Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children was a comic book

[Michael Allen]

Can we move Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children back to comics from books?  Along the spectrum from comics through to illustrated prose, this title was on the side of comics. Also, since it was formatted, sold and accepted as a comic, the TPB denomination doesn’t work and becomes overly complicated since there were actual trade paperback collections of the issues.

[Steven L. Dasinger]

I have looked at some of these and they are definitely text stories with illustrations. If you removed all the illustrations, you could read the story without any problem.

Where they stay in Books or get moved to Magazines (the only two options) is a question for the editors.

If left in books, they are not TPB and should probably be changed to Staple 1 - Staple 30.

PS I am not finding any indication of these being collected in to books. That doesn't mean they don't exist but the major sites (Amazon, MyComicShop, Mile High Comics, GCD) don't have then listed.

 

[Gregory Hecht]

During yesterday's Livestream, @Peter R. Bickford was asked about this title specifically.  He indicated that it may need to be revisited and get moved to magazines.  

[Randall J. Paske]

Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children was published by a comic book publisher and shares physical properties with comic books (standard comic book size and construction), and I personally file it among my comics for ease of storage. But it consists of text stories with illustrations, like standard storybooks. It does not combine or mix words and pictures in the way that a comic story does. The illustrations also do not form a silent narrative. They just illustrate random scenes of the stories. As with titles like Who's Who and The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, the ComicBase editors decided that "not actual comics" publications like these are technically not Comic Books and need to go under Magazines or Books. Given that, I think Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children is better classified as a magazine than as a book. Those issues are not TPBs, which have a little more heft. But I'm not sure what to call them.

I have found a number of other titles that look, outwardly, like comics, but which actually contain text and illustrations that, while they complement each other, do not constitute comics. Specifically, most of the titles published by Caliber under the Tome Press imprint look like standard floppy comics on the outside but don't contain any comics. (I have found one Tome title so far that actually had comics inside. I forget what it was.)  I've been reporting these to Support as I run into them, and leaving it to them to determine where they get moved in the database. These have included The Donnelly Tragedy, The Absurd Art of J.J. Grandeville, Plague, and A Modest Proposal. I also reported The Vampire Companion from Innovation.

Despite being responsible for some items getting moved, I can buy an argument that all of these things could still be classified as comic books even without containing comics. They're all published by comics publishers, they all look like comics on the outside, and they all fit into standard comic sleeves and boxes. I'm keeping my own copies filed with my comics, not separating them out as pseudo-comics. But the editors' current ruling is that if they don't contain comics, they don't belong in the Comic Books category of ComicBase, and I'm reporting such items as I find them for the sake of consistency.

I also keep standard-floppy-comic-sized magazines like Amazing Heroes and Musings filed among my comics, despite the distinctions in the database.
 

[Douglas W. McCratic]

Wow....just....wow.  What a mess this title became. 

I personally prefer that it be left as a comic but I also understand why it was moved away from that format.  What I don't understand is how it became a book instead of a magazine.  "TPB" doesn't work at all and now there are deluxe editions thrown in to make it extra confusing.  If I recall correctly, it was published monthly and was generally on time more than any other books of the era.

 

[Walt Grogan]

Here's the problem with comic-sized books and magazines not being typed as comics... if you are Adding by Barcode and you scan a comic-sized non-comic, it will destroy the Save list when finished. If you're scanning 50 or more books when this happens, it's incredibly frustrating. That said, I'm not advocating for the type that should be applied to Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children (heck, I don't know off the top of my head if it has a barcode) rather I'm indicating what can happen if a comic-sized non-comic is in the middle of the pile of comics. If would be great if Add By Barcode could reject anything that's not the first scanned type or at least indicate the type of a scanned item so it could be removed.

I mention this because switching something from comic to magazine or book or vice-versa can have consequences.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Walt Grogan
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