I keep finding myself returning to the two wide-ranging comic strip anthologies Bill Blackbeard edited: The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics and 100 Years of Comic Strips. Since classic newspaper collections are quite pricy (trying to restrain myself from expanding beyond the 7 or so titles I'm already collecting!) the existence of these comprehensive overviews spotlighting hundreds of strips throughout the entire 20th century is just invaluable.

I'm excited about getting Brian Walker's book, "The Comics," which I understand is a similar kind of collection.