Comics

Been trying to organize all my digital comics over the past month or so. Its quite easy to do as long as you have 2 (maybe 3) programs.

To manage the library theres none better than ComicRack.

To add metadata tags to the comics, I tend to prefer using Comictagger over any of the ComicRack plugins. Theres a couple reasons for this. First off, ComicTagger allows you to add ComicLover tags to the files as well as ComicRack tags. Now for PC users this means absolutely nothing, but Mac users appreciate it. Even better than that is ComicTagger allows me to change my ComicVine API code very quickly so I don't have to wait for 15 minutes after every 200 comics. When tagging series like Action Comics, Batman, Superman, and Detective Comics this is a very big plus as each of those series is more than 600 comics long.

Now the third program I use is called 'Bulk Rename Utility' and honestly, it is a godsend. Much too often comics are named in such a way that comicvine confuses Issue number as part of the series name, or heck, sometimes the comics name is just plain wrong. This tool allows me to rename entire series quickly in such a way that Comicvine can grab the series title, volume, and Issue # and then tag the comics. Everything this program does however is temporary because after I tag the comics, ComicTagger can then rename the files and I follow the Format...

Series Name v[Volume #] #[Issue #] ([Year of Publication]) - Issue Name

This has so far worked for me.

Now though I come to my first major gripe. There are a few scanners and scan groups out there who have a tendency to either put their scanner tags BEFORE the cover Image or in some cases, such as the DCP Archive, outright replace the cover with something of their own. This not only screws up tagging programs such as ComicTagger, but because Comicrack shows the first image as the cover in your library, you end up having dozens if not hundreds of comics displaying scanner tags instead of the cover.

Listen, I'm not opposed to scanners taking credit for their releases. If they want to add tags to comics at the end that is FINE with me, Most people are still going to see them. Just dont screw with the covers and dont put your own tag BEFORE the cover. I have begun to manually remove every tag that replaces the covers in my collection and I must say, it seems limited to a few groups (thankfully) but those groups tend to cover the big series like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man... So yeah, my point is just dont be an asshole. Put your tags in the filename and at the end where they belong.