Gregory Hecht

The premium for slabbing is probably not a linear relationship. CGC 9.8 books from one price range in their "raw" state won't necessarily get the same % bump as CGC 9.8 books from a different price range for their raw state. And, of course, the slabbing premium also depends on the grade. So the "premium curve" for CGC 5.0 books might not have the same slope and/or shape as the premium curve for CGC 9.0 books. That means you may be looking at two variables when trying to determine the CGC premium: what is the expected price for the corresponding raw copy and what is the graded condition for that copy.

I will likely not make it to Livestream today (family member doing surgery today) but I did alert Pete to this thread on Slack a day or so ago.

Instead of creating a new title, porting over a user's existing stock, and then deleting the old title, I think that there might possibly be another way to accomplish the same thing. CB could issue a program update that (for example) looks to see if the user has the title Star Wars (1st series) in their database(s). If they do, the update says something like: "This update will rename your existing title Star Wars (1st series) to Star Wars (1977 series). All of your inventory and issue data will be preserved, only the title will be changed to match to master database. Click "yes" to continue. If you click "no", this update will keep your existing title and create a new, separate Star Wars (1977 series)." For the users that click "yes", the updater will execute the "Modify Title" function to change the series title to Star Wars (1977 series). I imagine that something analogous could be done to change the Media Category for titles as well. I believe that the weekly content updates only import data into your database, so this kind of solution would almost certainly have to be done via a program update.

I'm pretty sure that Legends of the Dark Knight: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez was never published. Unless somebody has direct evidence to the contrary, this title should be deleted from the database.

DC has cancelled all orders for Flash, The: The Fastest Man Alive series. In theory, this will be resolicited somewhere down the road since this is meant to be a prequel to the Ezra Miller movie. (The movie was delayed to 2023 b/c Ezra Miller is problematical right now.) But for now, the comic title should be removed from the database. IMPORTANT NOTE: This title should not be confused with Flash: The Fastest Man Alive. That title was published starting in 2006 and should of course remain in the database.

And, as an additional follow-up to your post: The present arrangement for shifting a title from one media type to another works, but IMO it isn't something that works as seamlessly as you suggest. There are plenty of users who don't check their "Unrecognized Items" list often enough to see that they need to do the work of shifting their inventory from an obsolete title to a replacement title that is in a different media category. Or, if they do check the list, they don't necessarily realize that something on their unrecognized list is in fact in the database but is merely moved to a new media category. Exhibit 1A, Exhibit 1B Exhibit 2 The current arrangement asks users to manually curate their database(s). Ideally, users should only have to spend time curating their collections and entering them into their database(s), not curating their database contents and structure. IMO this should be something that gets attention for the next version of ComicBase. EDITED TO ADD: In fact, a wise man once said: 🙂

I *think* that in current practice the difference is that there is a function in the ComicBase program that allows you to change the media type of a title that you are viewing. This has the effect of allowing the user to shift their existing inventory for the old title that was in the incorrect media category to the new title that is in the correct media category. I suspect that this is relatively easy to program because the title name doesn't change at all, just the media category in which that title resides. For titles that get renamed, it's a little more complicated b/c you'd need to have a simple way for the user to point their inventory in the old version of the title to the new version since there are thousands of titles in the database... this is why I suggested that it might be easiest to do the inventory shift during the content update that actually adds the new version of the title. This isn't to say that the problem can't be solved, only that I am guessing that this is the reason why changing a title's name is more complicated than changing a title's format. (If I'm way off base on that, I am sure that @Peter R. Bickford can set the record straight!)

Randall is correct, changing longstanding titles now makes things problematic b/c existing users' inventory data would be turned into a mess. It's a legacy of a nomenclature decision that was made many many years ago when the re-re-re-relaunching of titles didn't happen and nobody could have predicted that it would become such a commonplace thing. I agree that designating repeated titles by volume # is much more cumbersome as compared to designating them by the year that they launched, and several sites already do this. (Marvel also does this when describing the contents of their trade paperback and hardcover collections.) Long ago (i.e., on the old CB msg boards) I suggested that this problem could be overcome if CB's content updates would (with the user's permission) move existing inventory to newly corrected titles... for example, if CB changed the existing Star Wars (1st series) to Star Wars (1977 series), then the update would give a pop-up window for the user to give permission for their old SW 1st series inventory to all be moved to the new SW 1977 series title. Nothing ever came of it, and my knowledge of programming is insignificant enough for me to have no clue as to whether my suggestion could actually be implemented. But if it could, it would allow CB to do a lot of clean-up that would make the program much more accessible to brand new users.

Does Pro come with any custom checkboxes or fields? Would that allow a way of “tagging” the entries you want to export regardless of stock quantity?

Depending on your definition of "serious", the answer is yes for specific issues. Not sure that I would personally put that kind of value on those issues, but apparently there is a segment of the market that does. And not a lot of people save their preview magazines, so there are likely to be some scarcity issues for those kinds of things, I think.

Looks like Superman: The Man of Steel (Compilations) Book #3 is the same thing as #3/HC. To be consistent with the listings for volumes 1 and 2 of the recent hardcover compilations from DC, #3 should be deleted (the scan for that item can be moved to #3/HC). For similar reasons, the listing for Book #4/HC should be changed to #4/HC.

Fantagraphics recently published a book reprinting Tops #1 and #2 (from 1949) in an oversize hardcover format. I'm not finding that book in the database (not too surprising, the HC offices don't tend to get these kinds of books in the comic shipments that they use for generating the weekly updates), but I'm also not finding the original series in the database. Am I overlooking it somewhere? For reference, here is the listing for the original 1949 comics title on mycomicshop.com. Also, note that Tops is not the same thing as Tops Comics (from 1944, which *is* in the database).

Not missing, see Superboy (1st series)... both the first print and second print are included in the database. For the major publishers (especially Marvel and DC), it is highly unlikely that periodical comics from the 60's to the present aren't included in the database, although some items are occasionally cataloged in idiosyncratic places.

Supposedly there are some issues from Marvel that are forthcoming in the next few weeks that will have this “feature”. I think that Marvel has indicated that they have heard the negative reaction esp since it results in more damages when shipping to retailers. So with a little luck Marvel will go back to the previous cover stock (which, as I said before, isn’t much different than the interior page stock anyway).

I took your suggestion and posted it on Slack so that Pete will see it.

But Marvel has been incrementally downgrading the paperstock for the covers of their periodical comics for years now. While I understand that this latest round has been a step too far, is it so different (other than the social media outrage) from what Marvel has been doing over the last few years that it warrants database tracking?

BTW, it looks like all of the Action Comics #1000 issues list "Butch Guiche" as an inker. That should of course be corrected to "Butch Guice."

My CB database matches what is shown on Atomic Avenue for the specific variants that you list in your most recent post. When you do your content updates, do you have the radio button for locking the notes field contents checked or unchecked?

It probably is the same paper as the interior pages. I assume that you are asking so that you can track this in your own custom fields? The reason I ask is that I doubt that this is the sort of thing that HC is particularly worried about tracking in the master database.

Maybe I am missing something here, but won't the settings shown in Don's screenshot result in reducing the price of his inventory by another 25% every day? Also, what happens if he wants to end the reduced price sale? Is there a way for him to bump up his prices by 133.33% (which is what it would take to restore his original prices prior to dropping them by 25%)?

Jeez, this fell off my radar screen for way too long. Just submitted it this evening.

A late addition to the Grim Reaper Report: DC has cancelled all orders for their Sandman #1 Facsimile Edition (located in ComicBase as Sandman #1/A). It will presumably be resolicited, but for now it has been cancelled and should be removed from the database.

This week's content update re-created the 2020 Iron Manual comic book title (the correct magazine title remains in the database).

And just like Dark Phoenix, they're back! This week we have new comic title versions for Back Issue and Comic Book Creator. @Mark J. Castaneda @Peter R. Bickford Any chance you can give the ComicBase editorial department a reminder on this one? (see my original post in this thread, thanks)

Marvel has also cancelled Deadly Neighborhood Spider-Man (to be resolicited in the future, evidently) even though it will be in the forthcoming April 2022 catalog (for items shipping beginning in June 2022). I don't think that it is in the database yet, but the ComicBase editorial team should hold off on that title when they add the comics from the April 2022 solicitations.