Update: My Top Series

The holidays were a busy time and I didn't get as much sorting and organizing done as I would like. However, things are picking up and I'm getting back into the swing of things. I've put together more comic short boxes (if you recall, I bought a case of 25 of them last Halloween and I've now used 10 of them).

Right now the hardest part is the organizing. I'm trying hard to resist the urge to enter comics in my software (the awesome collectorz.com) and then just toss the comics into generic boxes. That really wouldn't help achieve my goals of figuring out what I've got and -- importantly -- where it is.

It's slow going, but I'm getting it done.

Current Count

As of this moment, I've cataloged 5,660 comics. That should put me over the halfway mark, but we'll see.

These are the series I have the most of:


186 - Knights of the Dinner Table
133 - The Defenders
106 - Daredevil
101 - Jughead's Double Digest
93 - Archie's Pals 'n' Gals Double Digest
93 - Batman
83 - Archie Double Digest
82 - Betty & Veronica Double Digest
72 - Spider-Girl, Vol. 1
68 - Detective Comics, Vol. 1

Keep in mind, I have not cataloged all of the Batman books, nor have I even started on the various X-Men titles. When I come across these books (and they are scattered everywhere) I just toss them into a Bat Books Stack and plan to come back to them later.

JLA/JSA Surprise

I had originally put JLA and JSA in the same box, but now have to split them. I've just got too many of those titles (and their various spin-offs and related titles like Elseworlds Graphic Novels, Day of Judgement, etc.) to fit into a single short box. I'm also have some similar issues with Superman (there's just so many related comics and titles -- like Superboy and Supergirl) that he's outgrown one single shortbox.

Nevertheless, it's slow going, but it's going to be worth it in the end.

I'll keep ya posted.

Collection Update

Today's sorting efforts, part 1

Had a little downtime today while waiting for a work call, so I took the opportunity to continue trashing the guest bedroom with piles of comics. Heh. At least I think that's what my wife and the housekeeper think.

In truth, I pulled three boxes out of the bottom of my office closet and finally cracked them open to see what was in there. For the past two weeks I've been going through them, reading graphic novels and enjoying some of my stash. But today was about finally taking a stab at organizing the titles so I could continue cataloging them.

So I did what any fanboy would do -- I sat on the bed and went through the boxes, tossing the comics into piles of related titles or publishers. In this case, most of the boxes were full (or half-full) of DC Comics titles.

In particular, I found my stashes of these titles:

• Green Lantern: 23
• Green Arrow (all three major series): 70+
• Impulse: 48
• Young Justice: 22*

I also found a lot of the Bat books (Batman, Detective Comics, Batgirl, Nightwing, Robin, etc.), but I didn't enter them into the system. I'm creating a huge Bat Stack and will handle them later. After sorting the comics, I entered some into the computer. Sorting by index, I was able to determine that I entered 159 comics today, most in those series mentioned above.

BTW: I put a star by young Justice because it includes that pesky "Sins of Youth" series, which includes nine comics that have a #1 number. That means nine different series, which makes it that much harder to catalog in the Collectorz.com software.

My Stash Statistics

My other stacks, including lots of Green Arrow, Green Lantern
and a big bunch of misc. publishers like Bongo.

So, today I crossed a threshold by having cataloged 4,006 comics. By my rough estimate, that puts me at the 40% mark, but to be honest, I'm thinking it looks closer to 30% of my total. I've got a LOT of boxes I haven't even touched, yet. And lots more to sort and catalog from what I have touched. As I said, that Bat Stack is getting bigger all the time (although I have entered a lot of Robin and Nightwing comics). Time will tell, though. I still think that my collection is around 10,000 comics.

As things stand, here are my top 5 publishers:

1. 1,260 - DC Comics
2. 1,105 - Marvel Comics
3. 969 - Archie Comics
4. 198 - Kenzer & Co.
5. 52 - First Comics

And my top 10 series are:

1. 162 - Knights of the Dinner Table
2. 130 - The Defenders
3. 97 - Jughead's Double Digest
4. 92 - Archie's Pals-N-Gals
5. 79 - Archie Double Digest
6. 75 Bett & Veronica Double Digest
7. 66 - Green Arrow, vol. 2
8. 66 - Fantastic Four, Vol. 1
9. 66 - Betty
10. 62 - Archie Comics Digest

The Archie Comics are disproportionately represented at this time because I started with the Archie Comics. I have yet to enter any of my Daredevil or X-Men comics, and as I mentioned previously, I have a lot of Batman books sitting on the sidelines in my Bat Stack.

In other news, I plan to make a big purchase of boxes and shelves in the next month so I can finally have everything lined up and can start putting this stuff away for long-term storage and finally get a grip on what I have in my stash.

Comics: Remembering the Defenders, pt. 3

In retrospect, the Steve Gerber years of the Defenders were probably the most puzzling, frustrating and utterly amazing run of comics ever written. Steve was clearly ahead of his time and if Eternity were around to meddle with reality for us, then a few tweaks in time and company could easily have seen Steve's version of the Defenders becoming a hit under the Vertigo line at DC comics years later.

There was something subversive about his use of the "Head Men," the often absurdist commentary on society, and utterly bizarre villains made his 20+ issues of the series something unique in comics. And, as I said, if it had been made a few years later, I think his run would have lasted for years and be considered more classic than it already is.

BTW: I don't know who wrote the entry for his Defenders run over at Wikipedia, but they hit the nail right on the head: Steve Gerber’s run on the Defenders saw a deconstruction of the superhero genre that predates the exploration of such ideas in the 1980s and 1990s.^[3] Gerber first worked on the characters in Giant-Size Defenders #3 (January 1975) and became the writer of the main title with issue #20 the following month. He wrote the book until issue #41 (November 1976).^[4] Gerber developed an individual voice that mixed adventure with social satire and absurdist humor throughout his lengthy run on The Defenders (including the introduction of Korvac). In one issue, for example, a group of supervillains, tired of always being beaten by the good guys, seeks out a self-help guru for motivation. Another important part of Gerber's oeuvre was reviving forgotten characters; he brought back three pre-Marvel characters, the Headmen.^[5]The Defenders met Gerber's Howard the Duck in Marvel Treasury Edition #12 (1976).

The Defenders are Just Ducky The Defenders meeting Howard was an utterly mind-blowing experience. And I think one of the oddest things about it was... it worked. It seemed natural and not forced. Howard the Duck was an inter-dimensional traveler and the heroes took him to be just that -- not a guy in a duck suit (which was, of course, a running gag in his own series).

Doctor Strange even gives Howard a tour of the Sanctum Sanctorum (his house) and offers to use his powers to send Howard home. Somehow this odd meeting worked and didn't seem out of continuity or overly strained. You could actually picture Howard and Beverly meeting up with the Defenders, mooching a few meals and crashing at their pad and then moving on. It made sense, particularly since Steve Gerber was writing both titles at the time. Of course, it was the villains in that issue that really stand out as some of Gerber's grandest creations -- or should I say most blandest? The Band of the Bland:

• Doctor Angst - A mediocre magician bent on seizing power and messing with reality.
• Tillie the Hun - The aerobics instructor at Hefty Huggable Women's Health Club has a secret. She is none other that pillaging, plus-sized princess of power... TILLIE THE HUN!
• Black Hole - He's actually the most dangerous of the group, with the ability to open a black hole in his chest and suck matter into some kind of pocket dimension. However, even he thinks this power is gross.
• The Spanker - a disgraced headmaster fired for using too much corporal punishment.
• Sitting Bullseye - A CIA operative who was undercover among the Indians to crack a bootlegging ring. The bootleggers, cracking his cover, tattooed a bullseye on his chest and sent him off. The easily identifiable mark would forever hinder his ability to work undercover and, subsequently, cost him his job. So, naturally, he became a super villain.

Despite their utterly absurd powers (or lack of them), they actually give the Defenders and Howard a run for their money in their attempt to assassinate Howard (oh yeah, he was running for the President of the United States back then against Jimmy Carter). I remember that even the Spanker (who I did not realize at the time was sort of a poor-man's Punisher" parody) got in a few cheap shots against Nighthawk and Beverly (he pistol whipped Kyle and took Beverly in hand for an OTK spanking -- that's Over The Knee to you civilians out there).

In all, it was an amusing issue that fit well into the continuity of both series, and even set things up for the Band of the Bland to make a few mediocre appearances elsewhere in the Marvel Universe over the years. Ahead of its time In many ways, I think Steve Gerber's run on the Defenders was just a few years too early to earn the sort of cultural significance it would have earned had it come about 10-20 years later. He was working in the early-to-mid 1970s, but if this series had run in the 1980s or 1990s it would have been received as much attention as the Grant Morrison and Rachel Pollack runs of the DOOM PATROL received.

More next week!

Comics Software: Solving Problems with Collectorz.com mobile

This weekend I braved a veritable stampede of geeks as they -- okay, WE -- scrounged and scavenged through the poly-bagged and preserved history of our collective youths. In other words, there was a 50% off sale on back issues at my local comic book store and I was there trying to fill in some holes in my Defenders collection, and perhaps nab a few other goodies.


In the old days, I would have come in with a want list on paper to make sure I didn't buy any duplicates. But this time I felt ready because I had updated my info on my Comic Collector account and could view it through the Synch-n-Share feature that's now provided with the software.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way.

I have a Droid Razr, which is a pretty darned good smart phone. Most of the time it does a great job surfing the Internet and displaying the pages I need to visit. Considering that the Collectorz.com Website hosting my comics is relatively simple, I didn't expectthe problems I was going to encounter. The problem is, the site is not very usable on a smart phone because the series listing uses a custom control that does not render on the Droid's browser.

Here's what it looks like on my PC:

Click on image to see full sized.

The title-selection tool is designed to float up and down as you scroll the page, meaning that you can always see it. This works well on the PC, but not at all on my smart phone. Without the ability to scroll up and down, I couldn't find the Defenders in the list.

Click on image to see full sized.

No problem, I thought, I'll just search for the title with the site's search command. That did find the series, but listed the issues in a random order that I couldn't change. Also, it only returns 100 issues. Since I have 125 issues, this mean that a big chunk of my collection was missing. Mostly, though, it was the random order that bugged me so much. They came back in this order: 45, 78, 55, 88, 152, 72, 81, 131, 34, 142, 56, etc.

I picked this up this weekend.

Normally, you would be able to click on a column header to resort the material in that column, but that doesn't work here.

Bedrock City Comics didn't have a lot of early Defenders to choose from, so checking their stock against my collection was very tedious and I had to do it twice to make sure that I wasn't buying duplicates of #39 and #40. And, of course, I had to trust my memory because I couldn't see 25 of the titles that I already had.

I got lucky, by the way, and did not have those two issues. I picked them up for $$2.50 and $1.50, respectively (gotta love that 50% off!).

So now I'm only missing 22 issues of this series, and I will continue to track them down at my leisure (yeah, if I were really gung ho on these issues I could finish it in a week on ebay or just by driving around town, but I'm in no hurry).

User Error, Not Software Error
Needless to say, I was frustrated by the entire experience because this software was supposed to make my life a lot easier while shopping for used comics. I knew there was a smartphone app available (in fact, I already own it), but I don't like the idea of filling my phone up with a lot of screenshots and comic book data. I have unlimited data streaming and would much rather keep my stuff "in the cloud" than on my physical device.

So I came home and started poking around the various settings in the software to see if I could change sort orders or anything else that would help solve this problem, and then I found it. A separate link for mobile devices to access the Website.

Mobile Link:
http://connect.collectorz.com/m/users/mmitchell/comics/view

Collectorz.com
mobile title listings

Ugh. This link solved my problems by loading a lean, mean Web page that listed ALL the titles I own in one long list.

It's not fancy, but I can quickly scroll down to see the Defenders (yup, it's highlighted in red to the left). This mobile site will work on any browser, so click on the link if you'd like to see my collection through that interface.

If you do, you 'll see that it provides a good deal of detail, but it doesn't let you expand on the size of the teeny-tiny little cover thumbnail. The one in this example is only 77 x 110 pixels, which is pretty darned small. If you need more detail than that, you're out of luck.

Of course, if you're looking at details like cover price or other minor details, you can always go back to the full site and search for that specific issue (if you can find it, of course -- because the search box only returns the title -- you cannot search for a specific issue: That is to say, searching for "Defenders 39" (with or without quotes) will return all the Defenders titles, in that bad, random order that I showed you above.

Collectorz.com
mobile detail screen

Concluding my Mobile Woes
Now that I have both of my collection pages bookmarked in my phone, I think my comic book shopping troubles are over. The dream lives on that, with Collectorz.com, I will soon be able to know what I've already got so I can go out and get what I want.

See you back here Wednesday for more Comics Talk

Comics: Updating my collection

I've been using Comic Collector for a while now, and I thought you might be interested in the progress of my collection. Now that I'm done with the titles that are outside the mainstream of fanboy collecting (mainly, I mean the older Archie Comics, particularly the digests), I'm finding that entering comics is much faster. In other words, now that the info and covers are already there, I'm able to breeze through the data entry process.

Some of the comics I entered today.

In about two hours I entered almost 350 comics. Here's the highlights:


127 Defenders (vol. 1)
61 Fantastic Four (vol. 1)
50 Detective Comics (vol. 1)
30 E-Man (Modern Comics & First Comics)
25 Doctor Strange (vol. 2)
16 Batman (vol. 1)
15  Birds of Prey
11 Catwoman (vol 2)
335   TOTAL

One of the main reasons it took me so long was that I spent time rebagging some of the comics. I have a few bags that have gotten a weird texture over the past 20-30 years, so I'm replacing them. I suspect they were cheap bags. I'm also having to sort some of the comics in the newer boxes. The older ones were packed before I went to college, so they were done right. That is to say, everything is in ordered and already bagged.

Currently, Defenders is my largest
collection of a single title.

Today's cataloging efforts come from one of my older longboxes (The D-F Box) and about half a shortbox (mostly Batman titles from around the year 2000). The stuff I entered this day was a mixed bag. Obviously, most of what I entered were Defenders comics. I think this is probably all of them, although I thought I had a few Giant-Size Defenders lurking around. Unless I put them in the G box, though, I'm not sure where they are. I've got 127 out of the series that ran for 152 issues. Not bad. Now that I can pinpoint exactly what I need, I may go back and fill in those missing issues or upgrade a few that are missing covers.

The same is true for the Doctor Strange and E-Man comics. I would be very surprised if more of those turned up elsewhere in my collection. At least not from these particular series. For example, I know I've got more Doctor Strange comics from the "Midnight Sons" from around 2000. But those are in a different box right now, so I've not yet consolidated all of Stephen Strange's titles into a single location.

Doctor Strange #63, 1984

Speaking of the good sorcerer supreme, for some reason this cover by Carl Potts is one of my all-time favorite Doctor Strange. I can't really say why, other than I like the simple cleanliness of the design and the relatively understated coloring. I remember enjoying this particular series of comics and I have almost every issue from #48 - 72. It looks like I'm missing #67, but I find that unlikely. I suspect it will turn up in another box.

As for the other stuff I entered today, I can say that the Batman comics are definitely not exhaustive. I know I've got more lurking in other boxes, particularly my older Batmans from the 1970s and 1980s.

And that's just Batman proper -- I've yet to enter the various "Family" titles like Robin, Azrael, Shadow the Bat, Legend, etc. There's still half a short box behind me just waiting to be put into the system.


Collectorz.com Reports

Click on picture to see full-size.

I talked about the cool reports built into the Comic Collector software, and I'm still enjoying them. They satisfy my need for trivial information, like what is my largest series? Okay, I can probably guess that it will be Defenders (and I would be right), but what's in the number two and three spots? As you can see from this, two Archie titles hold those slots, with Knights of the Dinner Table coming in fourth.

This is, of course, just the way things shake down today. I still have thousands of comics to enter and I have no idea how things will shake down in the future.

If I had to guess, though, my money would be on Knights of the Dinner Table to be my largest single series. They've already published more than 180 issues and I'm still buying that title. Plus, I'm only missing about 10 (I think -- I'll know for sure when I get to that box).

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sit back and read one of the "treasures" I found in today's box: Destroyer Duck #1. 

If you're interested in seeing my collection, you can see it here:

http://connect.collectorz.com/users/mmitchell/view

See you back here on Wednesday!

Comics: Remembering the Defenders, pt. 2

I think my favorite Defenders are (in no particular order): Hellcat, Nighthawk, Valkyrie and Gargoyle. I'm not sure why, but it seemed like Patsy and Kyle (that's Hellcat and Nighthawk) really seemed to want to be there. Neither of them were really doing much else at the time and hanging out with other superheroes just seemed to be a natural activity for them. Kind of the way firefighters hang out -- even if they're from different stations might gravitate toward each other because they have a shared language and background.

Nighthawk was, for a time, the glue that held the team together. He had the money and provided the resources that the team needed to hang out, including a place for Valkyrie to keep her flying horse, Aragorn. The Richmond Riding Academy even served as their hang-out for a while, giving them one of the more unusual bases of the various Marvel super teams (mansions and sky-scrapers were the usual fare for the extremely urbane heroes of NYC.

Collectorz.com Update I pulled my Defenders comics out of their longbox for this article so that I could do a quick review of what I had and was very pleased at how quickly I was able to enter the comics into the Comic Collector database. I have a run of 109 issues, from Defenders #44 - 152. I also have 18 of the previous issues, including small runs here and there with a lot of covers missing on those very early issues. I also have Defenders #1 & #2. I picked those up a few years back when a comic book store went out of business. I don't remember what I paid for them, but I do know it was well under the price stickers on the two books, $45 and $13, respectively. I'd be surprised if I pad more than $15 for the pair of them. So, all in all, I have 127 of the Defenders comics and I was able to enter them into the system in about 10 minutes. Most of that time was spent double checking issue numbers and be very precise on which issues were missing (as I told you before in a previous post, I'm a notorious double and triple bagger -- I will put multiple comics in a single bag, so sometimes I had to open the bag to be sure of what's in it). Doing the math, that means I've 83% of this series. Not bad. Now that I know what issues I'm missing, maybe I can hit a sale and fill them in.

My first letter printed in a comic book was probably Defenders #79, Jan 1980. Not a great letter, but it was my first. I was pretty inspired to write because the change in writing which brought in a controversial change that brought back the Foolkiller as a character. I was very pleased with myself and I took it to school to show some buddies; the school newspaper even did a short story on it. It was pretty cool. Of course, the comic got beat up by being handled by other people, so I had to go out and buy another copy. This may have been the first time I've bought multiple copies of a comic that my letter appeared in, but it wasn't the last. All in all, I believe I've had letters appear in seven different comics.

Remind me to tell you about them sometime!

This issue was written by Ed Hannigan and I really enjoyed what he did with the series (ignore my rantings in the letter -- his work grew on me). I particularly enjoyed his Tunnelworld stories. This was a magic dimension on the inside of a giant... well, cigar-shaped hollow rock. It was long, tapered at the ends, and the entire world existed inside it, sort of like a ring world or Dyson Sphere, but shaped like a tunnel. I was really into all things Tolkien at that time, so this was a neat treat. It had mystic creatures like the Sputs (kind of a cross between dwarfs and halflings). I'm going to go back and reread those issues because I really enjoyed the mixture of superheroes in such a strongly defined fantasy setting.

The Not-Quiet-Sorceress Supreme
Doctor Strange wasn't always available to work with the Defenders, so oftentimes his girlfriend/disciple Clea would fill in and provide the mystic power the team needed. In that she wasn't nearly as powerful as Stephen, she wasn't there to be the deus ex machina that the Sorcerer Supreme could be. I recall that she traveled to Tunnelworld with Nighthawk, Valkyrie and Hellcat (and possibly some other heroes -- it has been a few decades since I last read this stuff).

Click here to read a cool
article about Tunnelworld.

Two things I remember from this storyline (if not exactly the issue listed above), and those would be that because the world was in a tunnel (it's a magical dimension, so you can quit worrying about applying your Mythbuster skills to its ecology) so that it was possible to fly straight up and, eventually, hit a zero gravity point gravity on all sides of you equalized and you could float in the middle of the world.

I also remember the words to Clea's translation spell that she cast so that they and the Sputs could understand each other. I have no idea why this bit of poetry stuck in my mind, but I did whip it out once or twice in a game of Dungeons & Dragons and impressed the GM!

Here's how I remember it:

Big folk, small folk and folk in between
All have a way to tell what they've seen.
By the powers that beckon
By the powers that reach
Let each folk here understand 
the other one's speech!

When I pull these issues to reread them, I'll check the actual text against my memory and we'll see how close I am.

More on the Defenders next week.

Comics: Remembering the Defenders, pt. 1

The new Avengers movie is fantastic. It is -- without a doubt -- the best of the new Marvel Movies to date. Yes, even better than Spider-Man 1 and Iron Man 1 or Captain America. This isn't too surprising, as  this movie is the culmination of work that was laid out in many of the previous movies.

Normally, when you get too many characters together in a movie, like the X-Men, you can wind up with some of them just standing around while the "hot" characters take the lead and then the minor characters get a few good scenes to justify their presence. There's a little bit of that in Avengers -- Tony Stark does seem to have a few more good scenes than the others, but not so much that he steals the show like Logan/Wolverine did in the early X-Men movies.

Thinking of the Avengers -- and their classic bot not-canonical line-up (of the movie cast, only Hulk, Iron Man and Thor were actually in Avengers #1), I started thinking of another team that I enjoyed -- and actually preferred to "Eath's Mightiest Heroes," and that would be "The Greatest Non-Team of them all," The Defenders.

The Defenders first appeared in late 1971 and featured three of the most powerful heroes in the Marvel Universe: Doctor Strange, Hulk and the Sub-Mariner. The thing was, they were not an official team like the Avengers, but three power houses who joined together to save the world and then went on their way... only to be drawn back together when needed.

Here's what it says at Wikipedia:

The Defenders is the name of a number of Marvel Comics superhero groups which are usually presented as a "non-team" of individualistic "outsiders," each known for following their own agendas. The team usually battled mystic and supernatural threats. Its original incarnation, often considered the most powerful formation of superheroes in the Marvel Universe, was led by Doctor Strange and also included the Hulk, Namor, and as a kind of belated addition, the Silver Surfer. They first appeared as The Defenders in Marvel Feature #1 (December 1971).

I picked up a few issues here and there when they first came out, but the series didn't really click for me until I picked up Defenders #45. I remember getting this issue and really enjoying seeing all these heroes that I didn't know, but who obviously had rich back stories, like Nighthawk and Hellcat. Not to mention Valkyrie, Power Man and Hulk, who I knew but hadn't seen in a while.

I don't recall much of the story (and if I pulled each issue to reread it, my next update would be sometime in July), but I seem to recall that half of the team was being controlled by someone and the other half of the team had to fight them. Typical stuff... and typically wonderful! This issue was a blast and I greatly enjoyed it. So much so that I hunted down recent back issues. In those days, you could often find 2-3 months of back issues just sitting on the stands, hiding behind the other comics at 7-11. As for comic book stores? This was 1977, people. Comic book stores were rare things in those days. More often you'd find a box of abused comics at a used book store and if you asked your mom nicely, she'd buy you 5-10 for a buck.

But back to the "Non-Team." You see, that's what the Defenders called themselves. A "non-Team." Whereas the Avengers had a battle cry, a leader, a base, equipment, and even begrudging recognition from S.H.I.E.L.D. and the US Government, the Defenders were not that official. By the time I came along in the mid 40s issues, David Anthony Kraft was presenting them almost as a group of super-powered buddies who hung out with each other and bashed baddies as a sideline. This was a radical departure from the other teams out at that time.

• The Avengers were warriors
• The Fantastic Four were family
• X-Men were students
• The Champions... well, I was never clear on what they were

But the Defenders were friends, and that's probably the reason why they were able to keep the Hulk around so long. I always figured that the Hulk didn't like being told what to do, which is why he resented the authority and orders that were always being barked at him in the early issues of the Avengers. Plus, let's be honest, he really didn't belong -- nor could he stay -- a member in that team and have it make any sense at all. After all, it would be ridiculous to have him standing next to Captain America and Thor in the Avengers only to have him being hounded by Gen. Thunderbolt Ross in the Hulk comic a few days later. It would diminish the authority and respect people have for the Avengers and just play too much havoc with continuity in general.

But in a team like the Defenders? Why not? They were not out to grab headlines, and in fact, most of them preferred to keep a low profile, anyway. In fact, half the time the team was complaining about how they didn't want to be there in the first place and were usually annoyed because Doctor Strange sometimes manipulated his "friends" into helping him save the universe. Plus, there weren't all those pesky rules over at the Avengers (training, roll-calls, meeting, etc.). The biggest rule at the Defenders seemed to be not to mess up Doc Strange's house while you were hanging out there.

The three of them together, along with the almost-immediate additions of the Silver Surfer and the Valkyrie, had a great combination of raw power and diverse skills to take on any and all comers, which they did on a regular basis.

But we'll talk more about that on Wednesday.

Comics Software Review: Choosing Collectorz.com, pt. 4

So now that I've finally selected Comic Collector by Collectorz.com to catalog my supposed collection of 10,000 comics, I've been steadily entering titles and issues. Since I started with Archie Comics, I don't have as many as I would have if I had started with Marvel or DC Comics.

If I had to guess, I would think that I probably had more Marvels than DCs, but I honestly don't know if that's true. You see, I go through periods where I buy more of one publisher than the other, but then change as my tastes evolve, and as the quality of the comics changes.  Among the titles I expect to have a lot of, there are the usual suspects: X-Men (at least 150 issues in a row with no breaks) and Daredevil (probably about the same, but there may be a few breaks after issue 300 when Frank Miller left to pursue Battier pastures with The Dark Knight Returns).

I also expect to find good runs of the following titles:

• The Defenders (I've got almost the entire run of 150 issues, missing only a few early issues -- but not #1 because I've got that!)
• Jonah Hex (original series, I have most of it)
• The Warlord (probably just missing the early issues)
• Knights of the Dinner Table (I'm probably only missing four or five issues -- they were destroyed in a flood)

Fortunately, Comic Collector has cool reporting tools to help me track what I have, and to make "Wish Lists" of things I need. Here's a breakdown of the main publishers I've cataloged so far (from Oct. 28, 2011 - April 8, 2012):

Click on image to see full-size.

• 802 Archie
• 574 DC Comics
• 537 Marvel Comics
• 95 Kenzer and Company
• 41 Eclipse Comics
• 29 Dork Storm Press
• 28 First Comics
• 25 Abstract Studio
• 16 Harvey Comics
• Many others

As you can see, Comic Collector does an admirable job of reporting what's in your collection. I may do another column on just the reporting tools. It shows both bar charts and pie charts, plus it has the ability to create custom filters that let you look for specific types of comics (for instance, I have 575 comics digests, of which 560 are Archie Comics digests -- the others are from DC Comics, Harvey Comics, and a few others).


Filters: Let's hear it for Al Milgrom

Filters may be one of the most powerful features of the reporting tools. In addition to finding out that I have almost 600 comics digests, I can create a filter to search for individual characters (Archie is in about 805 titles) or I can filter by creators. For example, out of the comics I've cataloged, 52 feature work by the incomparable Al Milgrom. Most of his work in my collection is for Marvel (including this cool Black Panther cover right here).

It's also possible to filter for specific characters, so if you want to know how many times Spider-Man appears in your collection, you can search for it. For example, Spider-man appears in 70 different titles. Or, that is to say, the word "Spider-Man" appears in the descriptions of 70 different comics. You see, although there is a screen for listing specific characters in a comic, these are often empty. Some people choose to mention the character in the text description of the title (it's that part that appears in the right-hand detail panel). So doing a full text search for Spider-Man seems like a better way to track down our friendly neighborhood Spider-man.


Let it all hang out (online, that is)
Since I purchased this software, they have actually added a feature that makes it even cooler than it was. They have provided us PRO users with the ability to post our collections online via Sync & Share. Here's what it says about this service at their Website:

• Sync & Share is a basic Connect edition, created for desktop users who just want to sync their collection online and share it with friends, but wish to keep using their desktop software (Windows or Mac) to manage (add/edit) their database.
• Sync & Share includes all browsing, viewing, sorting, searching, sharing, Facebook, Twitter and statistics features of Connect. But NOT the Add feature and NOT the Edit feature.
• In other words, you will be able to upload your collection online, access your own collection from anywhere, any device and share the list with friends. However, you will need to do your data additions and modifications offline, with your trusted desktop software, then re-sync to Connect.
• In short, Sync & Share is Connect without the adding and editing features.
• A full-featured Connect subscription is available for US $19.80 per year.

I didn't review their Connect service because, as I said before, I was only interested in a desktop solution without annual fees. But this addition actually fills in one of the minor gaps in their software: An online component that I can use to track what's in my collection so that I can avoid buying duplicates when I'm at my friendly local comic book store.

This feature was added in March 2012, and it's fantastic. In addition to being viewable on my computer, it also has a cool smart phone interface, which is perfect for that comic book store scenario I described above.

If you're interested in seeing my collection, you can take a quick peek right here:
http://connect.collectorz.com/users/mmitchell/view

By the way, the online system has reports, too, including this cool chart with a percentage breakdown of my comics by publisher (the percentage is available when you rollover the pie slice: I added them to the graphic so you can see them here).

There's also a bar chart showing the my comics ranked by title. Here's my top 5 series (so far -- keep in mind, I have not yet entered most of the Marvel of DC comics):

• 89  Archie's Pals 'n' Gals Double Digest
• 84  Jughead's Double Digest
• 83  Knights of the Dinner Table
• 74  Archie Double Digest
• 68  Betty & Veronica Double Digest

Finally, there are a few other cool features that bear discussion, such as the smart phone tools that let you browse your collection and use your phone's camera as a bar card reader: Yes, there's an app for that! As we'll talk about it next week as I finally conclude my series about the totally cool Comic Collector by Collectorz.com.

And see you back here to launch the weekend off in style with another edition of Netflix Friday.