Major change regarding variant covers, reprintings, etc.

[Chris]

One of the areas most often requested for clarification and a better way to deal with things has been for those issues with multiple versions. This includes variant covers, reprintings, director's cuts, new editions of TPBs, etc.

I have just finished installing an overhaul for these issues that significantly changes the way that we deal with them. From now on, there are no more "variant covers". Each version of an issue is treated as a separate issue, but added differently than regular issues. Initially confusing, I know.


The Benefits:

The benefits to the new system will be apparent. Most importantly, we will be able to separate cover artists for the appropriate covers. No longer will we need to see Jim Lee's name when looking at a George Perez cover of Infinite Crisis. This will also clear up artists' cover galleries having images of covers that they didn't work on (again, see Lee for an example).

Additionally, you will be able to add specific variants to your collection so that you know which version you have.


Example:

To give a concrete example, take a look at X-Men (1991) #1. The issue was originally released with 5 covers. The cover showing for this issue is the Beast cover. There is now a section that says, "There are other versions of this issue in the database:" with the variants listed below.

Each of these variant entries are issues in and of themselves but will not show up in the issue listing on the title page. To add a variant, you can either click on the "Edit This Issue" button and click the appropriate link at the bottom of the page, or you can click the link on the issue page that says, "Change this cover or add a variant".

If you click the link to change the cover, you will notice that the variant cover upload is gone. In its place is the link to adding the variant issue.


Adding a variant issue:

Most of adding a variant issue is identical to cloning an issue, since most information is the same in variants/reprints. You can change most everything if it is necessary.

The important thing to remember is that you need to give the variant a label. This may be the characters on the cover, the cover artist's name, the official title of the variant ("Director's Cut", for example). Whatever it is, it needs to be unique and needs to identify the issue so that people know what they will see when they click the link to that issue.


Wrapup:

This is definitely a change from how we have been doing it and will take some getting used to. There's also going to need to be some considerable work done on replacing the variant covers that are currently in the database with variant issue entries. But once done, this should definitely be a step forward for the database in terms of accuracy with regard to variants and reprints.

I expect that this new system will need some fine tuning (and hopefully very little bug fixing). As always, don't hesitate to let me know if you have ideas on how to improve it.

[Dann]

Love the idea. One side-effect of the old way led to the variants showing up in my cover gallery. A minor issue, but I do like having the issues seperarte, but not entirely a new listing. Great job as always.

Edit: One thing I noticed. I tested this out on the X-men (1991) listing. I don't have any of the main cover, but I have 1 copy of the Magneto and 4 of the Psylocke one. I added the first one, followed by the 4 copy one. When looking at the main database listing each shows that I have the issue, but in my collection listing for the series, it only shows the first copy that I entered. I tested it by removing the magneto one, and the 4 copy entry then showed up. Seems it's listing whatever comes alone first in the return query.

The cover gallery works beautifully though. Just the covers I have which is great. Thanks for your hard work on all this.

[Chris]

Ah yes, good point. Can you try it again now?

[Dann]

Works great. One minor thing now, is there a way to assign a name to the main cover (like Beast/Storn/Jean Grey). Since for some issues the variants carry the same weigh as each other, as I perceive they do with this one, whereas other times the varient is unique/signed/limited run etc...

[Sick_Nukes]

So how is updating the issues already entered with variant covers going to happen, is their a way to delete the images from one listing as a new listing is created or is it all the deleteing going have to be done admin side? It seems pretty cool even if it means I have to go through and update my collection with what covers i have. Also will an option be added to the export collection feature for variant?

[Dann]

Looks like the variants will have to be manually copied and then report the final issue using the e-mail link.

[spid]

Thanks for the hard work.

Is there way so the variant covers link back to each other? It is a minor thing since you can see them in the cover gallery.

[Chris]

Is there way so the variant covers link back to each other? It is a minor thing since you can see them in the cover gallery.

Can you elaborate on what you mean?

[Chris]

Looks like the variants will have to be manually copied and then report the final issue using the e-mail link.

That is the preferred way. I'm keeping track of things, but it makes it significantly easier if you let me know which variants have been taken care of.

[spid]

Is there way so the variant covers link back to each other? It is a minor thing since you can see them in the cover gallery.

Can you elaborate on what you mean?

If i'm looking at the Variant cover for X-men #1 (Magneto Cover) the only way I see the other variants is to back to the first entry. A scenario using three covers.

Cover A has a variant Cover B.
If some one uses Cover B to create another variant Cover C. Cover A does not refer to Cover C in its entry and Cover C does not refer Cover A in its entry. Like I said before its a minor thing.

[Dann]

Not sure if this would be too much clutter, but could the removal of variant covers (after they've been moved to their own entry) be added to the dropdown list when using the 'report a problem' form.

[Chris]

It should now be an option in the problem report.

Additionally, I have added a new report in the missing section that lists all issues that still have variant covers attached to them. It's at:

http://www.comicbookdb.com/issue_missingvariants.php

[Dann]

Looks good. There was something else I thought of, but it escapes me now. I'll let you know if it comes back to me.

Oh yeah, is the variant label fixed like the issue number. Suppose I entered a Gen 13 variant as 1C and later wanted to append the descriptive title to it (1C - Lil Gen 13). I'm trying to hunt down info like that, but at the moment, I just have the images. I remember they all had names back in '95, but I've having little luck finding them right now. I'm holding back on the ones I'm not sure of at the moment, but if I could adjust the label I could get the framework up at the least.

This may cause issues with the uniqueness of the label, but a quick check for existing titles may remedy that. Just something that may be useful.

[Sargedargon]

This is great! The only problem I've discovered is the multiple stories aren't included when creating a new version and have to be done all over again. So far this hasn't been a problem for any of the issues I'm updating, but I can see it could be a pain in the rear if there are multiple versions of Marvel Comics Presents or other anthology books. But yes, this is a really nice feature!

[Darth Kramer]

That raises a great point regarding books like Marvel Comics Presents that are sometimes presented in a flipbook format and have two covers. How will the "back" cover be treated, as it's technically not a variant?