Randall J. Paske

Last night and today, my email to support@comicbase.com has been bouncing back as "unable to deliver." I also had some problems with the "Submit New or Corrected Data" feature within ComicBase last night--the server was unreachable for a while. Is something happening over there? I've noticed no issues with anything else on my end.

I was also having issues when entering comics in my database last night. Many, many problems with cover images and error messages.

I tried to download the latest ComicBase content and price update last night. The update ran all night and still wasn't finished this morning, taking all that time to download about 75 book covers (apparently). I finally had to cancel it. Something's off.

What is New X-Men #153/A? From the cover image in ComicBase, it looks like someone's signed copy, not a true variant. It's possible that it could be one of those official signed copies from Dynamic Forces or whatever, but there's no info listed about that. And unlike #152/A, it's not a price variant. I suspect it doesn't belong.

Have you opened that up? I think what you might be showing us is the back cover, bagged so that the UPC code is visible.

From the cover it's surely a Forbidden Planet/Jetpack Comics exclusive variant. I've encountered other titles and issues that were exclusive to that pair. Store exclusives can be some of the hardest variants to find info about, or even to know that they exist. I add them when I can.

More than two titles like that were changed. Besides Avatarex, I had two other titles change in the same way. It's not that I don't think they should have been changed, but I'm baffled as to why making minute, hard-to-discern changes to these titles was deemed a necessary inconvenience to the installed user base, while other plainly inaccurate or disorganized titles "can't" be fixed because of the same installed user base. Those extra spaces after the ellipsis weren't going to confuse anyone, but this and other threads are full of examples of far more problematic titles that we are seemingly stuck with. I don't get it, either.

I only have one issue of Inside Image and I don't plan to get more. This title is in ComicBase in the Comic Books category, but the issue I have does not contain any actual comics--instead, it has articles and advertisements promoting Image titles. By this measure, it belongs in the Magazines category, if other issues are of similar composition. Can anyone confirm whether other issues contain any actual comics? I'm also wondering about Marvel Age. I don't remember seeing any of those that actually consist of comics. I have a few of these somewhere that I can look at, but perhaps someone already knows. Mind you, I'm personally on the record as being OK with these comic-book-sized and comic-book-shaped titles being in the Comic Books category, perhaps with some additional designation. Their physical properties practically ensure that just about everyone will file and store them with comic books. But the editorial line at ComicBase has been that if they don't actually consist of comics, they don't go in the Comic Books category. I'm just looking at these for the sake of consistency.

Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children was published by a comic book publisher and shares physical properties with comic books (standard comic book size and construction), and I personally file it among my comics for ease of storage. But it consists of text stories with illustrations, like standard storybooks. It does not combine or mix words and pictures in the way that a comic story does. The illustrations also do not form a silent narrative. They just illustrate random scenes of the stories. As with titles like Who's Who and The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, the ComicBase editors decided that "not actual comics" publications like these are technically not Comic Books and need to go under Magazines or Books. Given that, I think Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children is better classified as a magazine than as a book. Those issues are not TPBs, which have a little more heft. But I'm not sure what to call them. I have found a number of other titles that look, outwardly, like comics, but which actually contain text and illustrations that, while they complement each other, do not constitute comics. Specifically, most of the titles published by Caliber under the Tome Press imprint look like standard floppy comics on the outside but don't contain any comics. (I have found one Tome title so far that actually had comics inside. I forget what it was.) I've been reporting these to Support as I run into them, and leaving it to them to determine where they get moved in the database. These have included The Donnelly Tragedy, The Absurd Art of J.J. Grandeville, Plague, and A Modest Proposal. I also reported The Vampire Companion from Innovation. Despite being responsible for some items getting moved, I can buy an argument that all of these things could still be classified as comic books even without containing comics. They're all published by comics publishers, they all look like comics on the outside, and they all fit into standard comic sleeves and boxes. I'm keeping my own copies filed with my comics, not separating them out as pseudo-comics. But the editors' current ruling is that if they don't contain comics, they don't belong in the Comic Books category of ComicBase, and I'm reporting such items as I find them for the sake of consistency. I also keep standard-floppy-comic-sized magazines like Amazing Heroes and Musings filed among my comics, despite the distinctions in the database.

Thanks. Must keep my cursor away from the links.

I think this falls under the general rule in ComicBase that annuals, specials, etc., are listed under the main title, following the philosophy that if you were looking for them in a shop, you would find them with the main title. It's not my own preference (I'd rather have separate title listings), but I'm learning to live with it. It does make things hard to find sometimes, especially when there are multiple iterations of a series (Justice League, for example) and you don't know for sure which one the annual/special/spectacular is associated with.

On occasion I make a stray click in the program and start an unintended search, which sometimes takes several minutes to complete. Is there a way to cancel a search once it has started, or do I have to wait for it to finish? I just accidentally got a list of all comics edited by Scott Dunbier, which, sure, that's a cool feature, but I wanted to keep entering my collection instead.

This de facto inability to change titles bothers me more than any other quirk of ComicBase. The previous thread in another section of the forum (https://forums.comicbase.com/index.php?/topic/1332-consistency-in-multiple-series-titles-eg-metal-men/) contains numerous examples of problematic titles and reasons why they are problematic, but so far we've kind of been met with a shrug. I agree that it would be good to know that the folks at Human Computing are thinking about this or any other solution to the problem.

I'm wondering if newspapers could be spun off to their own section, separate from the Magazines section. As I mentioned earlier, I don't want to exclude magazines entirely. I would, however, exclude newspapers if I could. I can see where tracking all of that stuff in Human Computing's master database might be worthwhile for them, but I doubt many of us want to house a mega-database on our own systems. As ComicBase grows and expands well beyond comics, there may be a need to devise more ways for users to select the portions that meet their needs and exclude those that don't. I've got plenty of magazines related to comics and entertainment, but I don't need a newspaper index. I've got plenty of books, but I don't need an index of romance paperbacks or theological volumes.

Was there a bit of a backlog this week, maybe? I think some of my recent data submissions didn't make it into the newest update as quickly as usual, but based on when points accumulated on the contributors list, they'll probably be included next time.

I don't know, how different is that from an annual or special, which are listed under their parent titles? I don't think it should be 1/Q, but maybe it should be SE 1 or something. I'd personally prefer that annuals, specials, and the like all had their own titles, but that's not how ComicBase has been structured.

Yes, adding magazines related to comics and related interests like science fiction and horror is one thing, and I'd even be fine with something like Entertainment Weekly. But I don't need my database to contain thousands of records for daily newspapers or obscure scientific journals. I don't want to exclude magazines en masse from my database, but I would like to be able to exclude the newspapers, academic journals, etc.

Huh, I don't have that badge, either, and I've definitely submitted a handful of new titles.

Thanks. I had Sidekick send up a new backup, and it is indeed showing on the website.

Yep. The app is still showing info from an older backup, but the website says I don't have a saved cloud backup.

Today I've run into another mess of titles that should be changed. I'm adding issues of Angel (the spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) to my database. ComicBase has six series of Angel listed, plus a magazine. Several of these are disparate titles that should be titled with their publisher names rather than as "1st series" or "4th series" or whatever. Right now we have: Angel - Published by Titan. Though listed under Comic Books, it belongs under Magazines (or possibly Books). The description says it collects articles from the Angel magazine about the TV show. Angel (1st Series) - A kid comic published by Dell in the 1950s. Angel (2nd Series) - The first Dark Horse run of the Buffy spin-off. Angel (3rd Series) - The second Dark Horse run of the Buffy spin-off. Actually a 4-issue miniseries. Angel (4th Series) - An unrelated manga title from 2003. Angel (5th Series) - An unrelated indie comic from 2004. Angel (6th Series) - The IDW series of the Buffy spin-off (which took over the numbering from Angel: After the Fall). Angel (Boom!) - The first Boom series of the Buffy spin-off. Angel (Boom!, 2nd Series) - The second Boom series of the Buffy spin-off. What a tangled web. Disregarding any desired changes to how series are named (using the year of first publication, etc.), this is all screwed up under the existing ComicBase guidelines. It should be more like this, if I have it right: Angel should not be in the Comics section. Angel (1st Series) should probably be Angel (Dell). Angel (2nd Series) should probably be Angel (Dark Horse, 1st Series). Angel (3rd Series) should probably be Angel (Dark Horse, 2nd Series). Angel (4th Series) should probably be Angel (Tokyopop). Angel (5th Series) should probably be Angel (Hi-Horse). Angel (6th Series) should probably be Angel (IDW). Presently, most of this can't be changed, so we have the implication that a kid comic, a vampire comic, a manga publication, and a black-and-white indie all belong to one group of series. It's messy and kind of bizarre.

I watched the archived livestream last night. I thought Pete's explanation of the problem was clear, but I'm still not sure why something couldn't be implemented (as per Gregory's suggestions above) to make changes and allow users to accept them so we wouldn't have to settle for (and compound) past errors and inconsistencies. I completely understand not wanting to make users move all their inventory after a title correction--I don't want to do that! But can't it be automated, with an option to decline for those with a reason to do so? Their titles would then stand out as "unrecognized" after updates, but currently my titles stand out as unrecognized if I correct them. It seems somewhat analogous to the problem with OneDrive, which is something else that caused me a lot of grief. I eventually got it sorted out, but I spent a few hours going through the information, figuring out what to do, and fighting OneDrive to straighten it all out on my system. (It sounded simpler than it was.) The OneDrive situation was problematic for enough users that they've now devised a way for ComicBase to handle the move as long as you accept the action presented in a dialog box. That would have saved me some grief. Couldn't title and series corrections be handled with a similar approach? Display a dialog box and let the user decide if they want ComicBase to take action for them? From a technological view, the inability to correct titles in software designed for organization (without causing a lot of headaches for users) is a bug that should be fixed. From an archival view, the inclusion and perpetuation of inaccurate information is a strike against the product's credibility. From a capitalistic view, information presented incorrectly or inconsistently sometimes makes buying and selling more difficult, because you can't buy what you can't find. There are multiple good reasons to find a solution to this problem. It doesn't reflect well on an otherwise great product.

I often consider putting the correct titles in my own database and just letting them stick out as "unrecognized" titles and issues when updates happen, but then my corrected titles and issues would never get updates, as they would no longer match Human Computing's master database. As one of my reasons for cataloguing my comics is to get documented value information for insurance (and also my curiosity), I want my values to be updated, so I stick with the ComicBase standard, even when it makes me cringe a little. I'll never be able to watch or participate in a livestream as it happens, but I've been catching up on the archived versions. This does at least have the benefit of allowing me to fast-forward the occasional conservative monologue, which I often find off-putting (no prizes for guessing that my views tend to fall toward the other end of the spectrum). Other than that, I've enjoyed the livestreams and learned a few things. I would like to see a discussion of these titling problems.

It's worth noting that the confusion over incorrect and inconsistent titles in ComicBase cascades over to Atomic Avenue as well. So while we ComicBase users can figure things out and learn to work with them as they are, random shoppers using Atomic Avenue may not have a clue. It requires a bit extra to find issues of Donald Duck published by Gladstone, for example, if you don't realize that they will be listed under the title Donald Duck (Walt Disney's...) where the publisher is listed as Dell. I'm not yet selling on Atomic Avenue, but I imagine that more clarity and accuracy would positively affect sales. There are also seemingly random titles that are sometimes assigned to specials and FCBD comics. I've had difficulty finding some of those in the database. My most recent example: I just picked up a copy of a Doctor Who comic book that was exclusively released for the 2015 San Diego Comic Con. The cover logo only says Doctor Who, with 2015 Exclusive San Diego Comic Con International in the bottom corner. The indicia says Doctor Who: San Diego Comic Con Exclusive. I didn't find this among the existing Doctor Who entries, so I added it with the title from the indicia to my database. Only later did I accidentally stumble upon its existing entry: it's under Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor as #0. There are a few problems with this: (1) There is no "#0" anywhere on the actual comic book; (2) The San Diego comic does not precede the publication of #1--it came out around the time of #10; (3) Although the San Diego comic features the twelfth Doctor and is related to that series, the words The Twelfth Doctor appear nowhere in its title, unlike the series; and (4) While I might understand an argument for keeping the San Diego comic under this series as a Special Edition instead of #0, other Doctor Who convention specials are listed under their own titles, not as special editions of regular series, so there would still be a lack of consistency. It's a problematic, hard-to-find entry, yet I don't think it can be fixed without screwing up someone else's existing inventory. Publishers have definitely made a mess of things to untangle, and they are not themselves consistent, so discrepancies are bound to occur. I only wish they were easier to correct when pointed out, with some mechanism to transfer users' existing quantities to the corrected title or issue number. I understand that there are technological limitations in place, and circumventing them is well beyond me, but I hope someday this can be worked out.

And it'll be hard, if not impossible, to change any of these now, because it will mess up existing user data. It doesn't seem like inaccurate or inconsistent titles and series can be changed once they've been added, unless they are very new (I just submitted a correction to Doctor Who: Origins, which included a misspelled Orgins, but I think the first issue is still upcoming and the title can be changed without harm). Even things as simple as Batman: Black and White being rendered as Batman: Black & White for the third series only (when it appears the actual comics used "and") seem to be stuck the way they are. I don't know the technological limitations involved here, and I know publishers don't make it easy with all the variants, reboots, and subtle title differences, but I sure wish it were possible to make title changes and have users' quantities for those titles shifted automatically.