Unreleased?

[Fred Slota]

Is there a reliable field that indicates if an issue is actually published vs. future solicitation?  Is CoverDate reliable?

[Gregory Hecht]

There is no such field.  Many comics have a cover date that is at least one month ahead of the actual release date.  And many times a delayed comic still gets the same cover date that it would have received if it were released on time.  

If a ComicBase entry has an image associated with it that is not a preliminary image, that is fairly good indicator that the item has been released.  But the converse is not necessarily true.  Items that have a preliminary image or no image at all are not necessarily unreleased.  A common example of this would be trade paperback and hardcover collected editions, as the Human Computing offices typically don't order those and they rely heavily on user submissions for those items.  

[Adam Sternberg]

Street Date should be a good indication of what Fred is looking for (that's the calendar date a book is released, not to be confused w/ Cover Date).  However, I've often seen that when an issue is delayed, that field doesn't get updated, so it's only about 95% accurate, I'd say.