Fred Slota

Two Livestream suggestions... 1) Re-re-re-request a tour of what it looks like from the editor's point of view when they process additions/corrections/new cover scans. 2) Demonstrations of cover attributes... Standard, wide, wraparound, gatefold, Ptych, Binding types, special covers...

Dealing with names is something that is being worked on. With the recent addition of a full unicode(?) alphabet, so ability to use many foreign alphabets, diacriticals, etc, they've been working on standardizing spelling, accenting and various other multiple naming. I'm not sure if the final form is to have a in-program list of aliases backing up a single, definitive form of a name, or if that is something to be cleaned up in the mothership's editorial. Feedback is a good thing. Ideas is a good thing.

Either. Keep in mind, I believe if the software is set, and attempts to download new pictures, it can notice that the directory no longer exists and will remake the directory. In other words, deleting the folder(s) doesn't prevent future pictures from being downloaded; you need to change settings to prevent any from returning.

Ummm, delete them, then change settings to prevent the ongoing downloading of new images. The program is perfectly capable of operating without pictures.

Where's Waldo style very busy wraparound double-gatefold cover. The variants each have a different character hidden amidst the others. Artist-signed, artist-distressed covers. Comes with a certificate of authenticity for both the signature and the ripping/folding. Or maybe the artist signs by scratching their name on the cover. Crowd-sourced authentication. Signed numbered issues with number CoAs, but the books ship with randomly included CoAs. Ooops all covers. I don't mean like a collected book of cover reprints. I mean, a book binding standard single-panel cover-stock covers, with internal indicia and back cover ads. The variant has the cover intentionally attached inversely; so the front shows what the normal issue has as the inside back ad, and the normal cover is instead in the inside back. Sketch cover drawn in one-time (non-reversable) invisible ink.

No prob.

Actually, that's not the solution you think it is, looking deeper... I do weekly updates. I do yearly installs, starting each year with that year's fresh picture install discs. According to the backup I made 12/27/2022 before I did that year's upgrade fresh install, the pictures were flipped. These were almost 3 years old issues at this point; it has probably been flipped for that long. My current official scans show the reversed images, with file timestamps of 12/28/2022, when I did the install. I just renamed that title's directory and redownloaded the scans, and the scans are now correct. This appears to have been officially corrected in the last 8 months. Weekly updates wouldn't have dealt with this, yes? That's why we have these weekly Cover Scan Correction posts, for the manual modifications needed for those who want complete accuracy. Not that I had checked before my post, but while there is a posting of a manual cover change of Aggretsuko covers, it wasn't for these issues.

A little mixy-uppy I don't know how they match up to the Cover Artists and exclusivities, but at least in the case of #1/C and #1/E, the cover scans show UPC codes that show they are swapped for their entries. The entry for 1/C has a UPC that ends 131, and should have the mostly blank cover, while the entry for 1/E has a UPC that ends in 151, and should have the split background/split 3D head cover. Additionally, I am holding the 131 book, and the nearly white cover is a cardstock cover that is fully blank on the back and on both insides. This cardstock cover is apparently over a standard 1/A cover, complete with a UPC ending 111 and standard indicia on the inside front cover.

Did I notice a new stage of reporting, so possibly a new stage of processing, when it came to checking for new pictures? I think I saw it giving feedback something along the lines of "checking if Title/issue needs picture" before it started downloading 2,922 ComicBook pictures. I don't recall noticing this stage of messages before.

Yes, that's what I was referring to, and yes, I am aware of why it has the double dash... I posted about the need for the colon that produced the third dash that caused that move.

Ah, the rare double dash... Actually impressive how many there have been. Looks like that's the 56th title with multiple consecutive dashes.

Variant covers on the free solicitations listing? I asked my store when I saw it, and he said they hadn't been told that this was happening. The issues get given away for free. They get n issues for free for the store. But, if they want more than n, they have to pay for the additional copies.

Just completed the weekly update, and I see this got half updated. Still needs a ":" after Dark.

The title, by the indicia, is "What If...? Dark: Loki", so needs both an ellipsis and a colon. Probably needs to be paid attention to with future titles as well...

Excerpts from https://www.tonerbuzz.com/blog/how-many-books-are-published-each-year/ "According to a study conducted by Google Books, there have been 129,864,880 books published since the invention of Gutenberg's printing press in 1440." And that's probably not counting printings, different editions, different publishers. "So, how many books are published every year? The answer is more complicated than you’d think. Figures range from 500,000 to one million books published annually. However, if you include self-published authors you’re looking at close to 4 million new book titles published each year." What happens when people's attentions shift from translating archives of periodicals to scraping publisher, library and bookseller's records?

Noticed after update. Thanx.

Apparently, this was pre-entered as "Doctor Who: Doom"

Well, Pete just added "Ode to Buc-Ee's" from Heroes Con in Charlotte, so I'm guessing "no".

Heads up on the upcoming "Contest of Chaos" event - I think at least some of these will be one-off Annuals without ongoing series to attach to, similar to the "Acts of Evil" event.

Had accidentally left our a closing parenthesis, (I.[CustomField1] LIKE "Grimm Fairy%" Running Find throws a SQL Error message. Might be worth parsing for parenthesis matching and throwing your own, less scary, more informative, error message.

I'm used to this in man other contexts. Single click to place the cursor, double click to select the word, triple click to select the whole thing. Makes it easier to select and delete to start a new search.

Don't judge me... I type into the Find Bar "Dirty Pair Sim" and find nothing. Because, I have to type "Dirty Pair The Sim", because the official title is "The Dirty Pair: Sim Hell', and is alphabetically mangled into "Dirty Pair, The: Sim Hell" This is not helpful

In the Find search bar, I can type "xmen" and the list shows all the "X-Men" titles, searching around the '-'. But, if I type "batman vs r", it won't find "Batman vs. Robin" "batman vs" and it can find, but apparently, the '.' is significant in a way that the '-' is not. Is this by design? Is this a mistake?

Yes, I'm well aware. I was hoping to avoid having to do all adjustments for 0.01% improvements in cover scan reporting. Publisher directory structure differences between the big 4 and the rest I did from the start. '#' directory also implemented from the start. angled apostrophe -> flat apostrophe. strip diacriticals as I find them ':'. '/', etc. -> '-' as I find them Initial "A ", "An ", "The " move to ", A ", ", An ", ", The " in front of ":" move to ", A ", ", An ", ", The " in front of " (" move to ", A", ", An", ", The" at the end

Yes, but that doesn't help with accessing the directory structure of coverscans. Oh well.