Largest Comic Book Collection Ever! - Guinness World Records

0:00
Hi, I'm Bob Breetall. I have the record for world's largest comic book collection
0:05
I have over 138,000 comic books as we record this, and then I buy and read and add to my collection every week
0:14
Welcome to my main, I call it the comic book room, but it's got a lot of stuff that's related to comics
0:21
So we'll look at a few of those things. First one we'll stop at on our tour is Mjolnir, Thor's hammer
0:29
It's a reproduction, obviously, because I can pick it up. I don't know if I'm worthy
0:33
This area up here, I have a lot of my major comic book busts
0:39
These are all by a sculptor called Randy Bowen. He does really kind of the classic Marvel versions of characters
0:47
That's my amazing Fantasy 15. So this is the first appearance of Spider-Man, and it's signed by Stan Lee
0:55
I don't get a lot of things graded. This is actually in a, we call them a slab, and it's also, this frame has got UV protective glass
1:06
to keep the colors of the comic from fading from light sources in the room
1:11
I got myself a copy of Amazing Spider-Man number 88 in the summer of 1970, and that was the first one, and I loved it
1:20
The ball kept rolling from that point, and I just started getting more and more series and, you know, reading more and more comics
1:28
This is from Amazing Spider-Man number 88. Run down there, run, do you hear? My webbing can't hold the concrete much longer
1:35
And then Spidey's thinking to himself, the arms are racing away, but I can't go after them, not till the street is cleared
1:42
These are something that I'm really proud of. These are original covers, you know, Batman covers that I got way long ago, back in the early 80s, I think
1:54
These are all collected editions. This is all of the Karl Barks Disney comics, and it's all of the EC comics in reprint form
2:06
because I don't have necessarily all of the originals of those, so getting the reprints is kind of an easy way to do that
2:16
In my spinner rack, I kind of put comics on there that I kind of like to look at
2:22
There's been Alex Ross covers a couple of months ago, with all the different villains from the Marvel Universe
2:30
and I've been buying those, and I kind of put those up on here just to look at
2:34
And they'll stay up for six, eight months, and then some other cool thing will come along
2:39
I'll take these down and file them away in a box and put some other cool comics up that I can look at
2:44
I read probably a hundred comic books a month still, a little over a hundred new comic books a month
2:50
And of that, maybe 25 to 30 are superhero books, and then I read like 70-plus just independent books
2:59
that are in those sci-fi, crime, romance, other kinds of genres. These are called absolute editions
3:06
They're just like really giant reprints of various comics, and I've got a bunch of those
3:12
Typically, if there's a series that I'm really a fan of, and I know I'm not going to like pull those comics out to reread them
3:20
I'll get one of these really kind of nice reprint editions of it
3:23
Down here, I've got just loads of what are called artist's editions, and what an artist's edition is
3:30
is it reproduces the art at a hundred percent of real size
3:39
It's a scan of the original art, and it's like each, nowadays, any page of John Romita's Spider-Man art
3:47
probably is several thousand dollars if you wanted to buy an individual page, if you could even find one
3:55
But this book cost me, it was like $125 or something, but that's a pretty good deal when you're talking about
4:03
getting probably a couple of hundred pages of original art. And it's just a fascinating thing for a fan and collector like myself to be able to read and see the original art
4:16
I've got quite a few of them you can see here. And the last one we'll focus on here to close out the tour is my little shrine to Stan Lee
4:25
I credit Stan with getting me into comics. I mean, he wrote the very first comic that I picked up off the stand and read
4:35
And this is a huge book that the company Toshin put together that talks about Stan Lee
4:42
And I worked with Toshin and loaned them hundreds of comic books from my collection and other items
4:51
that they took pictures of to put into this book. So they gave me a complimentary copy of this
4:57
And this is actually signed by Stan. It's one of the last things that he signed before he unfortunately passed away a few years back
5:06
Okay, so here, welcome to my secondary room for my collection. I call it the library
5:12
I put a lot of bookcases into it. But I've got here, these are called Marvel Masterworks
5:17
And there are right now 331 of them. So I can pick most Marvel comics from the Silver Age
5:28
There are some Golden Age, some 50s stuff and up into the 70s
5:34
But I can pull those off these shelves and I can read them whenever I want
5:38
Along the top, I have a bunch of comics that were all cover dated March 1962
5:45
which is the year I was born. So these are all Marvel comics to go with the Marvel Masterworks
5:51
Here's an Avengers poster. Again, Alex Ross, one of my favorite things
5:56
This one's signed by Stan Lee. And it takes me 10 to 15 minutes to read a comic book
6:02
In the amount of time that it takes someone to watch a football game
6:06
you know, I can read 10, 15 comic books. And nobody asks them, how in the world do you find the time to watch a couple of sport games
6:14
every weekend? You know, so it's the same kind of thing. There's plenty of time for whatever hobby you enjoy
6:22
And on this side of the room, I've got DC archives and kind of the same kind of setup with
6:29
DC statues. And I've got an area here with the Spirit, who is a character created by Will Eisner
6:37
It ran in newspapers. Every Sunday, there would be a full page, actually a little 8 to 16 page comic book
6:45
in the newspaper. It was called the Spirit section. I have some of the original Spirit sections here that you can kind of see
6:55
This is what they looked like. I've got like 50s comics down here and just archive editions of all different superheroes
7:04
In this closet, it's like kind of a mini version of my garage
7:08
I've got lots of boxes of comics that I put up here. They started making boxes with characters printed on them, which I thought was kind
7:17
of cool. And I have a lot of comics in those boxes that are in this closet
7:23
Every item in the collection has got a story behind it. And I could bore people with every one of those stories, but it's just so many things
7:32
in the collection. My main advice is find something that you'll enjoy reading
7:39
I look at collecting as it's a fun hobby. It's you do something that's giving you joy
7:45
And some people, they get joy out of collecting books that have the highest dollar value
7:52
associated with them. I don't really worry about the dollar value of books
7:57
I don't obsess over what the dollar value of my collection is
8:01
It's more I want books that I can read them because I enjoy reading the stories and I
8:07
enjoy the characters. Some people will fall in love with comics once they start reading them
8:13
Other people, it's just not going to click and that's okay. But someone who the medium does click for them, they should really look for comics that
8:24
they get a lot of enjoyment out of reading. This is my garage
8:28
And this is where I keep most of my comics. My brother-in-law actually made me these cabinets
8:34
They're on casters, so they sit up off the ground. They're sort of movable
8:39
And each one of them holds 30 long boxes of comics. This is the fourth one, so I've got boxes 91 through 120 in here
8:50
And if I pull it out, you can kind of see how long a long box is
8:55
It's pretty long. And, you know, they've got... Here is Our Man
9:03
They just got a bunch of comics in them. You know, these would all be in my database, you know, that would say they're in box 109
9:13
So that's that. This repeats a bunch of times here in the garage
9:18
This is 377 and this goes down into the 400s, but, you know, similar
9:25
You know. Captain Ginger is a cat in space. That's a sci-fi comic for cat lovers
9:33
Constantine, who many people who have seen Hellblazer or watched some of the DC TV shows
9:38
might know who Constantine is. I'm always going to be partial to Spider-Man since he was, you know, that character that
9:45
got me into comics. I think another reason why I kept reading comics is by the time I was a teenager, I
9:52
moved away from reading just superhero comics. I think a lot of people who think that comics are only superheroes and they're just reading
10:02
superhero comics, they get burned out pretty easily. And I started reading lots of different kinds of comics and I discovered Independent and
10:13
other kinds of comics. There are comic books in every genre. So if you look at like just movies and TV shows, every one of those genres that you
10:22
have for those, there are comics in those genres. So you have comedies, you have romance, you have Western, sci-fi, any kind of literary
10:33
genre you can think of. There are comic books in that genre
10:37
So when people ask me, you know, what kind of comics would they enjoy
10:42
I ask them what kind of movies and TV shows they enjoy and then I can find them comics
10:48
in that same kind of vein. I've got more blocks of them over here up into the high 400s
10:59
You can see 461 and on down there. I'm working on box 489 at this point
11:09
And those are just the long boxes. I've got other boxes up in my comic room, in the closet, in that library room
11:18
I've got a lot of short boxes. I've got magazine boxes for those larger size ones that are, I don't know, they hold
11:26
maybe about 125 magazine size comics. I think I'm working on magazine box 50
11:32
So I've got 50 boxes of those. If I look at art versus storytelling, storytelling will take it by a little bit because it's
11:40
a visual medium. That said, I can read a comic book that I love the art and I'm not so crazy about the writing
11:50
But if I love the writing, but the art is really something that just kind of visually
11:55
doesn't do it for me, I find it a little harder to get through
11:59
That's why I would say that art's going to take it by a little bit. But really, comic books are about that merger between the art and the writing
12:09
And they both really have to be there for something really to resonate with a reader
12:15
as being a really great comic, I think. I order from two different online subscription services
12:20
Plus I buy stuff from my local comic shop. I buy online mostly because I get a good discount from them
12:29
Then they also have good selection. I order in advance so I know that I'm going to get them
12:35
I don't have to worry about getting to the shop before they sell out of something
12:40
This one, they have back issues as well as the new comics
12:44
So I usually will get a mixture in any given week of back issues that I'm buying to add
12:49
to the collection. These are all from a couple of weeks ago
12:54
I've got The Avengers and The Daughter of Blade. This is an Archie comic actually, but it's more from that like Chilling Adventures of
13:04
Sabrina type of Archie. The Seasons Have Teeth is a horror comic
13:09
And then I've got She-Hulk and I've got Spider-Man 2099. And then on my back issues, I've got one I've been looking for for a while
13:20
This is a Marvel Assistant Spies Spectacular. Just a goofy title, but it's got the first appearance of the Daughter of Galactus
13:29
This is just the Season of the Bruja. It's Bruja is Spanish for witch
13:34
This is a page of original art of a story that an independent cartoonist did for me
13:42
related to when I actually got the Guinness record originally. And it's kind of a spoof of an Uncle Scrooge page where he's diving through his money bin
13:51
and it has me diving around through a bin full of comic books
13:54
Here's some original art that I've got. Some various things that I like
14:00
This is a page from Tomb of Dracula by an artist I really like named Gene Colan
14:06
And this is a Dracula that he did. This is a Daredevil that he did
14:10
I've been on the nominating committee for an award ceremony called the Inkwell Awards
14:17
which recognize inkers of comic books. And I've been serving on that for over 10 years where each year I look through comics and I
14:28
nominate a bunch of inkers and then those go forward and then they vote on that and then
14:33
the awards go out. If you had limitless funds, you could buy almost any comic book that you want to get
14:41
your hands on if you're willing to pay the price that people are asking for
14:46
I kind of take a different route and I have an amount in my head that I'm willing to pay
14:51
for something. And I'll watch sometimes for a decade or more. I'll just kind of keep an eye out and watch for that book coming up at a price that I
15:03
want to pay in a condition that I want to have that book in
15:07
I don't want something that's totally beat up, but at the same time, I'm not a collector
15:13
who only collects things that are in super high grade. I'm fine with middle grade condition books, but there's been a lot of books that I've
15:21
spent years. My copy of Amazing Fantasy 15, the first appearance of Spider-Man, I think I probably actively
15:30
looked for that for four or five years before I ended up buying it
15:35
This issue of Patsy Walker, number 58, is the first appearance of the comic code seal
15:42
on the cover. This was an interesting one also because this is one where my friends and I on a call one
15:50
Saturday, we spent hours digging around through the internet trying to find the very earliest
15:56
comic book that had a comic code seal on it, and that's this comic
16:01
I buy a lot of original art, and I have some of that up on the wall too
16:06
This one I particularly like. It's a page of Black Panther from Jungle Action, and this is a couple issues after the story
16:16
that was in the Black Panther movie where Killmonger throws T'Challa off the falls
16:22
This, I think, is from Jungle Action 9, but it's one of the pages of original art, and
16:26
that's how they would make the comics back then. Now most of it's digital
16:30
People will do the art completely in the computer, but back then someone would draw a pencil
16:36
drawing on a piece of art board like this, 11 by 17, then somebody would come in and
16:42
they'd go over that with India Ink, and a letterer would come in and hand put the letter
16:47
in, and then there was a whole process to add colors and just all kinds of things to
16:52
make the final piece of artwork. And then in this closet I've got something called drawer boxes, which are actually kind
17:02
of nice. Most of my comics are not in drawer boxes. This makes it kind of easy
17:06
I can go and pull out various... This is my Justice League drawer, and I've got a bunch of old Justice League comics in here
17:14
And now I've got, let's see what I've got in this one
17:18
I've got Fantastic Four. I enjoy having the record, you know, and I realize that I don't absolutely necessarily
17:28
have the most comics. I am the guy with a lot of comics that jump through all the hoops that you have to jump
17:36
through to, you know, get the officially recognized record. You know, there's a lot of work that goes into that
17:44
And not everybody wants to do that

Largest Comic Book Collection Ever! - Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records

Tallest bedded Christmas tree

Tallest wig

Highest stickflip pogo stick jump 3.67 metres (12 ft 0.49 in) by Henry Cabelus

Largest aerial image of a mammal, 2,983 drones by Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation Ltd., Mysore & Karnataka Energy Department.

Most skateboard kickflips in one minute 38 by Dave Bachinsky

Longest single jump on a pogo stick 7.16 metres (23 ft 6 in) by Duncan Murray

Fastest time to fold and throw a paper aircraft 4.94 seconds by Trigg Kesterson

Most consecutive handstand push ups - 68 by Mohammed Alikrawiy

Highest forward flip pogo stick jump 3.35 metres (11 ft) by Henry Cabelus

Highest seated box jump 1.689 metres (5 ft 6.5 in) by Brian Williams

Most top turns on a single wave 46 by Dylan Graves

World records smashed at UK Giant Veg Competition

Longest basketball shot blindfolded - 22.51 metres (73 ft 10.2 in) by Tristan Jass

Most rope crossovers while skipping in 30 seconds 71 by Wu Conghan

Most basketball layups in one minute 23 by Tristan Jass

Up next in 10

Largest Comic Book Collection Ever! - Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records