When did polybagged become a variant?

[Fred Slota]

Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic about this, but my mind is blown!

 

So, for multiple reasons, I've been nearly 7 years since doing a merge new books with the full archive, and coupled with the new version of ComicBase, I'm doing a full walkthrough of everything.  The ability to scroll through only my owned issues is great, but I missed something for a while because of it.

I'm finally in the B's and when I hit Batman Adventures #6, and I was passing over the fact that my issue is still bagged, while the official scan was ubagged, I noticed that the notes indicated that the Trading card was missing.  That made me curious, so I changed the setting to see all issues, and lo and behold, there was a separate entry for the sealed issue, complete with scan!

 

When did that happen?

 

I remember bringing this suggestion up and having forum conversations multiple times over many years.  I just dug through the archived forum and found a thread from basically 2 years ago on this subject, where it seemed that this was still not going to be a thing.

Now I have to look at those first 10 boxes all over again...

[Fred Slota]

Soooooo, can we revisit the case of Detective Comics #700-SC?

 

The issue comes with a removable cardstock outer wrapper.  There is still only a single entry for this book, and the scan is still the front of the removable outer wrapper.  The actual issue has a cover image of the face of Ra's al Ghul with minimal additional dressing or badging, and so is different from the other entries for issue 700 variants.

[Fred Slota]

Okay, let's get practical here.  How are we handling this going forward?

 

I propose the following for entering new issues:

1) If the bag has a unique UPC, it is entered as a single variant issue separate from the unbagged issues (regardless of if the included issue is a single, known cover or a random selection from multiple covers)

2) If the bag contains an unknown random cover, it is entered as a single variant issue separate from the unbagged issues.

3) If the bag contains a known, fixed cover (either opaque but with only one cover that is bagged, or transparent and the cover can be identified), it is entered as a separate printing of the unbagged issue.

4) If the bag contains an unknown, random insert, the bagged variant or printing is entered only once (regardless of how many random inserts exist).

5) If the bag contains a known insert, the bagged variant or printing is entered as multiple separate printings for each of the possible known inserts.  The cover scan should show the insert.

 

I think this covers all possible scenarios with the current system.

[Fred Slota]

In my opinion, support for this, let's call it 'condition', should have been handled differently.

The bagged issue wants to have a separate entry from the unbagged issue, but wants to be related to the issue number.  The bagged issue in some/many/most cases wants to have a separate cover scan from the unbagged issue.

 

This shouldn't be handled as a separate issue type (regular, annual, ash, etc.), as there are bagged regular, annuals and ashes.

This shouldn't be handled as a separate variant (A, B, Special Cover), as there are bagged known variants.

This shouldn't be handled as a separate printing, as there are cases where the particular issue does end up with separate printings.

 

In my opinion, this should have been its own separate, mutually exclusive option with its own cover scan file name identifier.

This would have allowed for X-Force #1 to have had 6 bagged variants (1-A-Bag through 1-F-Bag), 5 unbagged but with card variants (1-A through 1-E), and 3 unbagged without card printings (1 through 1-3).