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| News and Information for People who Love Comics | Vol. 10 No. 2 |
In this Issue...
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ComicBase 10It's not every day on the job that get you get feedback like, “Where have you been all my life?!” or “I love your program!” from a customer. A lot of the enthusiasm seems to be coming from ComicBase 10’s new weekly price and title updates. Since it shipped just eight weeks ago, ComicBase customers have gotten new listings on thousands of new issues, and hundreds of new titles, as well as up-to-the-minute price updates direct from Comics Buyer’s Guide. ComicBase 10 customers can typically get information on all the new week’s comics within a day or two of their purchase in comic shops. Combined with ComicBase 10’s new support for “barcode scanners, it makes keeping your collection up to date easier than ever before! And in case you missed the big announcement back in July: any purchase of ComicBase 10 also includes a year’s worth of title and price downloads for free!
Don’t delay: these special upgrade prices end at midnight PST on November 1st and may never be repeated again! For those already enjoying their new copies of ComicBase 10, don’t forget to check out the new “barcode entry feature, usable with our new Manhattan car code scanners. These handheld scanners make adding your comics as easy as a "bleep." If you haven’t hooked up a “barcode scanner to ComicBase yet, you’re missing out on all the fun! And don't forget to check out the Tech section of this ComicBase Confidential for more about how to setup Manhattan “barcode scanners for use with your ComicBase 10.
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ComicBase Columnists We get dozens of fantastic reviews each month from our hard-working team of writers contributing to ComicBase. But as fun as it is to breeze through titles in ComicBase, checking out a review here, a review there, very few of our blurbs actually hit the news while the comics are still hot on the racks. But, gosh-darn-it, why not? Our two cents on comics, plus the chance to drum up some appreciation for our deserving writers? We couldn't resist. The new ComicBase Columnists section features new reviews every day from our hard-working writing team as well as weekly missives from ComicBase Creator Pete Bickford and Editor Shiaw-Ling Lai. Check out Pete's Release Notes for the latest on what's happening at Human Computing as well as detailed notes on the latest program and issues updates. (If you don't know the different between the two, read the "Program Updates vs. Content Updates" article for an explanation in the Tech section below.) You can also choose to wander down Shiaw-Ling's The Way of the Editor for a few measured thoughts on what's going on in the world of comics. Stay tuned on the Columnists section for new reviews as well as an upcoming spotlight sections for user submitted reviews. |
Spotlight Comic Review: Megatokyo
Initially begun as a joke amongst friends, Fred Gallagher’s Megatokyo has since taken off in a big way, redefining the way many people view the web comic community. Featuring an ensemble cast of lovably quirky (and sometimes downright psychotic) characters, Megatokyo is the anime/gamer’s ultimate weekly read. The site’s tag line: “Relax, we understand j00…”is, in fact, an idiom from l33t, an online text vernacular. The story stars Piro and Largo, two American gamers who, after being rejected from the premises of an E3 conference, get into a bit of drunken trouble with the authorities over the terms of their “rejection,” and end up flying to Japan to get away from it all. Along the way the duo has the requisite wacky adventures that are, in actuality, entertaining spoofs on the tired clichés of your Japanese/anime/gamer storyline. Examples include Largo’s conditional admittance into Japan on the basis of his “mad skillz” playing Mortal Combat (he forgot to bring a passport, but manages to beat the customs ninja at the game); a couple encounters with Godzilla (who periodically razes Tokyo); the obligatory special/elite–forces/police squad division that deals with supernatural threats to Japan (such as Godzilla); a Playstation accessory girl who’d like to be something more (see Chobits); a teenaged goth–girl who just might be the genius behind all of Piro and Largo’s problems; and finally, several real–life magical girls who are magical to everyone they touch, but hopelessly out of luck in their own personal lives. Originally published by Iron Cat Studios, the title has since been picked up and reprinted in higher quality by Dark Horse for the same rate of $9.95. Aficionados who can’t wait for the next episode and doubters who want a free trial can still follow Piro and Largo’s adventures for free online at www.MegaTokyo.com. Check out more ComicBase reviews online at: http://www.comicbase.com/columnists.asp. |
Collection Drawer Boxes ComicBase has sometimes been called, “a program for people who have enough comics to know they have a problem.” And like so many of our customers, we definitely have a problem finding ways to store the tens of thousands of comics in our library. With shelf space at a premium, most of the library is housed in traditional comic long boxes. These are then arranged in huge, but fairly orderly stacks wherever space permits. Unfortunately, this tends to make filing the hundreds of new comics which come into the offices each week a real bear of a job, requiring enough lifting and shuffling of boxes to leave us either groaning in pain, or more frequently, looking for any available excuse to put off this chore until the backlog of unfiled comics reaches crisis proportions. Needless to say, we were more than a little interested in the new Comic Book DrawerBoxes that creator Rich Vincent was demonstrating at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con (see our photo gallery entry). Basically, a DrawerBox is a heavy-duty long box which slides into a reinforced “shell.” This combination allows you to stack boxes up to six boxes high, while still being able to instantly access any one of the boxes’ contents without breaking your back rearranging stacks of heavy comic boxes. As soon as we realized what we were looking at, we put in an order for eighty of them and put the boxes to the test. Our recommendation? What are you waiting for? Get yours today! Read the full story of our results online…
The Collection Drawer Co1818 S. Quebec Way, Suite 12-12 Tel: 303/368.7873 |
Tech TipsBetter Bar Code Scanning An EAN13 “barcode with 5-digit supplemental If you’re having trouble getting your “barcode scanner to scan the full “barcode on EAN13 codes with 5-digit “supplementals” (the type used most frequently on modern comics, where there are five digits in slightly smaller bars at the right hand side of the code), make sure you're holding your scanner straight so that the whole code is seen by the scanner. Otherwise, it might get picked up as the more basic EAN13/UPC style code without the supplemental digits, and won’t be matched in ComicBase. If you’re still having trouble, you might want to consider changing the scanner’s setting from “Autodiscriminate Supplementals” to “Decode with Supplement” (page 24 or 26 in our Manhattan Bar Code scanner’s manual). This will force the scanner not to accept the code unless it can see the supplemental part of the code. It will improve the reliability of the scans with most comics, but you’ll be sacrificing the ability to read EAN13/UPC codes which don’t have supplementals at the end. (This shows up primarily on a handful of small press comics). These codes can still be keyed in by hand, of course. Bonus Tip: Want to test if your scanner is configured properly? Try scanning codes into Notepad or Microsoft Word, then carefully comparing the digits to the ones printed under the “barcode. Program Updates vs. Content UpdatesQ: What’s the difference between a content update and a program update? A: Program Updates change the ComicBase program to a new version (e.g. 10.0.1, 10.0.2, etc.), usually to fix bugs or add new program features. These are posted on the ComicBase web site in the Support section, as well as appearing when you use ComicBase’s Internet menu to Check for Program Updates. Note: Program updates only work within the same major version of the program. E.g., ComicBase 10 users can update to 10.0.1, 10.0.2, etc., but these updates will not work with ComicBase 9 or earlier. You can upgrade from ComicBase 9 or earlier to ComicBase 10 (at special upgrade prices) by entering your current ComicBase serial number when ordering at our online store. Content Updates are a new feature of ComicBase 10. They’re posted each week (usually by Thursday night or Friday morning) and include all the changes to the data inside ComicBase, including all the new information on comics that came out that week, as well as corrected and expanded entries. They also include up-to-the-minute pricing data for all your comics, direct from Comics Buyer’s Guide. You can check for new content updates manually using the Internet Menu’s Check for Program Updates command, or use the Setup menu’s Preferences command to choose how often ComicBase will automatically check for updates. Bonus Tip: Content updates normally take only a few minutes to download and run. If yours are running slower, download ComicBase 10.0.5, and make sure to use ComicBase’s File -> File Tools command to Compact and Verify your Database. You can also have ComicBase automatically Compact and Verify your database (strongly recommended) using the Setup menu’s Preferences command. |
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