Fiction House's Lily Renée is featured on Newsweek site

[jrvandore]

The GCD is interested in raising its profile as well.  If you are on Facebook, you can "like" the GCD:  http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Grand-Comics-Database/136512123051365?ref=ts

If you have a comment or a correction this might also be a way to contact us.

[JVJ (RIP)]

Yeah, John,
We need an instruction manual for the world, it seems. And even if you DID write one, how do you get anyone to READ it. Sigh... The "thread of useful links" is an excellent example of a beacon hiding in plain sight. I didn't take your question at ALL rhetorically.

We'll keep lighting that torch, no matter who keeps ignoring us.

Intrepidly, Jim (|:{>

[Yoc]

Narf's Reference Links still exists on GAC but didn't make it over to here.
It's been on my 'to-do' list for a while.  Sorry.

[John C]

The GCD is interested in raising its profile as well.

It's a start, but it's not just a matter of getting noticed, Jim (GCD's Jim, I mean).  The GCD (and this site, and GAC, and Who's Who, and...well, you get the idea--I'm not throwing stones, by any means) almost need some kind of unified "comic book research textbook," because the extraordinary depth between the sites can get overwhelming.

It's one thing to look at the GCD front page and say, "oh, I can search forr this comic and see someone's summary."  It's quite another to realize exactly how many questions can be answered and how to form the questions.  I'd be willling to bet that few people look at the site and think "checklists for every creator I can name."

(If anybody is interested in organizing the state of the art, in any respect, contact me privately, and maybe we can get such a thing moving.)

[JVJ (RIP)]

The serendipitousness of this just had to make me laugh, guys.
I've been diddling around on my bookshelves for stuff to sell on eBay and one of the things I turned up, in addition to some pics of Karen and me from 40 years ago, was a copy of Don & Maggie Thompson's mimeographed fanzine, Comic Art #6 from 1966.

In it is an article by Roy Thomas entitled, wait for it, "Newsweek Meets Alter Ego" in which Roy reacts to a, wait for it, Newsweek article on comics fandom in 1965. Fat lot of good Roy sees as coming from it, so I wanted to lower everyone's expectations and reset our wish priorities for some "national" exposure.

You can see the cover and read the description on eBay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150476552378

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[narfstar]

And Jim becomes the king of coinkedink.

GCD underwent one recent major revamp. Advanced search can do a lot of things. It still has another major upgrade to come that will make it the premier site for research. I think you can not beat having actual copies like are scanned here for the best of research with seeing the real thing

[JVJ (RIP)]

The GCD's major weakness, IMHO, is that you never really know to what degree you can trust the accuracy of the data. There was never the "gatekeeper" aspect that Bails provided for the Who's Who and, while I completely understand and appreciate the magnitude of the task it set for itself and the unselfish efforts of all those who contributed, you are still left with uncertainties in the data and they cast a pall over ALL the efforts. I'm not the "final say" in such matters, but the number of errors I encounter is staggering and I simply don't have the time to start correcting them all. I have a life, as does everyone who ever input data to GCD, but the site needed a much more liberal supply of question marks in its infancy.

Still, it is an amazing effort to be applauded, and I do.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Drusilla lives!]

Regarding the GCD, I think they've gotten really behind for some reason on updating stuff.  I reported a couple of minor inker credit errors a few weeks (or perhaps now it's maybe almost two months) ago and they never made the changes. 

Not that they were of any great importance, in fact they're pretty obvious (for people who'd care to double check such things), but still, it's somewhat off-putting.  I mean, I hate to admit it, but I'm not sure I'd care to bother next time I run across something that looks in error if it's not going to make a difference.   

[narfstar]

I do not really do the error corrections. Most of the guys get on simple things right away so not sure what went wrong. One of the problems others have with the GCD is the effort they take to try and verify things. Yes early on it was screwed up but now everything is checked. Yes some errors still get in but compared to open wiki it has to be less

[NobbyNobbs]

One thing about the GCD that irritates me is that there is no standarisation of creator names, I have found series where the same artist have been written differently 4-5 issues in a row.
That said, Comic Book DB, where they try to standarize names also have some creators show up as both Robert, Bob and Rob, so probably not an easy solution to this.

[JVJ (RIP)]

It's come a long way, narf,
but it's the early data that remains erroneous and the big problem is that there simply aren't enough people with the comics (all praise to GAC and DCM, etc.) and even when they are or become available, how many people can perform the IDs needed to make corrections? I've studied for 35 years to get as far as I have, and I'm still puzzled by so MANY styles... Even then, it took me nearly two years to correct the Fiction House data, and we didn't even finish them up.

As I said, it's a mind-boggling task and I believe it needed the energy that got it started, but that same enthusiasm led to what I call "data for data's sake" and that put a lot of mistakes in corners that will require even more effort to illuminate and correct.

DL: you can make your own corrections to the GCD data. Did you make some that were never implemented or did you submit them as corrections? I'm not sure what the difference is in the GCD process (or perhaps they pay more attention to "me"), but when I've made the corrections myself, they seem to get through pretty quickly.

I just wish I had days to just sit down with boxes of comics and crank in the corrections. One more great thing about the JVJ scanning project is that it allows me to submit data via the index cards.

Speaking of that, narf, I owe you a box of comics. I'll try to get to them tomorrow. It completely slipped my mind until I typed the sentence above. Sorry.

(|:{>

[Geo (RIP)]

It seemed pretty quick when I posted an update on GCD, it was changed in about one day I believe, but then they knew the data posted up was wrong.

Geo

[jrvandore]

I process a lot of the error reports.  Sometimes the speed at which they get done has to do with whether we are familiar with the reporter and whether he explains the error well.  The error report system is also NOT the place to debate (un-signed) art attributions.  We were also burned by an error reporter who submitted corrections that turned out to be wrong, so we try to double-check as much as we can.

And there are many things we simply are not able to do right now.  We can't delete anything (cover scan, sequence, issue, series, publisher).  We can't change the publisher listed for a series.

We also have a very common problem where an error reporter will send us incomplete information, we try to ask for clarification, and our emails are blocked.

The fix for the problem with creators' names is in the works.  But it will take time.

(Aside to Drusilla lives!: I can look into your error reports and see what the hold up might be...but I don't know your GCD name.  Drop me a note at jrvandore at gmail dot com.)

[Drusilla lives!]

I'll just state those two small errors here... RGK should at least get partial inker credit on "A New Beginning" in Weird Science #22, and "Fish Story" in Weird Science-Fantasy #23.  I just happened to have recently read both and noticed his initials in panels from both stories... page 4, panel 5 and page 1, panel 1 (respectively).
 
Btw, my GCD name is the same as it is here.