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Spotting reference wiki-site?

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srca1941:
Here's an idea. It may be more than we want to develop here, but I'd like to see someone do it. How hard would it be to create a wiki-site for Golden Age artists where bio data, credits, spotting tips, and (most importantly) samples of their work could be posted? It seems like every time I try to ID a story that I am unfamiliar with, I gather a list of possibles from Who's Who, and then have to track down half a dozen or more books to try and find good samples of someone's work. It's very hit and miss and all to often I come up with a bad ID because I don't have good source handy to properly check. Having this would be a tremendous resource to spotters, and those who want to train to be spotters.

-Eric

Yoc:
It's something only those who know who is who could do - ie JVJ, tilliban, etc.
I suspect it's more to do than almost anyone has time to produce.

bchat:

--- Quote from: srca1941 on December 02, 2013, 11:31:05 PM ---Here's an idea. It may be more than we want to develop here, but I'd like to see someone do it. How hard would it be to create a wiki-site for Golden Age artists where bio data, credits, spotting tips, and (most importantly) samples of their work could be posted? It seems like every time I try to ID a story that I am unfamiliar with, I gather a list of possibles from Who's Who, and then have to track down half a dozen or more books to try and find good samples of someone's work. It's very hit and miss and all to often I come up with a bad ID because I don't have good source handy to properly check. Having this would be a tremendous resource to spotters, and those who want to train to be spotters.

-Eric

--- End quote ---

I'm surprised something like what you're suggesting doesn't already exist in some form.  The sites that focus on GA comic book creators are certainly helpful in getting started with gathering information, but all too often I have to go "outside the box" if I really want to learn anything useful about the lesser-known artists, many of whom had careers in other forms of art that comic fans either over-look, know nothing about, or simply ignore.  It's almost as if there's this attitude of "well, if it isn't in a comic book, who cares?"

srca1941:
I used to think a site like this was far fetched, and now look at it! Who would ever have thought, even 10 years ago, that it would be possible to view so many public domain Golden Age books? Much of the information for an artist/spotting site is out there, it just needs a home and content contributors to help make it happen. Here's the way I envision it:

1) It would be a combination of Wikipedia and Jerry Bails' Who's Who.

2) After the site is set up, users would add artist entries like Wikipedia pages. These would then include bio data, perhaps a photo of the artist, known credits (general credits like Who's Who, not story specific ones like the GCD), spotting tips, and samples of their work from different points in their career and/or different genres.

3) When a comic page is uploaded as a sample image, comments can be added by anyone to either point out important traits, dispute the credit, or share any other pertinent information.

The hard part would be the setup and maintenance. Although as I was typing this, I had a thought; could this be incorporated into Wikipedia somehow? The site architecture exists, we wouldn't have to worry about maintenance. Really the only thing that couldn't be done in a Wikipedia-based project is sharing the sample images with discussion comments.

-Eric

tilliban:
That is a fabulous idea - in general.
But when it comes down to realize it, certain problems arise.
First you'd need many sample pages per artist - and from each of their "periods".
Using Wikepedia would be probably best, but as I know them, they're very touchy with pictures.
Afraid to infringe copyrights. And you will infringe copyrights!
Of course it's only sample pages, shown for historic reasons, but tell that to a spineless company lawyer (on Wikipedia's party).

What JVJ and I are doing is punching data into GCD - adding and correcting entries.
Art spotting will never be easy, and with a new database not that much easier.
If you really want to know something about an artist (or if you are comparing styles) you'll always have to pull two or more books and flip through the pages. You have to dig deep, man.
And with those legions of obscure GA artists, too many question marks remain.
Sorry for painting a bleak picture here.
Who on earth is that interested in art spotting, by the way?
I'm imagining five people using that wiki-site.
 ???

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