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When is an Annual not an Annual?


Fred Slota

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Apparently, when it was released at a time when there was no ongoing series, so get's its own Title.

 

"Moon Knight Annual", "She-Hulk Annual" and "Wolverine Annual" all contain variants of a single issue each, that each are obviously an Annual.  They are part of an 8-issue arc with 5 other annuals that, being part of onoing serieses, were entered as annuals.  Should these issues be re-classified?

I'm not sure what the indicia say in these cases.  I'm not sure how I feel if the indicia goes against my gut...

 

A quick search finds there are 590 entries across titles with "Annual" in their title.  A few are entered as annuals, but most are entered as regular issues.  Some are entered with issue numbers as years.   There might be others to reconsider in that list.

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I am pretty sure that for the three Marvel titles that you list by name, they were called "Annual" in their indicia.  I would have to go back and check, but I don't think that the "Acts of Evil" annuals were an ongoing connected storyline but instead more of a theme (i.e., various Marvel characters facing off against foes that they had not fought in the past).  

It is not surprising that there are a lot of titles in the database with "Annual" in the title, especially since the database includes UK comics.  There are, admittedly, some oddities that have cropped up over the years.  For instance, I am guessing that X-Files Annual 2015 got its own title since it came out with a cover date of July 2015, between the end of the X-Files Season 10 series and the launch of the X-Files Season 11 series.  

In regards to issue numbering, there was a period of a few years where Marvel stopped sequentially numbering their annuals and used the year (either all four digits of the year or the last two digits with an apostrophe) as the issue identifier.  In those cases, the database uses the year as the issue number (which is the correct approach for those particular issues because that is what the publisher did).  

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First and foremost, I was making the argument that the issues might/should get reclassified as Anl.  The titles might or might not get renamed as a side effect of the scrutiny, but the status of the issues was my main point.

 

I didn't remember the story, either, but I think there were notations in the Notes or Storylines fields of at least 1 of the 8 that indicated Acts of Evil, Part 4, or some such.

 

And also, I wasn't faulting the year-as-issue-number concept, I'm aware that's how it sometimes happens, but rather I was bringing it up as evidence against the Annual-that's-not-an-Anl, for if the issues in these Annual-titled 'serieses' were published yearly and numbered by the year, than might they not be 'Anl' and not 'regular' issues?

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  • 3 weeks later...

Rephrasing my question/suggestion

 

Moon Knight Annual title should remain as entered, but the issues #1, 1/A and 1/B should be reidentified as Anl 1, Anl 1/A and Anl 1/B.

She-Hulk Annual title should remain as entered, but the issues #1 and 1/A should be reidentified as Anl 1 and Anl 1/A.

Wolverine Annual title should remain as entered, but the issues #1 and 1/A should be reidentified as Anl 1 and Anl 1/A.

 

 

There are other instances of Titles with "Annual" in their title where the included issues might also be better classified as Annuals rather than Regular issues. 

 

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