AstroComics is a mess

[Joel Ekis]

https://atomicavenue.com/atomic/series/3048/1/AstroComics

This was a free giveaway from American Airlines from 1968 to 1977.
There are multiple years of issues, none have an indica that I know of.
Some years there are multiple releases.

Comic Vine has a great list of all 20 known issues. Can you get the dB updated with all the variations?

I can provide the stories and cover photo for the oldest:
https://comicvine.gamespot.com/astro-comics-196801/4000-313842/

Thanks!

[Mark J. Castaneda]

how is comic vine numbering these issues? For example, how are they getting #196901? Is this printed on the issue somewhere (back cover)?

[Joel Ekis]

I looked over the #196801 issue.  There is nothing related to that number on the comic anywhere.

All I saw was a Copyright notice for Harvey comics with the year 1968.  So, I think Comic Vine just took the year and appended a 2 digit sequence number after it.

It's not from the comic itself.

[Joel Ekis]

Is this going to be cleaned up in a future update?

[Mark J. Castaneda]

on the covers, what does the color number near the top right mean? Any idea?

[Joel Ekis]

As best as I can tell, they represent different versions for a given year.  They might be variants, but I do not know if the internal content is the same or different.  Overstreet mentions notes on a year like "Three Different Versions", but gives one description for the year and a single price for all issues from that year.  That implies they are variants.  But, I only have one issue from 1968 so cannot say.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Joel Ekis
typo

[Michael R. Wagner]

The Grand Comics Database lists them here:  https://www.comics.org/series/26711/

You might consider using the issue numbering as recorded in the GCD.  It's basically the year of distribution, followed by a dash and then a sequential number for each issue.

r/

Mike

[Mark J. Castaneda]

Gonna have to overhaul the listings for this title with the next content update. thanks for the GCD Link.