Difference between revisions of "Database Model"

Revision as of 09:27, 16 June 2017

Main Tables

Publishers

Titles

aka Series Titles
Titles are unique by Publisher, series title, series year and series year sequence.

• series title - the name of the series
• series year - cover date of the first issue of the series
• series year sequence - when a publisher starts and stops (i.e, restarts from issue number 1) multiple times in a single year, the sequence is used to keep the title unique as well as to indicate publication order
• series type - one shot, limited (mini) series, continuing (regular ongoing series), graphic novel (original content published in a book instead of published individual issues, and later collected into book form), may also allow for other series types for collected issues (trade paperback/hardcover, anthology, compilations).
• series status - only for series that consist of multiple issues (i.e., not one shots). different series types may have different status values. for a limited series: in-process and completed. for a continuing series: ongoing, pauses, ended, terminated.
• frequency - the frequency that new issue are published for the series. Can be broken down into multiple fields one that is a code and another that is text based. Code based: Monthly, Weekly, Bi-Monthly, Text based: Monthly except the months of June and September, Infrequently. Would like to use this field for creating new issues in a semi-automated fashion.

volume versus series versus issue number

there is a tendency to put a volume (vol) indicator in the series titles. instead of taking this approach, it is preferred to use series name and year. Typically (but not always) a new series is created when the number is restarted or shifted. Regarding volumes in books, instead of creating a separate title for each book in a set, it would be better to create one title and then use the volume number as the issue number (perhaps we can have a display indicator to show concatenate the VOL designator before the issue number).

If the issue number is reset at the beginning of each Volume, a single series should be created, but the Volume Number will be required to make the issue number unique. In this case the volume number should be carried at the issue level and be prefixed with the issue number.

Issues

There will be only 1 record for a given comic book issue, which will contain data about when it released, cover date, cover price, type, etc. If there are multiple variants of a given comic book issue, these will be describe in the variants table. Additionally, the variants table may provide fields that override values on the issues table. For example a 2nd printing variant may have a release date that is later than the release date of the first issue.

• iss_id: PK
• ttl_id: FK
• volume number - should be left NULL, unless issue number resets to 1 multiple times in the series and Volume Number is documented. See series for additional details.
• issue number
• issue extension
• full issue number
• title / Issue Name ?
• sub title / Issue Tagline ?
• release date / On-Sale Date - the date the issue was available to purchase
• cover date - generally will just have a month and a year
• key date
• cover price ?
• currency
• issue type ?
• mature content flag / content rating ?
• number of pages - standard page count versus actual page count see GCD wiki page on page count
• color / black & white ?
• age ?
• country ?
• language ?

indicia level fields may want to include indica based fields to capture details from the indicia that may contradict information found else where (cover, non-indica pages, external sources, etc.)

• notes
• synopsis ?

Issue Name (from CBdb): The issue name is most often inside the issue, listed with the names of the creators. If no issue name is found but one exists on the cover of the issue, that is an acceptable alternative.

Issue Tagline (from CBdb): the issue tagline field is for the tagline on the cover of an issue that looks like an issue name but does not match the issue's name in the pages. An example of this would be Identity Crisis v1 #4 where the tagline on the cover says, "The Truth!" but the actual issue name is "Chapter Four: Who Benefits"

Cover Date: the cover date is the date on the cover or in the copyright of the book - not the date on which the issue comes out. Generally it only contains a month and a year. Do not use the day field unless there is a specific day listed in the issue's cover date. Can also have optional part of the month values like: Early, Mid-Month, Late.

Key Date - how the issues should be sorted chronologically... closely related to Cover date/release, but would contain the day of the month (and possibly the time), so that when all the issue of the series or of a story arc are listed, they can be sorted by the key date and be displayed in the order that the issues

Cover Price - should have a method to indicate FREE or Promotional or Giveaway.

Issue Number: a numeric value, typically an integer starting at 1, but on occasion can be a negative number or zero, for example issue # -1 or issue number # 0. Sometimes the issue number can be a floating point number, e.g. 15.1

Issue Extension - this is reserved for non-numeric characters that are part of the issue Number like Age of Ultron #10AI - here AI would be entered Into the Issue Extension. The issue extension is not for variant identification.

full issue number - this is the issue number and extension and any additional text that are used by the publisher to identify the issue in the series

issue type (format) - not sure what the column name should be for this piece of data. Possible values: Standard Comic Book, Trade Paperback, Manga, Hardcover, Original Graphic Novel, webcomic, Anthology, bookshelf, magazine, digital media, mini comic, Prestige Format, Ashcan, Flipbook, Fanzine, Other Comic Related Media

mature content flag / content rating - values of: Contains mature content or Does not contain mature content... alternatively could have ratings similar to G, PG, R, etc.

Synopsis - put this as separate table I'm thinking... could be user contributed, multiple, vote on which synopsis is best, which synopsis is the default one, flags for when synopsis have spoilers

Notes - the notes field is for any notes that relate to the issue and do not fit into any of the other fields.

Variants

conventions for variant naming

• Standard/Regular Cover
• Cover A, Cover B, etc.
• <artist-name> Variant
• Second Printing, 3rd Printing, etc.
• 75 Cent (or other monetary variation) Variant [usually indicates a reprint?]

editions...

• Direct Edition
• Newsstand Edition
• Mass Market Edition
• Special Edition
• Collectors' Edition
• Second (Third, Fourth, etc.) Edition ???
• Commemorative Edition
• etc..

varient types

Note: reprints that are printed substantially later than the original issue are not considered to be variants. They should be considered a separate issue altogether.

Artist Cover variants
These are comics, published at approximately the same time as the base item, with different cover art. These are generally issued in order to entice consumers into buying more than one copy of a story or into buying work of a favorite artist. Cover variants for American comic book magazines almost always have the same indicia as the base item.

Second (Third, Fourth, etc.) Printing variants
These are comics, published somewhat later than the original issues printing, in response to demand for more copies of the base item. Almost always, these items have an indicator, such as a “Second Printing” logo indicating that they are not the base item. There is a practice of issuing second printing of with new cover art. Often the indicia will indicate that the item is a second printing. Later printings may have a different UPC. Second printings may have a different price from the original issue and care should be taken not to confuse these with price variants.

Sketch Cover variants

Blank Cover variants

Gate fold cover variant ???

Cover Material variant ???
like foil, 3-D, holographic, embossed

International variants
These are comics printed contemporaneously with the base item and are intended for sale in foreign markets, another type of distribution variant. Difference may be in the display of pricing (pounds vs. dollars). Translations into languages other than that of the original issue should not be considered to be variants if they printed by a different publisher or subsidiary, but different series (due to a different publisher). If in the unlikely event a issue is translated into multiple languages under the same publisher then it would be a variant.

Advertising variants
These are comics, published at approximately the same time as the base item, with different advertisements or with comics content replacing advertising. This category applies, in particular, to much of the Dell output, wherein subscription ads appear in place of a single-page story on inside covers.

Price variants
These are comics for which copies were printed with different price points at approximately the same time. Issues with price or retailer stickers are not variants.

Related Material

The inclusion of other related Titles when listing a main Title. For example, in a list of the Fantastic Four Series Title, additional titles such as Annuals, Specials, Reprints, Trade Paper Baks, etc would be listed after the main listing of issues. There would be types of related materials that the user could choose to show, and the user may also choose to incorporate these additional series titles in the main listing. For a given Series Title, the main series, there will several related series, that do not have the same Series Title as the main series, such as: - Annuals - Specials - Collected Issues (TPB, etc.) - Reprints These related series should be displayed underneath the issues for the main series, sorted by: type (e.g., annuals first, then specials, then collected issues, etc.), then issue number (desc).

title continuity

for a given series title, if it continues a different series, or continued from a different series.

collected in

tracks all the places a given issue is published in, e.g., trade paper backs collect individual issues. So the collated_in table would list all trades that the issue appears in. so when creating the data model for Trade Paper backs, you would have a Header table (PK: tpb_id) and a detail table. In the detail table you would have the tpb_dtl_id, tpb_hdr_id, iss_id. one could then query this table by iss_id and get the list of Trade Paper backs that collect the issue.

reprints

if a

Additional Tables

Imprints

could we store these in the same table as publishers and have fields to indicate that the record is an Imprint and the imprint's parent publisher?

Story Arcs & Cross Overs

tracks all the issues that make up a given Story Arc A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as comic books with each episode following a narrative arc.

group and families

???