Wednesdays are for two things in my life: Lost and comic books. Tonight I’m going to give the latter some love by reviewing a Web 2.0 comic book site called ComicVine.

At its heart ComicVine is a massive, user-created database of comic book information. They offer sections for members to write bios of their favorite characters, write reviews of current and back issues, participate in forums, and customize their profile page. On your profile page, you can add a photo gallery and a blog (reminded me of Gimme20’s profile features). And as with all social networking sites, you have a friends list to maintain. ComicVine hits all the high points of the Web 2.0 experience, but they have some unique features, too.

Since time began, comics fans have loved debating who would win in a fight between their favorite heroes and villains. Hulk versus Superman, Superman versus Flash, Batman versus Captain America, and on and on. Well, ComicVine has a feature that lets you vote on the outcome of those types of battles, and the winners are ranked on a list of most powerful characters. Right now, Superman is #1 (and Red Sonja is #4… one of the pitfalls of user-generated content, I suppose). If you have trouble deciding if Wonder Woman could beat Martian Manhunter in a fight, you can always pose the question in the forums where you’ll have dozens of folks ready to debate. It’s great fun.

Another unique feature of ComicVine is the ability to track your pull list on your profile page. Just visit the page for an issue of a comic you’d like to add to your list, and click a link to start tracking it.

I’ve been a member of ComicVine for several months (my handle is hooley21 if you want to look me up), but I’m still discovering new features. It is an amazing and essential resource for any comic book fan with an Internet connection.

And now it’s time to go watch Lost.

As thousands of kids of all ages know, Wednesday is new comic books day at comic shops across America. I’ve collected comic books since I was about 12. There’s something about the modern mythology of superheroes that fascinates me to this day. But the question arises after a while of what to do with all of your back issues, especially if you’ve been slack and left them unbagged, unboarded, and in stacks on your floor. I was in that situation a while ago, and I applied the “Getting Things Done” work flow method to my comic books. After a little bit of work, my comics now stay organized and out of the way.

Getting Things Done (GTD) is the name of a book by David Allen. It’s a back-to-basics productivity philosophy that advocates simple planning and action. The meat of the book is the work flow method that he advocates:

1. Collect all of your “to do” work in a “bucket.”
2. Start at the top of your bucket, dealing with one thing at a time.
3. Don’t put anything back in the bucket.
4. If the thing needs action:
   • Do it immediately if it takes less than two minutes. Or…
   • Delegate it to someone else. Or…
   • Defer it until your bucket is empty and you can spend the necessary time on it.
5. If no action is needed:
   • File it. Or…
   • Throw it away.

The most important step in this equation is getting the comics off the floor. Buy as many comic book boxes as you need to get the piles gone. When you’re filling the boxes, leave five to 10 inches of slack in the box: you’ll be filling that space with bags and boards.

Once you’ve got your boxes filled, start at the front of the box and bag your books, putting the finished books at the back of the box. A whole long box should take you a couple of evenings to finish bagging (or one, if you are really determined). Boxing and bagging the books is one iteration of the work flow. But your bucket is still full. Time to cycle through again.

This time through the work flow, you’ll be pulling the newly bagged books and filing them in with your existing collection. The amount of time this takes depends on the size of your collection. I have about 12 long boxes of comics to update, so it takes me a while. If your collection is smaller, or if you are organizing it for the first time, it should go quicker.

After I got the bulk of my comics organized, I realized that I would have to maintain the system somehow. Every week, I buy between five and 15 comic books. Once I’ve read them, I put them in a short box (my bucket) next to my bed. At the end of the month, I process the box using the method above.

I really like the GTD system because it’s so simple. You have to be able to hold yourself accountable, because there aren’t any motivational games or trickery like in most productivity programs. The motivation is real because you’ll see things disappearing from your desk (or your floor in the case of my comics), and you’ll want to keep it that way.

Note: One of my favorite blogs is LifeHack.org (it’s over in my sidebar, too). It’s a community of folks who believe in the Getting Things Done program, and they publish some really interesting and insightful articles along those lines.