan devotes to his collection, where he adds his new comics to the boxes and shifts some comics from one box to another to maintain alphabetical order.

Ryan is unable to select a favorite book, except to say that Superman is his favorite character. “When we had started using Collectibles Insurance Services, my husband suggested that I take a couple of boxes and store my favorites, in case there were ever a fire or a need to grab and go real quick,” he shares. The problem was, Ryan couldn’t select his favorites, so the “grab and go” box never materialized.

Over the years, Ryan has stopped buying as many new comic books because of their cost. But his collection does continue to grow, as he still goes to the comic book store every week.  Putting together an extensive collection and keeping it organized is a lot of work, but well worth it. “It’s a labor of love, that’s for sure!”