Today I’m excited to bring you a major facelift to a major page that I hope will represent a quality of life improvement for you and me both – the Crushing Comics – Guide to Collecting Marvel Comic Books.
I first launched this page twelve years ago on 1 August, 2010! Since then, it has expanded from being a simple index of X-Men team titles, to an index of every X-Men book, to an index of dozens of Marvel Guides, to now acting as a directory page linking to over 100 current or coming-soon guides to reading and collecting Marvel Comics.
Prior to this week, the page was still working on a layout from 2015. It wasn’t especially responsive or friendly for mobile. It was painful to update, and folks were always pointing out that I had “hidden” guides that I had never linked there. Also, because each guide image was square, there wasn’t much real estate for an image and text on each guide thumbnail. I had to discard tons of good cover images because I couldn’t fit them into a square.
Now everything on the page is visually uniform. I spent days making 100s of new guide thumbnails (including many you can’t see just yet). And if you loved the old text links, don’t worry – they’re just below the visual guide list in a much more coherent and easy-to-read order than they were before.
A major visual difference on this new version of the page is that Patreon-Exclusive guides will display right away when I launch, plus I can easily tease the upcoming guides I’m working on.
Part of me debated over that change. This layout makes it obvious there are a lot of Patron-Only guides – in fact, there are always 24 or more! I don’t want to make Crushing Comics unfriendly by putting up a barrier between readers and my best content, but CK’s Patreon supporters have made it possible for me to continue adding guides to the site from 2016 to the present day with the amazing support I receive from my hosting service.
Whether you’re a Patron, a frequent reader, or a first-time visitor, I appreciate you trusting me to help you manage your comic reading and collecting. I stand by the belief that when I launch a new comic guide (or revise one of my existing guides) there is no other guide on the internet like it. My goal is to cover every series and link to every collection the way a wiki would, while explaining every appearance and giving you places you can easily jump in to any character or team the way only a fellow fan who has read everything can.
I hope the new version of the page makes it easier for you to quickly navigate my Marvel guides. If you have any feedback, I’m happy to have it – just chime in here via a comment or use my contact page – I always respond to messages.
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