Bruji

Thank you for the post at the Comic Collector Live forum and more importantly the researched information on possible database sites. We did write to the Comic Collector but never heard back from them. We are this very day working on the comic issue and getting closer to an announcement and release of a plug-in.

Connor, cool good to hear. I know there are other Database's out there and one of them should allow you to use them, or something.

I have been playing around with this a little and some of the books are found online. I think another good thing to have would be the ability to do a multiple add of a series of books. So you could add the whole or part of a run of comics. Also found that the barcode is a little different, when I tried some Book-pedia said it couldn't read the number:

"Sorry this is a 12 digit UPC that cannot be matched...."

Here are the three Database sites I have used and might be open to you working with them.

http://www.comics.org/about.html

http://www.comicbookdb.com/

I have hear of others, but here is a start.

I will keep messing when I have time and see if I can think of anything else.

Again, thanks and standing by.
Steve

Hello all,

Well, Conor has been working on a plugin but the problem we have is the information on the existing databases out there. comicbookdb.com seems to have the most complete info and is quite amazing as far as comic book dbs go, but they will not allow us to pull from their site.

Comics.org is doing the whole "share the love, information is free" thing which is great, but there is very little info in it at the moment. What info there is is incomplete and the site has a lot of access issues.

The bottom line is that without a good and stable database, the comic book plugin will not work properly. I would suggest to those of you who are so inclined, that maybe we write comicbookdb.com and ask them, very politely, if they would be willing to change their policy and let Bookpedia pull info from their site.

This was their official response:

We do not support the use of our data outside of our website for other websites or for desktop applications. This is largely in order to keep our bandwidth usage down and thus our hosting costs. If our policy on this changes, I will be sure to let you know.

I can understand it completely, especially if they are making money off the web site, they don't want people freeloading all their hard work. Our only objective is to pull a few details for personal use.

Failing that, what other good comic book databases are out there that we might use (of the ones I've seen here suggested, the only practical one was comibookcdb.com)?

PD
All you comic fans out there, do yourselves a favour and check out Matt Fraction and Gabriel Bá's Casanova comic. It's wonderful.

Cool there is a place on their site to request "Request a Feature"

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

Please bombard them! I asked Nicely saying maybe you guys could work out a traffic or sales deal or something! I'm serious this is such good money opt for everyone.
Plus extremely happy Mac users!

58 Long boxes and growing,
Steven E. Simon

there is a site called stashmycomics.com which while not as comprehensive as comicbookdb, is similar, and has has similar functionality. perhaps they would be more amenable to data-stripping?

i would LOVE for htis to become a reality.

~matt

Ok, I've written to them to see what they say about us using their site. Fingers crossed.

Hey everyone! I found another up and coming comic site that shows promise and has an api. http://www.comicvine.com Hopefully, they will work with you. It would be great exposure for their site considering your large client base.

Comicvine looks good. Though their licensing scheme might conflict with what we want to do. I'll contact them to see what they say.

The people from stashmycomics.com replied and were nice enough to let us use their data, so we will be testing the plugin with their site and see how that goes.

Cheers.

Just wanted to bump this topic to see if any headway has been made. I'd be happy to beta test a plug-in if need be.

~matty

Ok so ComicDB is not playing well with others. If what you say about Comics.org is they just aren't big enough..... How about a share system with them. You get to use their system and if the comic isn't there then someone can input it ether using Comic-bookpedia or a link to their site that once they approve it will be added. Think of it this way, Comic.org will have the data pretty damn fast this way.

Just a thought and keep up the good work.

Steve

P.S. Ok while still working on this subject I have come across another enterprising person who got feed up and started his own inventory site. Maybe they will let you use their database with the same caveat that when someone tries to input their comic and it doesn't show up they are sent to this site to upload the info? Maybe using both sites, stashmycomics.com & comcisinventory.com, you will have enough info.

http://www.comicsinventory.com/

70 long boxes to go and now some CGC books?

Steve

Thank you for the information about another possible site. Sadly, this one is a competitor to Bookpedia; they want you to store your information online with them. Everybody seems to be creating their own database and keeping it closed. We have thought about creating our own as well and making it open, but we have come across a group trying to do just that for all types of information. So we are looking into using Freebase but it's a bit daunting as there are so many options and I don't feel like the comics schema is well organized yet. It has the advantage that users could upload missing information to share with other Pedia users and the world in general.

Well that sucks, selfish peeps blow.

When you said build your own that got me to thinking. Why not? I bet a few of us who have been posting would be glad to contribute. Heck for that matter if it was for your program I would go through my books and gather the data to input for others use. I really didn't want to do that, as I'm lazy, but for the good of others it would be worth it. Then it's just not for me and it has a better purpose.

I also know my comic store guys go to the distributors site when I ask about a cover or a book info. Maybe they have a database you guys can use.

http://www.diamondcomics.com/public/

Let us (posters) know if you want I bet there could be a couple of us that would help build your database. It all starts with one then pay it forward.

Getting excited,
Steven E. Simon

We have talked about creating our own database, but right now it's a daunting task for Bruji with everything else that is going on.

But fear not, my fellow comics fans, it is on our to-do list to solve the comics issue one way or another. Right now I don't have anything better than Bookpedia for all my comics and of course, we are lacking in features in that department.

There is a pay-for plug-in that is being developed by a French user, we'll have to see how that turns out.

Conor wrote:Thank you for the information about another possible site. Sadly, this one is a competitor to Bookpedia; they want you to store your information online with them. Everybody seems to be creating their own database and keeping it closed. We have thought about creating our own as well and making it open, but we have come across a group trying to do just that for all types of information. So we are looking into using Freebase but it's a bit daunting as there are so many options and I don't feel like the comics schema is well organized yet. It has the advantage that users could upload missing information to share with other Pedia users and the world in general.

Hi,
I'm the owner of ComicsInventory.com and would be happy to talk to you about some kind of arrangement to access the site's database. I don't see us as competitors since your application is desktop and on the Mac.

Inventory stats:
Publishers: 3,400 Plus
Titles: 26,000 Plus
Comics: 327,000 Plus

If your interested please send an email to team AT comicsinventory.com.

Donny

That is great news. Thank you for the offer to share your database. Do you have any plans for an API in the future?