Bookcases of the Damned (part one of five): I always judge other people by their shelves

The biggest bookcase in the house lives in the corner of the living room, well away from the sunlight, and it holds all the treasures. It was a gift for my 40th birthday and for the past decade it's been where I keep the best hardcovers, the nicest looking editions and the books that have the most personal importance.

It's the nice books I bought overseas, that now remind me of visits to London, and Honolulu, and Stockholm. Apart from the big art books and the odd Clowes hardcover, there's not many comics in this bookcase. That's okay, because they fill every other shelf in the house, although those art books feature raw work by legends like Kirby and the Hernandez brothers and Joe Kubert - there's four extremely good looking books filled with nothing but Bolland art.

All the Kim Newmans are here, with the Mick Herrons pushing their way in there. There are lots of books about great movies and favourite directors, and some extremely selected publications about Dr Who and James Bond. 

The main organisational issue is size - the big, heavy books live down the bottom, the lighter paperbacks up the top. There is some calculated randomness - tastes of Elmore Leonard and Terry Pratchett keep the Moore and Morrison books apart, because I don't want no curse, and I have put a lot of thought into which Phillip Jose Farmer I want to show the world.

I like small doses of pop science and history, and have a lot more and far more dense books about the history of comic books, including a bunch of treasured TwoMorrows information dumps - their design work can also be breath-taking, making full use of the infinite possibilities of comic book art.

There are also magazines that are actually disguised books about punk music, and Pink Floyd and Empire's favourite movies, and some more odd bits of history in mags about samurais and shit. 

I mainly get the books of essays about Tarantino and the Coen Bros for the pictures, as valuable as the words can be. There are books of artworks inspired by films, and other books that are nothing but Superman and Batman covers, and they don't need any words at all.

I pretty much just buy any books that have anything to do with Twin Peaks and Mad Max that I see. 

Apart from some beloved paperbacks that have been read so much their spines are smashed to pieces, and all the Newman, Herron and farmer, there is not actually much fiction on these shelves, with non fiction books dominant, although I gotta have some Moorcock and Vonnegut, and there will always be a space for Rian Hughes' gorgeously ambitious XX.

Every space is full, I cram the smallest books into clear spaces, and these days I only a few toys in front of the books - there's the batmobiles up on the top shelves where the boy won't lose them, and some really nice Dalek dolls that my mate Kyle gave me for my last birthday. Most of my treasured childhood tools have been appropriated by the next generation, as they should be, and live somewhere in their room.

There is even extra stuff piled up on top, and I'll probably get killed one day by a Cor!! annual bouncing off my skull (as was once foretold in the ancient prophecies), but the giant dorky jigsaws might just leave a nasty gash.

And even more treasures down the side, all the very big books that from the likes of Spiegelman and Ware, the few Treasury edition comics I've managed to get, all the weirdly shaped comic strip collections. Down the bottom - under a box collecting the first 100 progs of 2000ad - my oldest, most precious box, which has been full of Invisibles comics for 30 years now.

I try not to be a judgmental prick in life, but I can't help judging people by their bookcases when I visit their homes. If you've only got three Dan Brows books and a Garfield, that tells me a lot.

There are a number of other bookcases around the house, and we'll get to most of them this week, but this is the one I show the world. This is the one that shows how I think, and what I think is important, and what I like to look at.