Fred Slota
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Posts posted by Fred Slota
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No prob.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Ah, the rare double dash...
Actually impressive how many there have been. Looks like that's the 56th title with multiple consecutive dashes.
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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.
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Just completed the weekly update, and I see this got half updated. Still needs a ":" after Dark.
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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...
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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?
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Noticed after update. Thanx.
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Apparently, this was pre-entered as "Doctor Who: Doom"
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Well, Pete just added "Ode to Buc-Ee's" from Heroes Con in Charlotte, so I'm guessing "no".
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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Yes, but that doesn't help with accessing the directory structure of coverscans.
Oh well.
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Working on modification to my Hole Finder project. Biting the bullet and adding a VBA to the Excel to include cover scans.
Is there a way that I can copy ComicTitles.AlphabetizedTitle into, say, CustomField1 with a Quick Change or some such, so I can export it in an Item Checklist Report, so that I don't have to try and programmatically recreate all the text mangling rules?
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Now that CB has done an overhaul on the spelling of creators, here's a suggestion to throw it all out... 😉
Add a new Creator table to include bio information about the creators, and replace all references internally with ID numbers (which will shrink the database).
Could add birth info, nationality, AKA list (which would allow automatic corrections for misspelling/misaccenting) school info, awards received, convention appearances.
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It's early, but that's the best time to get the wheels rolling. I have four thoughts on large-scale projects that could be undertaken for the next-next ComicBase offering.
1) Making the hard changes to finally remove the deprecated features and non-standard Titling and Issue assignments.
Deprecated Issue Variations.
Non-standard Titles ((Walt Disney's...), Limited Series vs. Series 2, "Moon Knight Annual", etc.)
Issues that should be in separate/different titles.
"Yeah, it's wrong, but it's been that way for years."
"There are too many of these items on sale in Atomic Avenue."
Take the time to plan a path to clean up all these legacy issues. Maybe create a new, second set of Title and Issue fields, Title2 and Issue2. Search by both, list with both. Allow the user to choose which set to use for viewing and reports, while officially using the original form on Atomic Avenue for a year or two. Then, after a period of supporting both old and new designations, rename Title/Issue to Title (old)/Issue (old) and rename Title2/Issue2 to Title/Issue.
2) Overhaul the database structure, and protect the integrity/consistency of the data.
2a) The current structure has 2 levels of information, Titles and Issues. This structure is too flat; we should have more. A given Issue Type and Number has the same Artist and Writer, regardless of Variation or Printing. It has the same plot description and appearances. These fields should not be repeating over and over. This introduces bloat, and delay, and opportunities for data inconsistencies. Variations and Printings have different Cover Artists, have different cover attributes. These fields should be separate for each individual entry.
2b) Additionally, existing fields need to be scrutinized and adjusted for basic, separate data types. The storyline field needs to be split; it currently holds individual Anthology titles, single-book titles, and multi-book Arc titles, as well as part numbers and possibly total issue counts. The current ideal for Item Description contains duplicate Cover Artist and circulation information, as well as cover paper, ornamentation description, picture description and several other information types.
2c) The recent overhaul of creator names, spurred by the introduction of support for the full range of international characters, is a great start. Two things. First, consistency/regularization of information across all the other fields should also be carried out. Creator Names are also entered in Item Description and Notes fields. Common cover styles should use consistent wording/spelling. Storyline Arcs should be spelled identically. In some cases, this can be helped by separating information into their own fields. And second, after cleaning them up, systems should be put in place to maintain them. CB should have a master list of official names, and should periodically (ideally weekly before pushing updates, but other periods are acceptable) vet any new names for correctness. Similar steps should be performed, either automatically, or manually, on all other fields.
3) Explore expansions into dealing with groups of comic books.
ComicBase is great when your focus is on either an individual issue or on your entire collection. At the issue level, you can identify it, get a description of it, see a price history, research a sales history, and purchase or sell it to anyone around the globe. At the collection level, you can generate reports of all kinds. Owned or wanted, For Sale or Purchased. Different amounts of data.
But, with all this information and all these tools, I think there is a weird hole in functionality, and that hole can roughly be described by attempting to do tasks that revolve around groups of books. Comic books are not individual, stand-alone, one-and-done things. There are continuing storylines. There are repeat appearances. There are common creators. There are related covers. And we are comic book collectors. There are people who want to have complete storylines, read things in order, see their favorite characters, support their favorite creators, have complete sets. And ComicBase is very bad at supporting this.
How many issues are in this series? Do I have all the issues of this series? Was there a preceding issue/prequel story? Is there a continuing story?
How many issues are there in this Story Arc? Do I have all the issues of this storyline? Were there Tie-ins? Do I have all of them? What order do I read them in?
Which issue that I own have related covers? Do I have the related covers?
For this title, I have several issues and TPBs. Which issues or TPBs should I get to finish the series without overlapping?
Some of this requires information that is not being collected. Reading order. Storyline count. Useful TPB component identification.
Some of this requires information that is not collected in a useful form. Storyline part number.
Some of this requires information be maintained consistently. Spelling, typographic standards.
Some of this requires information that can be computed in the database. Issue count.
4) Hole Finder.
How can we be 20+ years in on a database to support comic collectors and it doesn't include a tool to find holes? Who doesn't want to finish a whole series, complete a run?
I see this as a special case of #3, above. To recognize a hole, the program has to have a concept of the group. Titles, even limited series, are just a heap of records. If you don't have a concept of 'This is an 8 issue miniseries', then you can't have the awareness that 'You are missing an issue; do you want to get it?'
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I understand the simplicity of listing search results in a predictable order.
But let's be honest here. If someone starts typing into the Search Bar "X-For", which is more likely: that they want to go to the first entry, "X-Force", the series that ended in 2002, or that they want to go to the sixth entry, "X-Force (6th Series)" the current series, which isn't even visible in the shown search results, and requires you to shuffle through the list?
I suggest adding some optional functionality to search result listings, opt in/out by programmable setting... Here are some possible
- For titles with (xxx Series) or (Vol x), report search results in reverse order
- If the first result is a title with multiple Series/Vol, and the last one is published in the Current Year or Present, list that Title first.
- Primary Sort all results first by Current Year/Present vs. all other years, then Alphabetical by Title.
Cursed Variant cover ideas
in News & General Discussion
Posted
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.