I recently decided to really get into my comics collecting hobby by actually subscribing and starting a pull bin at my local shop. Previously, I would do the occasional shop visit here and there, grab something that looked cool off the shelf and that’d be it for a few months, or else I’d see an artist I like post about a cover they’ve drawn and pre-order that specific one. But that meant I would often miss out on cool covers and stories, since It was hard to follow releases closely.

I forget what sparked this specifically, I think it was a combination of coming across Absolute Wonder Woman in one of those random shop visits and being absolutely ensnared by the art of Hayden Sherman (who I later met at Comicon and got to sign my issue #1!) and the release of the Marvel Rivals variant covers that AJ was interested in. IN ANY CASE it’s been a big mess since then lol (roughly January 2025).

cover image of Absolute Wonder Woman issue 3, she stands with glowing eyes in front of a circular red symbol looking badass alternate Marvel Rivals cover image of Amazing Spider-Man #69 featuring Peni Parker and her mech

I’ve been using the League of Comic Geeks website and app to track releases, then placing pull requests via Local Shop’s website, but it hasn’t always been smooth: I’m a big cover collector (collecting for the sake of the cover art) but there’s been 2 or 3 times that the wrong cover was pulled for me–either by shop error or website bug or possibly me error (unfathomable)–and it’s been stressing me outttttt.

I started splitting loyalties with another shop that has a cleaner website and easy to navigate stock system, but that means more problems tracking what’s where, and if I missed an issue and neither shop has them…

Listen, I understand I made my bed here, I chose to care about this hobby and now I have to care lol (I vented about this in a group chat and a friend said: “Cape comics need you to care though. They write for Caring,” and honestly, that fixed me).

SO NOW I’m working on streamlining this process. I’m gonna double down and go hard on tracking this whole business and come up with an excellent system in Notion.

Update!

and this is what I came up with!

screenshot of a Notion page showing comic details in kanban board layout

Basically, I've got a kanban view of stuff I've Ordered, Subscribed to, Pre-Ordered, Pre-Order Approved, and have had Pulled for me (picked Up section hidden), along with a list view and a gallery view, plus 3 different calendar views: one for pre-order cutoff dates, one for pickups at Store 1, and one for pickups at Store 2. Along the left side column, I have a quick-ref bullet list of series and covers I'm interested in, followed by a gallery view of the final order cut-off dates in ascending order. screenshot of an item opened up showing form details for a comic pull

I have certain posts flagged with emojis: lightbulbs mean I gotta go in store to check for something on the day of release, red flag means something got messed up or is somehow amiss and needs followup with the shop.

It's still a little fiddly right now, but I tihnk this in combination with my League of Comic Geeks account will help me stay on top of releases. Now it's just a matter of knowing when something hot is dropping!

Just For Fun: Here is a List of Cover Artists I Collect: