Gregory Hecht
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Posts posted by Gregory Hecht
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The listings in the database for the first volume of Fantastic Four by John Byrne Omnibus need some clean-up. The Item Description field for the #1/HC and #1/A entries state that both are DM versions, and both cover scans of the book market edition.
In keeping with how CB has cataloged other Marvel omnibus books, the HC entries should be for the Book Market edition and the A variant should be for the Direct Market editions.
Also, all of the covers for the issues of this title are by John Byrne; mentioning "by John Byrne" in the Item Description field is superfluous (he is listed in the Cover Artist field) and uninformative (there are no variants without Byrne artwork on the cover).
With all of the above in mind, here are my proposed edits:
#1/HC change Item Description to read "Book Market Edition"
#1HC 2nd print change Item Description to read "Book Market Edition"
#1HC 3rd print change Item Description to read "Book Market Edition"
#1/A change Item Description to read "Direct Market Edition Hardcover"; also delete the cover scan (it is supposed to look something like this scan at mycomicshop.com)
#1/A 2nd print change Item Description to read "Direct Market Edition Hardcover"
#1/A 3rd print change Item Description to read "Direct Market Edition Hardcover"#2/HC change item description to read "Book Market Edition"
#2/HC 2nd print change item description to read "Book Market Edition"#2/A change item description to read "Direct Market Hardcover"
#2/A 2nd print change item description to read "Direct Market Hardcover"A caveat to the above is that I assume that the 2nd and 3rd printings of these books are actually listed in their indicia as second and third printings. Marvel does have a habit of calling later printings "second edition, first printing" and "third edition, first printing" since they often update the files sent to the printer... So if somebody who has later printings of these books can check the indicia, that would be helpful.
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Good news!
On today's Livestream, Pete announced that CB is working on getting Philbo's order form imported into the database. The result is that we should soon be seeing the comics shipping from Philbo included in content updates.
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A long running complaint that I have had with ComicBase (dating all of the way back to our original message boards [may they rest in peace]) is that issues of DC's regular titles that received the "DC 100 Page Super Spectacular" banner in the 1970s have been double-listed. Each of those issues are listed under the regular DC title and under the title DC 100 Page Super Spectacular. This pertains specifically to Superman (1st Series) #245, Adventure Comics #416, Batman #238, Our Army at War #242, Flash (1st Series) #214, Superboy (1st Series) #185, and Superman (1st Series) #252 which are currently *also* listed as issues #7-13 of DC 100 Page Super Spectacular.
The title description for DC 100 Page Super Spectacular already lists out these double-listed issues, so deleting them from the DC 100 Page Super Spectacular title should be considered. We also now have the "Item Title" field (which we did not have when I first raised this concern), and it would be useful to put "DC 100 Page Super Spectacular #7" in the Item Title field for Superman (1st series) #245 (and so on...).
So, can we at long last take another look at deleting issues #7-13 of DC 100 Page Super Spectacular?
Also, the database lists a second print for issue #5 with a cover date of 11/1973. I believe that this is the facsimile edition that came out in 2001 (there was no month in the indcia IIRC... GCD indicates that it came out at the same time as 3/2001 cover dated issues and had a street date of 1/31/2001)
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24 minutes ago, Chris Vaughan said:
Batman #162 you have listed as being released 7/30
Peacemaker Presents #5 you have listed as being released 7/30
It is possible that they were solicited as coming out 7/30 and may currently have that listed as the street date in CB, but the fact remains those two issues haven't come out yet. (There has been some reporting that Batman 162 might not show up until October, in fact.)
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• New title in Books: Marvel & Disney: What If…?I think that this item reprints a bunch of recent comics. If I'm correct on that, then this title should be moved to the Comic Book category.
• New titles in Books: Tonight in Jungleland and Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run
These appear to be listings for the same book. One of them needs to be deleted.• New title in Comic Books: George R. R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Ante Up
Not sure what ComicBase's preferred style is, but usually I have seen George R.R. Martin's name in print without a space between the two R's. So should this be indexed as it is now, or should this really be George R.R. Martin Presents Wild Cards: Ante Up ? I suspect that the answer is yes.
(BTW I did a spot check and I am seeing that George R.R. Martin's name *usually* doesn't get a space between his initials when it appears in titles... although there are a couple cases where it does. Similar situation for "H.P. Lovecraft". So some standardization seems to be called for here.)• New title in Comic Books: Hawkman Omnibus by Geoff Johns , The
This title as written has an extra space before the comma. -
2 hours ago, Randall J. Paske said:
Sorry, I could have sworn I was looking at the August catalog, but apparently it was the July catalog where I saw them.
Ah, yes, I see them listed in the July catalog. It never occurred to me that a publisher might be in the July but not the August catalog... but for these smaller publishers, they might not have something scheduled for each month.
So I have added in Crusade and Devil's Due to the list. I have not seen anything that indicates that they are distributed by anybody other than Philbo, so for now I have marked them as Philbo exclusive. (As always, folks can ping me with corrections to that kind of info.)
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I just posted some thoughts on this topic for somebody who posted on the Atomic Avenue forum.
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1 hour ago, Randall J. Paske said:
Also, Crusade and Devil's Due are not in the list above but are both in the August Philbo catalog and have both published some notable titles (not sure if they're exclusive to Philbo).
I'm not seeing Crusade or Devil's Due in the August Philbo catalog.
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I know that Mike Hoffman was self-publishing this series (and other publications in a vein reminiscent of the old Warren mags) for a bunch of years.
He appears to be reprinting this title on a monthly or bi-monthly basis and distributing it via Lunar as part of the Massive indies collective. The new printings have updated cover date and price (compare this Nov 2020 version of Eyrie #1 to the 2025 version). I know that #4 was just solicited.
Unless there is additional info to come forward, I would suggest listing the 2025 Eyrie #1 as either Eyrie #1 (2nd print) or as Eyrie #1/A. I think it depends on whether the change in cover date and cover price still allows you to consider it to be a 2nd printing of the original issue or if those changes are enough to warrant its designation as a variant of the original issue. (I don't know if there are any changes in advertising content or anything like that, so my vote would be to designate these new releases as variants YMMV)
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I get the occasional book from Hermes Press (hoping to get their Art of George Wilson book soon).
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On 8/13/2025 at 5:34 PM, Gregory Hecht said:
An FYI:
On today's Livestream Pete indicated that HC has accounts with Lunar and PRH. So if there is a publisher that is exclusive to Philbo and is not carried by Lunar or PRH, their titles will probably not show up in the weekly updates right away. HC would be very dependent on users to submit info for those particular comics.
Above quote from an earlier forum thread.
If you collect comics from small publishers, I think that you have a golden opportunity to earn some submission points.
Here is a list of the publishers carried by Philbo Distribution as of August 2025. The publishers in RED TYPE are the ones that I believe are Philbo exclusive, and my suspicion is that Human Computing will be very dependent on user submissions for them unless or until they get an account with Philbo.
If you have information that I have incorrectly highlighted (or not) publishers in this list, please post here and I will get this list corrected.
10 TON PRESS
AC COMICS
AT COMICS
ADVENT COMICS
A KID AND A COMIC
ANTARCTIC PRESS
BLIND SQUIRREL COMICS
COMMITTED COMICS
CRUSADE COMICS
DEVIL'S DUE
DREN PRODUCTIONS
EDGE COMICS
FAIRSQUARE GRAPHICS
GET YOUR MEDZ
GROK! COMICS
HERMES PRESS
HOMEBREWED COMICS
KNUCKLE SUPPER STUDIOS
MIDNIGHT FACTORY
MONARCH COMICS
MONSTROUS BOOKS
ONIRIC COMICS
PHANTOM BLADE PRODUCTIONS
PHILBO PUBLISHING
ROGUE MATTER
SCRATCH COMICS
SECOND SIGHT PUBLISHING
SILVERLINE COMICS
SPERO
XION STUDIOS
ZENESCOPE**Philbo is this publisher's only 3rd party distributor; this publisher also ships direct to retailers
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• New book title: The Art of Keith Garvey: Garv Girls Covers
This should be indexed as Art of Keith Garvey, The: Garv Girls Covers-
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To clarify:
Are you saying that the issues are listed in your database but they have no UPC info in the UPC field?
Or are you saying that the issues are not listed in the database at all, but when you create entries for those issues a cover image appears?
If it is the latter scenario, then I have had a similar problem that has been appearing intermittently with my database, i.e., at least some of the new issues and new titles do not always appear in my database following a content update. To get around this, I have found the the following often works:
1. Go to File Tools --> Rebuild Lists
Check all of the boxes except for the "Rebuild pictures files list (slow)"2. Once the Rebuild Lists process has completed, run a content update on your database. (If you have already run the current content update, use the Shift key to force the re-download of the content update)
That usually does the trick for me.
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An FYI:
On today's Livestream Pete indicated that HC has accounts with Lunar and PRH. So if there is a publisher that is exclusive to Philbo and is not carried by Lunar or PRH, their titles will probably not show up in the weekly updates right away. HC would be very dependent on users to submit info for those particular comics.
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25 minutes ago, James H. Dunlop said:
Another related question. Are books like these entered when solicited, or when actually shipped? (Speaking of the collected books, as it was indicated that copies aren't usually ordered, unlike the "floppies".
Often these books are entered into the database when solicited, but the solicitation information can often be incomplete or incorrect (at least insofar as the details needed for accurate cataloging in ComicBase). I think that is what happened with the titles for a bunch of the DC Finest books.
However, there are some collected editions that get solicited but which somehow get missed for entry into the database. For example, I think Wolverine Omnibus vol. 4 and 5 were missing from the database, I went ahead and submitted them when it seemed clear that it wasn't going to happen otherwise. It isn't clear to me how these get missed since they are from a major mainstream publisher and get solicited through the usual channels... but it does sometimes happen 🤷♂️
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24 minutes ago, James H. Dunlop said:
On the collected edition side of things, how is it best to catalog the DC Finest paperback reprint series? For most of them that have been issued so far, the full title is listed, but for the longer title names (JLA, JSA and LSH in particular) the first title is only listed under the "DC Finest: <team name>" style. With a second JLA title out this past week, and a second JSA out as well, should it be listed under the current umbrella title, or separately with the first one being updated with a full title? Note that none of the titles have issue numbers, so that complicates the issue (no pun intended.) There's been two Batman and Wonder Woman titles; both have been entered as separate titles.
Note, the second JSA title is formally - DC Finest: Justice Society of America: The Plunder of the Psycho-Pirate. Certainly one of the longest titles in the database! (Out of curiosity, do you know what is the longest title in the database?)
The most recent content update *should* have standardized this to DC Finest: <team or character>: <collection title>
(see here for an example) There are only a couple of DC Finest volumes where the format is DC Finest: <team or character> (the Metamorpho volume is one that I know of that apparently does not have an additional collection title).
I pinged Mark about this on Slack a week or two ago and I think that all or most of these were fixed in the recent content updates. Going forward I am hopeful that these titles will be handled appropriately as new ones are solicited. -
23 minutes ago, Randall J. Paske said:
American Comic Book Chronicles: 1940-1945 was added as a new title in the Comic Books category. This is a history of comics, not a comic itself. It belongs in the Books category.
Not only that, it is a duplication of a title that is already in the Books category.
As it turns out, the title in the Books category needs to be changed from American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1940-1944 to American Comic Book Chronicles, The: 1940-1944The newly added title in the Comic Book category should be deleted.
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If you are talking about periodical comics, there may be some gaps since HC was still maintaining a large monthly order with Diamond until very recently. I am pretty sure that they have accounts with Lunar and PRH, not sure if they have one with Philbo.
HC doesn’t normally get many collected editions and they don’t get crowdfunded items unless and until they show up in the normal direct market distribution channels. They are very dependent on CB users to submit info on those items to the database.
Can you list some examples of things that are missing from the database?
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• new Comic title: Facing Feelings: Inside The World of Raina Telgemeir
Is this a comic or a book? It is not entirely clear to me, but since this is an upcoming title we might have to wait for the actual release to verify the type of contents.• new Comic title: Marvel X-Men Guidebook, The
Is this a comic or a book? The front cover only lists a writer, so I am suspicious that it might not be primarily comics inside.• new Comic title: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (paperback series)
I can't tell whether this is a comic or a book. But based on the $5.50 cover price and 1993 cover date, it looks to me like it might be a prose MMPB. -
On 7/30/2025 at 5:37 PM, Gregory Hecht said:
New Book title: All the Strange, Strange Creatures Volume I
If this is a numbered series, should actually be listed as All the Strange, Strange Creatures #1/HC ?New Book title: Eighth Doctor Soucrebook, The
Note the spelling error. This should actually be Eighth Doctor Sourcebook, TheThese two items escaped the 8/6/2025 content update.
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Have you gone to File Tools —> Rebuild Lists ?
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I downloaded the new content update a little while ago and had no troubles. So I would recommend to folks that they give the new update a try. If you have problems, email support as suggested above by Mark.
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Pete's latest announcement on Slack regarding this issue was shortly after 6pm Eastern time and he recommends that people hold off on downloading this week's content update for now. They are aware of that the issue with the content update persists and they are working to fix it.
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The fixed content download that was posted Thursday 7/31/2025 appears to have only corrected the ability of the update to operate correctly, the data corrections noted above haven't been done yet.
In addition to the above correction, I am also noting the following:• new Book title: Second Doctor Soucebook, The
Should be indexed as Second Doctor Sourcebook, The [restoring the missing "r" in "Sourcebook"]• new Book title: Tenth Doctor Soucebook, The
Should be indexed as Tenth Doctor Sourcebook, The [restoring the missing "r" in "Sourcebook"]• new Book title: Twelfth Doctor Soucebook, The
Should be indexed as Twelfth Doctor Sourcebook, The [restoring the missing "r" in "Sourcebook"]
Afterlife with Archie (Magazine)
in Content and Corrections
Posted
The Afterlife with Archie (Magazine) title is listed as a Magazine title. My understanding (please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't any of issues of this title) is that this is magazine sized, but a large percentage of the contents are comics from reprinted from the Afterlife with Archie comic book title with additional "special features" included. With this in mind, is this better suited for the Comic Book category or the Magazine category?
Also, the database lists issues #1 through #4 plus and issue #7. Does issue #7 exist?