Comic book numbering is driving me crazy
Trying to maintain my own database of books is a nightmare. Marvel of course sucks, with their frequent re-naming and maybe/maybe not re-numbering. At one point X-Men went through three different titles but continued with the same numbering the whole time. And now they took all their X-books and went from (for instance) Cable #5 to #150, because they decided to pretend like the series was never re-numbered and go with the total number of issues across all series. Because that makes sense.
But this takes the cake.
http://www.comicbookdb.com/graphics/comic_graphics/1/908/424727_20180103210551_large.jpg
That would apparently be Joe Golem: Occult Detective #4. But it's not. The Index inside the cover calls it Joe Golem Flesh and Blood #1. And then throws in #9 in a series for good measure. So why the hell does it say #4 of 5 on the damn cover? Exactly the same as this issue, from three years ago!?!
http://www.comicbookdb.com/graphics/comic_graphics/1/751/354257_20160203092708_large.jpg
Screw you Mignola.
[/rant]
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Posts
They do it that way because:
So...not a bug, it's a feature. It's "#4 of 5" on the cover because it's issue 4 of a 5-issue limited series. It's "Flesh and Blood Part 1" because that's the name of that specific story in that issue, with Part 2 going to be in #5 of 5. It's #9 in a series because there were eight previous issues - three in the current series, and five in the previous series. That tells you that: if you like this, there's more of it coming, and there's more that there was before.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
A limited series which is #8 - 12 of some other series, has #1 - 5 on the covers, but actually is two other series #1-3 and #1-2? I had to add a couple more fields to my database specifically for this nonsense.
Oh yeah, I hear ya on the pull list. I don't even do that any more, I've gone the pre-order route through midtown. Still has it's issues, and I end up grabbing a few random things I missed (or they missed), but I don't have much choice since the only nearby comic store closed down.
This is why I just group all of them together on their own page.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
Invisible Webs
I use CLZ as well, but some of my more obscure titles aren't listed and some issues have multiple listings. I suspect the latter is from user submissions so there may be multiples of the same issue, variant and all, with no discernible difference. Not a huge problem, but one I've run into more than once or twice. Otherwise, it's been great.