Gregory Hecht
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Posts posted by Gregory Hecht
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This assumes a couple of things.
First, that all signatures are all equal. Does a Chuck Austen autograph on a comic raise its value by the same amount as a Jack Kirby or John Buscema autograph?
Second, that a signature by the same creator will have an equal effect on the value of all comics that they sign, even if those comics are of equal grade. Does a Stan Lee signature on a NM copy of Ravage 2099 #1 raise the value of that book by the same number of dollars as a Stan Lee signature on a NM copy of, say, Silver Surfer #1? What about a John Byrne autograph on a copy of Uncanny X-Men #137 and a copy of Lab Rats #1?
Also, while autographs on a comic may increase that issue's sentimental value to its owner, autographs frequently don't raise the cash value of that comic by very much without a certificate of authenticity.
My suggestion would be to use the custom fields and check boxes to keep track of which items in your collection are autographed and by whom.
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2 hours ago, Antonio J. Schipani said:
I'm under the impression that unless comic-base themselves adds it to the database, then values will not be updated and cover art will not be installed
Use the “Submit New or Corrected Information” command in the ComicBase program. That command sends information from any highlighted/selected issues (including cover scans) to the CB editorial team. They will review the submission and, for each acceptable issue, approve its inclusion into the database. That is the easiest process for the editors and will ensure that your new issues get looked at much faster than if you submit here.
More complicated edits (such as incorrect scans, watermarked scans, misspellings, incorrect publisher, titles in the wrong media category, duplicate issues and other items that require deletion etc etc etc) and things that need actual discussion should be posted to these message boards.
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1 hour ago, Steven L. Dasinger said:
If the cover is acceptable and another larger one doesn't already exist, it will be accepted and available to be downloaded.
Please note that “acceptable” also means that the submitted scan cannot have somebody else’s watermark on it. Several of the scans in this thread have a mycomicshop.com watermark, so although the issue would be accepted when you submit from your database, the watermarked scan would not be added to the master database.
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I took a quick look at mycomicshop.com, and I am inclined to agree that this is probably incorrectly priced in ComicBase. There is a "Request Price Check" function in the database, and my understanding is that is the most efficient way to get the CB editorial team to get a look at the pricing of specific comic book issues.
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This comic might not be out yet since mycomicshop.com only gives a publication year rather than a month and year.
I might have missed it, but I did not see it listed in the Philbo catalog. Is this carried by Lunar or PRH? If not, how is this distributed? (In other words, where can the CB folks get the necessary info for adding this to the database?)
If the comic is already out and you have a copy, you can always create the entry in ComicBase, fill in the various fields, add a scan of the cover, and then use the "Submit New or Corrected Data" function to get it to the CB editorial team.
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3 hours ago, Thomas Brockmann said:
Agree, it's a mess. Thanks for all the help explaining this.
How does ComicBase determine if an issue is Deluxe? Is it based on cover price differences, the presence of the word "deluxe" on the cover, or does the indicia provide any indication?
Pretty sure it's the presence of the word "deluxe" on the cover, although IIRC there was also a price difference between the deluxe and non-deluxe versions.
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New Comic Book title: American Fantasy
Based on the cover scans, I suspect that is a primarily prose publication. Should this be moved to the Magazine category?New Comic Book title: Science Fiction Plus
Based on the listing info over at mycomicshop.com, this appears to be a prose publication and should be moved to the Magazine category.New Comic Book title: Spawn '77 Toy Edition
Not sure what this is. Is this a reprint of an issue of Spawn that was included with a toy? Or is it a new story included with a toy? If the former, it *usually* isn't CB's practice to make this a separate title.
Also, when I search for this on Atomic Avenue, it shows up as title in the search bar but clicking on that search result gets me an error page. -
What does the indicia say?
And are the Kickstarter copies different in any way from what is available via their website or regular retail channels?
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Last month The Greatest Name in Comics: Daredevil Battles Hitler was solicited for 2025 shipment. (Not sure by whom, but it was available for pre-order on mycomicshop.com... not sure about other vendors.) A message was sent out today that the item has been canceled "because the distributor has told us that the item has been canceled."
The database lists this title, but it shows a publication date of 2022, so it is unclear to me whether copies of that title exist in the wild.
• if the 2022 date is an error, then it should be deleted
• if this item was previously solicited but not released in 2022, then it should be deleted
• if this item was previously solicited *and* released in 2022, then it is likely that the recent solicitation was for either backstock or a new printing; either way, the existing title in CB should remain.So if anybody as insights on this, your input would be appreciated.
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Orders for Penthouse Comics (2nd Series) #1 and #2 have been cancelled. The publisher was wholly dependent on Diamond for distribution, and they have yet to announce anything about a new distributor.
So at this point it looks like this title should be removed from the database.
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Hi Antonio — I’m sure that the CB editorial team is happy to add the issues that you have been posting about. However, please keep in mind that the cover scans you have been posting here all have a mycomicshop.com watermark and so CB isn’t able to use those. If you have the actual issues, are you able to scan them and then post those files either here or via your database?
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It's unclear to me what comic book you are inquiring about.
I did a search for "Batman Special Edition" for the years 2000-2026 on mycomicshop.com and came up with these results, but I don't think that any of these are likely to be what you have.
Do you have a photo of the covers? A picture of the indicia would be helpful, too.
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On 11/20/2025 at 10:20 PM, Thomas Brockmann said:
There are also the "deluxe" versions of the books, for example Uncanny X-Men #319:
319 Direct Edition
319/Dlx Deluxe - Direct Edition
319/NS Newsstand Edition
And... "319/Dlx/NS" Deluxe - Newsstand Edition (Does not exist in ComicBase.)My guess is that when you start getting into this many permutations, the preference for the CB editorial team would be to start breaking out the lettered variation designations and noting very carefully the attributes in the "Item Description" field rather than reprogramming the database to allow multiple designations to be attached to a single issue.
Perhaps @Peter R. Bickford will work on this for the issues you have listed here (along with any others that you might be able to add), but he might save this for @Mark J. Castaneda when he returns to the office.
As for "bagged" vs "unbagged" as a condition, this has been brought forward before and has not been adopted. As I understand it, part of the issue is that the copies still in their original polybag are likely to deteriorate faster b/c of the type of plastic used, and these should therefore be less desirable copies than issues removed from their original bag and stored with a proper board and bag. On the other hand, there appears to be a segment of the market that wants to place a premium on copies still sealed in their original polybag. It is worth pointing out that adding the newsstand designation was something that CB resisted for some time, but did eventually change course as market data accumulated a track record demonstrating that some collectors cared about distinguishing btw NS and DM copies... so that might eventually happen on this issue as well.
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The numbering for Heavy Metal got all screwed up somewhere along the line. The original run of the magazine used volume and issue numbers in the indicia, and it did not use sequential numbers until late November 2012 with issue #259 [i.e., starting with what is in the CB database as Heavy Metal (2nd series) ].
My understanding is that years ago -- and well before November 2012 -- Human Computing asked the publishers of Heavy Metal for a comprehensive list of their regular issues and special issues to help ensure accuracy in the CB database. But somewhere along the line it was discovered that even the HM folks got it wrong, and an issue had to be deleted from the database to get everything back into "alignment."
Later, it was discovered that there was a duplication in the database: one of the special issues was listed under its own title and under the regular Heavy Metal title. So the decision was made to delete the issue under the Heavy Metal title.
So that's the messy history as I understand it. 🤷♂️
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New title added to Comic Books: Infinity (Fanzine)
• I would recommend that this title be moved to the Magazine category. I took a quick look through my copies of issues #4, #5, and #6. Each of those issues contained at most 25% comics; the rest of the content was prose of various types, illustration artwork, occasional photographs, and editorial content. I believe that I have issues #2 and #3.1 as well, and I can dig those out to check the contents if necessary, but my recollection is that the content in those issues was also not majority comics.
• What is the provenance for the cover dates of these issues?
Looking at the cover dates for issues #2 through #6, the 2/1976 cover date for #1 does not appear to be correct.
For issue #4, the year "1972" is on the cover, but I am unable to find a cover date month in my copy of that issue even though CB lists Jan 1972 (mycomicshop.com lists "May 1973" but that does not seem to match with the year on the cover).
For issue #5, the year "1973" is on the cover, but I am unable to find a cover date month in my copy of that issue. There is a reference to the summer in an editorial, but no date is listed in the indicia that I can find. (CB lists Jan 1973, and mycomicshop.com lists June 1973.)
For issue #6, the cover date "January 1976" is clearly listed on the cover, and that matches the CB entry.
I will have to locate my copies of issues #2 and #3.1 to see what is up with their cover dates (I don't have copies of issue #1 or #3.2).New title added to Comic Books: All-Star Superman 1 Special Edition (WBT AMC Theaters)
Flagging this one because it is unusual (although not necessarily unheard of) for issue numbers to appear in a title. Is this the best way to handle this particular issue? -
The Marvel Masterworks can be complicated b/c of all of the various printings, re-printings, multiple editions using improved sources for the artwork, etc.
What "original Masterworks" do you have? I assume that these have the "marble dustjacket" rather than the "silver and black" dustjacket. Assuming that this is the case, what is the color of the book board under the dustjacket? Is it plain black or does it have some other color?
As for market prices for the early volumes, prices vary a lot especially since several of these were recently re-done using improved sources and new "extras" were added to the back pages. I think that many people would tell you that the valuations listed on Mile High's site are unrealistically high, they should probably be chopped down by 50% at least. On the other hand, a lot of the valuations in ComicBase are based on Atomic Avenue transactions but those valuations can be iffy if there haven't been a lot of transactions for a particular issue. I suspect that may be the case for many of the Marvel Masterworks volumes.
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3 hours ago, Jon Heimerl said:
I tried the "shift/update" you suggested - as far as I can tell a completely undocumented feature. The system says "update available". If I select the update, it takes about 1.5 seconds to do nothing visible and give no update information and nothing changes.
Is that normal behavior for when you run content updates? You never get a screen with a progress bar or anything like that?
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3 hours ago, Jon Heimerl said:
Trying to add comics by bar code, exactly the same way Ive been doing it for the past 2 years.
Items/Add by barcode - scan. The "add" process finds no new comics by barcode, even comics that are over a month old - for instance, Deadpool Wolverine # 9, bar code 75960621054100911
The search field remains blank like it did not find anything.
I have gone to Internet/check for updates, and ComicBase reports no pending updates, and just shows my overall collection value and says "Your software is current, you have the most recently updated content."
My Internet is fine and working solid. I have shutdown and restarted the ComicBase app. I have rebooted the PC.
Not sure what changed, but the app is pretty useless if I cannot add valid comics to it.
Do a quick manual check to see if the comics that you are trying to add are in fact listed in your database. If the comics aren’t there even though you have been running the content downloads then something is up.
I know that my database — and, based on feedback on these boards, those of a few others as well — aren’t getting new items added to their database from the weekly content updates UNLESS I run Rebuild Lists immediately before doing the content update. When running the Rebuild Lists, check all of the options except for the Rebuild Pictures List, then try downloading the content update. (If you already did run the update, you can force it to redownload by holding down the shift key while checking for content updates)
For some people this fixes the problem. If that doesn’t solve your issue, then definitely contact support.
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I think that there are a variety of stores that had their name stamped or printed on the covers of March of Comics. I asked Pete some years ago about how ComicBase would track this, and I believe that the ultimate decision was to *not* track the different store brands as variants.
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I have had a recurring issue with my database where I need to Rebuild lists immediately before running a content update or some of the new issues and titles won’t appear in your database after the update.
When Rebuilding Lists, check all of the boxes except for the Rebuild Pictures box.
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2 hours ago, TRACEY GENEAU said:
I had a question, being a data driven person myself, we will have titles in Canada that are not picked up. When I have time, is there a way to add it to the big database for everyone to use? One we were trying to find last night was The Official handbook for Marvel Universe. I could only find the new comics but not the comics from the 80s. We have quite a few of them. Maybe I'm looking it up wrong though, but if they are missing I could put them in.
Make sure that your database includes Magazines, not just Comics. The OHOTMU titles are all placed in the Magazine media category.
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My understanding from Pete's livestreams from a while back is that the newer iPhones don't scan bar codes well from the current version of the ComicBase app. IIRC Pete said that would be one of the things that would be fixed when the new CB app comes out. Pete hasn't promised a debut date for the new app, but I would expect it to be relatively soon.
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DC has apparently cancelled Batman Universe (DC) Deluxe Set #1 Hardcover. Not clear whether they will resolicit or not, but for now at least the issue should be removed from the database.
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Have you tried rebuilding your lists? File --> File Tools --> Rebuild Lists
Click all of the boxes except for "Picture files list", then click the "Rebuild" button
Signed comics
in Feature Suggestions
Posted
But based on Jeff's reply, he's actually looking for a standardized way to place a value on slabbed signed issues (CGC blue label vs. CGC yellow label). I don't know enough about the the slabbed comics market to know to whether that market values signed comics in the way that Jeff is asking for. I agree with Mike that the master database shouldn't attempt to track the values of signed comics... although having said that (and admittedly in the absence of CGC yellow label market data) I'm less opposed to having a function in the database where a user can peg a value to CGC yellow label comics as a derivative of a similarly graded issue that received a CGC blue label.
But I would still have a question as to the usefulness of a user-generated valuation. If the valuation is to be used for selling the issue, then the marketplace will make a determination of the value independently of what is in the user's database. If the valuation is for insurance purposes, I would assume that the firm writing the policy would use market data to determine how to place a value on CGC yellow label issues, not necessarily the user's self-determined formula.