Gregory Hecht

All of that information (custom Notes field info, all contents of the Grading Notes field) gets displayed in the same place on the AA listings for a single issue (for an example, see here).

If I am understanding your statement correctly, then I should point out that it is neither *required* that AA users use the Notes field to convey specifics about their particular item that is being posted on AA nor is it the *only* way for AA sellers to do so. While that was true up until the Grading Notes field was created, now the Grading Notes field is the recommended place for that kind of info. (Although, admittedly, AA sellers can still use the Notes field as in the past to customize their listings.) The bigger issue is that there are a lot of "legacy notes" that AA sellers have in their Notes field. It just isn't practical at this time to expect AA sellers (many of whom have thousands of listings) to comb through each of their listings to manually move their individualized Notes field info to the Grading Notes field. I suspect that is why Human Computing hasn't turned off the ability for custom info in the Notes field from posting onto AA.

I still think that because you are asking for a way to inform the user as to how the ComicBase program works, and I'm not a fan of cluttering up the CB user interface with stuff about the program as opposed to stuff about my collection contents. My opinion is that what you really should be asking for is a CB user manual or a CB wiki. @Peter R. Bickford has indicated in the past that the CB user manual gets read very rarely by CB users. I don't know what his thoughts are about a CB wiki.

It seems to me that what you are really asking for here isn't so much a functionality change but a means of conveying information to the ComicBase user. It might just be simpler to just post a pop-up message to CB users when they elect to undergo a content update. Something along the lines of: The following fields are not be changed by ComicBase content updates: ...blah blah blah blah blah... Depending on the options you select for the content update, the following fields might be changed by ComicBase content updates: ...blah blah blah blah blah.... All other fields in your database will updated by ComicBase content updates. <radio button> Click here to not see this message again. <button> Click here to proceed. [next pop-up is the one that we already get where the user selects various options regarding the content update] Since there isn't really a detailed user manual or wiki for CB, the above would convey the information you're concerned about to CB users without cluttering up the user's database screen during regular day-to-day usage of the program.

Rows for items that a CB user has in stock are already shaded.

I believe that colored font is already used to indicate items that have had increases or decreases in value since the last content update.

If you have run the latest content update (posted yesterday) with the proper settings checked off *and* you have no issues marked as "in stock" for the Comic title versions of these magazines, then the Comic title shouldn't be in your database at all. All bar code entry for issues of those magazines will have only one place to go: the magazine titles.

The most recent content update has deleted the comic book title versions of Alter Ego, Back Issue, and Comic Book Creator. Since we've all been here before (ala Groundhog Day), let's all keep a watchful eye out to see if these titles get re-created in a couple of months.

Comic Book Creator (also from TwoMorrows) experiences a similar problem. Comic book title here and the (correct!) magazine title here.

Newly published TwoMorrows magazines have been showing up in the Comics category with some regularity over the last several months. For example, see these entries for the titles Back Issue and Alter Ego (which have their correct magazine titles listed here and here, respectively). This leads to duplications that eventually get corrected but the process seems to repeat itself as TwoMorrows publishes new issues of their magazines every month or so. Because this happens so frequently, I *assume* that this happens because either...... (1) The HC editorial team enters the magazines in correctly in the first place but then a CB user submits them as comics and the editorial team accepts the (inappropriate) correction; or (2) The HC editorial team incorrectly enters the magazines as comics in the first place and then a CB user submits them as magazines and it takes the editorial team some time to discover the original incorrect listing. Either way, I'm posting this here to request that the HC editorial team get a "heads up" on this *and* to alert CB users who submit newly published TwoMorrows magazines to be sure that their database has the TwoMorrows titles under the appropriate category.

Ordinarily I would submit via the "Request Price Check" function, but I honestly wasn't sure if there was something that I wasn't aware of that was legitimately pushing up the values of the issues in this series.

What's up with the valuations for the regular issues of Uncanny Avengers (2nd series)? They seem really high in comparison to mycomicshop. Is there some movie character/concept showing up in that series that I am not remembering and mycomicshop has been slow to adjust their prices upward? Or is this a case where ComicBase needs to do an adjustment downward? Is Atomic Avenue actually seeing sales at the listed prices?

This week's update added the title Lost Girls (Top Shelf). The various printings of the Top Shelf three book set for this title have to date all been cataloged as Deluxe Set Hardcover under the Lost Girls title. I think that the Hardcover entry under the new Lost Girls (Top Shelf) title is supposed to be for the single volume edition. Is there a particular reason why that edition warrants its own title? Could it be moved to the existing Lost Girls title?

Hi Robert -- This thread should address at least some of your questions.

Something that I have noticed on these graphs is that the x axis does not have a consistent scale. Looking at the above graph, for instance, you can see that the distance on the x axis between Jan 3rd 2021 to March 14th 2021 (more than two months) is the same as the distance from March 14th 2021 to April 17th 2021 (just a few days more than a single month) and is also the same distance from June 26th 2021 to Feb 19th 2022 (nearly eight months). The result is an inaccurate view of the rate at which the collection's value has changed over time. Any chance of getting that fixed?

IMO: If these are numbered in the database by release order, then there should be something in the Notes field to indicate the volume number on the spine to avoid unnecessary confusion. My personal inclination would be to keep things simple and just go by volume number since (I assume, possibly incorrectly) that as time passes collectors of the series will be less concerned with release order than they will with the volume number. It should be noted that there is a precedence for numbering book releases in the database by the volume number and not chronological publication order. All of Marvel's Epic tpb titles are numbered in the database by the volume number rather than by release order.

Before anybody goes running too far down this rabbit hole, has @Mark J. Castaneda or anybody else from the HC editorial team indicated to what extent (i.e., the level of detail) they are willing to have this kind of info tracked in the database?

Bone #27 contains a note "Series returns to Cartoon Books" Bone #28 contains a note "Cartoon Books begins as publisher" This is a little confusing since #27 was actually the last issue that was originally printed by Image Comics, and #28 is actually the first issue where it was back under the Cartoon Books banner. I suggest either: (a) deleting the note for #27 or (b) replacing the note for #27 with something along the lines of "last issue published by Image Comics".

Good luck with that since that could get overly wordy (depending on what you are looking for here). In most cases, connecting variants are all from the same title or, if they span multiple titles, they are on books with the same/related storyline. For the ones that are all in the same title, is there really a need to include a descriptor beyond "connecting variant"? For the latter, would "Secret Crisis War connecting variant" suffice (where Secret Crisis War would be the name of the storyline)?

B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs Book #1 and Book #12 are duplicates. The confusion arises from the fact that the tpb for this series is marked as #12 on the spine as it is the twelfth volume of the first BPRD tpb series. I suggest that Book #12 be deleted and that a note regarding the spine numbering be added to the entry for Book #1.

A 1:100 (or 1 in 100) variant means that it was (in principle) retailers received one copy of that variant for every 100 copies that they ordered. In theory. There have been instances of these kinds of "incentive variants" showing up on distributor order forms many months later, indicating that there were surplus copies printed and that the total number of copies printed cannot be ascertained by collectors. That is different from a comic that has a known, limited copy count that was advertised as such. Thus, I am recommended *against* interchanging the two types of descriptors for variants. They mean different things and have different implications regarding their availability for collectors.

I don't think that is an equivalent argument. As I interpret the postings here, nobody is arguing that there shouldn't be a variant separate from the regular issue in this case. Instead, people are arguing that the signed and numbered and the signed artist's proofs all be listed as a single variant from the regular issue, not as two separate variants from the regular issue. In other words, this would be a case of #1 and #1/A (or whatever variant designation) rather than going with #1, #1/A, and #1/B.

It really is only just a difference in the numbering. If the 250 run were officially signed and the Artist's Proof copies were not (or vice versa) I'd get the rationale for making them separate items in the database. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.

I would interpret this as 275 copies total. Assuming that the embossed seal is present on all of those copies, my opinion is that this should be listed as a single item rather than two.

Doesn't matter, ComicBase stills needs to catalog their stuff. 🤷‍♂️ 🙂