Where are the pictures?

[Fred Slota]

Why are there no images for some current issues, neither final or preliminary, for some current issues like Detective Comics 1017 or Justice League Odyssey 16, when there are images for some later issues?  And these aren't obscure titles...

I was going to provide details about my version, and update times, and logs, and manual download attempts, but then realized that they're not on AtomicAvenue, either.

[Mark J. Castaneda]

In general, wait for the latest content update for the week to come out, especially for comics coming out on their release week. We just added the covers for the issues you noted with this week's content update which you can download now.

[Fred Slota]

Sorry I wasn't clearer.  I understand that full art probably wouldn't be available until they came out.  I was wondering why there was no preliminary artwork on common titles that had artwork for future issues...

[Mark J. Castaneda]

We don't always get provided the prelim art at the time we input the data for future releases.

[Fred Slota]

It seemed to me that there were multiple issues that came out this week that didn't have prelim artwork already.  Both my examples were specifically chosen because they had preliminary artwork for subsequent as-yet unreleased issues.  They solicit what, 2-3 months ahead?  You push updates weekly.  I suppose it is possible, but do you get gaps like this often, on major titles, from major publishers?

[Mark J. Castaneda]

Yes. Not all covers are provided at the time the early solicitation info is released.

[Fred Slota]

Again, "at the time early solicitation info is released" is what, 2, 3 months ahead of when the book actually hits the stand.  That's what, 7, 11 ComicBase update cycles after that.  If not provided at solicitation, are covers, if only preliminary, not provided at some later point, and so able to be pushed in any of the later update cycles, so that by the time a book hits the stand, a cover image would be available in ComicBase?

[Mark J. Castaneda]

if no preliminary cover is available at the time we input a future release info into the Master Database, we just wait for the actual cover to get in our hands and roll it into the next available content update. Hope that makes sense.

[Fred Slota]

So, if they're initially late, that's it for 2-3 months?

Would it be possible to add to your weekly process to check if any of these future issues that missed prelims the first time around are now available?

[Mark J. Castaneda]

no...we don't want to back track for a prelim cover if it becomes available later on. We'd rather have the real cover when it becomes available.

[Fred Slota]

Obviously, I would prefer the real cover over a preliminary or no cover, but I, for one, would rather have a preliminary cover over no cover.