I mentioned back in June that I had recently returned to using ComicBase as a way to catalog my collection. It's had some substantial improvements since I'd last used it in the early 2000s. (I just double-checked; I still have the physical manual to ComicBase 5, which was released in 2000.) Partially because of that and partially because of what I do differently, I'm setting this database up to be a more functional research tool.
The basic use of such a comic book database like this is pretty simple and straight-forward: to track which comics I have and, as a secondary consideration, which comics I want to look for. Theoretically, a basic list or Excel file would be sufficient in many cases, but that does get a bit tricky when you're considering alternate versions of the same issue or multiple series with the same title. Differentiating those can be done in a variety of different ways, but those could vary quite a bit depending on the publisher and the time period. Do the covers use different artwork, are the cover prices different, did they come out on different dates, do they have different publishers... So to account for all those variations, you need to expand the amount of data you need to track for each issue, and those Excel files can start getting unwieldly and downright ineffecient pretty quickly.
I don't think I need to get any extended explanations on all of that. So let's get to the research angle.
As I'm working on something, I might want to reference a story point I nominally recall, but couldn't pinpoint off the top of my head. But I can use the database to hunt down the issue in question. "I think it was the first story to introduce [character X]." "I'm pretty sure it was drawn by [specific artist]." "I know it occurred right after [some other storyline]." Instead of having to rifle through long boxes trying to track down a specific issue and relying on a half-faded memory, I can do the tracking work digitally and only go to the long boxes (or bookshelves) once I've figured out what precisely I'm looking for. That's almost inevitably going to be a faster process, and I'm less likely to cause additional wear and tear on (particularly) older issues. And in many cases, I might be able to find that the story I need was reprinted elsewhere and I don't have to touch my original issues at all.
As ComicBase also allows for digital comics to be added, there will be many cases where I do not need to even get up from my computer. I have years worth of digital comics on my hard drive already. Some are public domain pieces that have been uploaded for free online, some are review copies I've been sent. I even found a decent stash of more independent comics on my hard drive dating back to 2006-2008 and had Wowio advertisements embedded in them! (For you youngsters, Wowio was an early attempt to act as an ad-supported digital comics hub, but it really started to stall by 2008 and was all but defunct by 2009.) Which means that, as I'm doing those searches that I mentioned above, I can immediately access the digital versions right from that database entry whether I have a physical copy or not.
As a real-world practical example, as I was cataloging my collection, I came across a couple issues of Radio Shack's History of Electronics comics. I have three copies, each from a different year, but the database points out all the other versions I'm missing. Mine were ones I'd picked up from Radio Shack first-hand back in the day, so they're all pretty close content-wise. But seeing that they ranged from 1972 up through 1990, there must have been some pretty radical changes in the story to account for actual technological changes. Having digital copies of a wide range of them, I can directly compare the full range of them to one another and determine what changes needed to happen and how the 1972 version evolved into the 1990 version. Yes, I could theoretically track down physical copies of all of them and make comparisons that way, but this is MUCH faster and more efficient!
And, furthermore, because I've got all this on a database running locally on my home network, that means that I can continue working on things if there are problems with an internet hub or my ISP or something. Or if the digital copies of those books that are currently available online get removed. You hear about it more with movies and TV shows, but the services hosting online media are increasingly juggling licensing agreements all over the place, so what may have been readily accessible one day is gone the next.
(My personal example -- which still annoys me -- I was watching the Marvel show Runaways on Disney+ when they abruptly removed it from their platform just as I was about to begin season 2. The show remained available on Amazon Prime, but only seasons 1 and 3 for some inexplicable reason. After over a year of that being the status quo, all three seasons only recently popped up on Tubi. Who knows how long it will remain there? I mean, it's a show produced by Disney -- you'd think they wouldn't pull down TV shows they actually own!)
My point being that the few years I spent without having a working comics database was more than just an annoyance in not knowing all the comics I had in my collection. It was limiting the amount and type of research I could do, and making much of what I did do more tedious than it needed to be. If all you need is something to keep track of what issues you have or want, that's great -- you might not anything more complicated than a notepad. But in doing the type of work that I do, a robust database can be invaluable in getting quicker and more ready access to the sources I need to do the research I'm trying to do.
0 comments:
Post a Comment