Back in 2019, Chris Siefert sold his long-running ComicBookDB.com domain and all the associated data to the folks at ComicBook.com. They clearly bought the site for the hugely impressive and massively cross-referenced database that Siefert had designed and was populated by thousands of users over the course of at least a decade and a half. My thought at the time was that they would put a new front end on the whole thing and develop it into a pay service of some kind, where the functionality would be about the same but you had to drop five bucks a month (or whatever) to be able to record your collection. We've made it to 2023 2024 now, though, and they don't appear to have done anything with it. I don't see any evidence of parent company Pop Culture Media having used the database or any of the data. They were eventually bought by Viacom in the late 2020/early 2021 timeframe, and Viacom/Parmount saw a lot of internal shuffling last year, so I'm not sure if there's anyone who knows they still own that. (Joe Blackmon is currently listed as the President and Founder, but in looking through the Way Back Machine, he's not mentioned at all; and the founding and original directing duties were the sole responsbility of Shannon Terry, so I'm not sure what that's about.)
In any event, when ComicBookDB.com shut down, I had to find a new way to catalog my comic collection. The Grand Comics Database offered an option to import your data, but that didn't work well for me since it was limited to only doing 500 issues at a time, and I had over 20,000 to go through. I tried the CLZ Comics app for a while, but the data intergrity was awful; there was no consistency to title naming structures and adding new issues was only possible within the app itself -- a desktop option is only available for viewing your collection. The creator data in Comic Book Realm seems scattershot, at best; it seems to be more concerned with selling and buying comics than cataloging them. I tried just using Google Sheets, but with as many entries as I need, it bogs down almost to the point of unusability, particularly in mobile.
In going back and forth between different systems, and acquiring at least a few thousand more comics than I had in 2019, I'm thinking I need to start over from scratch. As much as I'd like to just upload a CSV or something simple, I found more than a few instances where entries in my spreadsheet had gotten duplicated for one reason or another. And if the data set I have isn't accurate to begin with, I'm better off starting over from scratch.
So I'm asking for recommendations. What are you using to keep track of your comic book collection? What do you like and not like about it? Ease of use for input is of strong interest for me, since I figure I'm in the 25-30,000 issue ballpark now. My collection does have a lot of Marvel and DC, but there's a hefty chunk that includes independent comics as well. Stuff from Kickstarers to mini-comics I picked up from someone tabling at a small convention; my collection is a bit all-over-the-map. The more independent comics that are already logged in the system, the better! Portability is a key for me as well. If/when I'm at a convention or at shop looking for back issues, I will absolutely need to pull out my phone to validate whether or not I have a given issue.
But let me know what you're using! I'm half-tempted to try to design my own database just for my collection at this point, and I would really rather take advantage of someone else's database expertise to craft something truly useable.
2 comments:
I have the feeling we will never get the ideal, perfect system for comics collectors. The target audience is just not big enough. So we will always have to deal with some weaknesses and disadvantages.
I'm using Grand Comics Database (comics.org) for my collection. It's not as huge as your collection, but - what makes the task quite difficult - contains an eclectic mix of books in German and English, from publishers big and small across the world. What I like about GCD is that they aim to cover everything (no restrictions regarding origin country, format, genre or age), so I can find almost everything and add it to my collection. The best thing is that - if I choose to be a contributor - I can always add new comics myself and fill the gaps.
Other advantages:
- Non-commercial, community-based
- It's been around for a long time and I have confidence that it will stay for a while, too
- The collection feature (my.comics.org) is simple and easy-to-use
- good search feature
Disadvantages:
- Quite a learning curve when you start using it (e.g. how do they handle all the different volumes, series, reprints and re-collections of a series like, say, Daredevil?)
- No digital comics (yet?)
- not really ideal for mobile devices (but manageable)
- lots of books are indexed only rudimentarily (but you can always change that by contributing yourself)
I'd imagine GCD could meet most of your needs - the biggest hurdle may be the data import (I did not try that myself)
Thanks. I'm honestly half-tempted to scrap my existing data and start over from scratch anyway as I think trying to move and transfer it around over the past few years has resulted in some data integrity issues.
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