If you have any advice or feedback, my name is Ian and I’m always happy to hear from people. Click here to send me an email. You can also leave a comment here or at any book page and I’ll respond to you there or in email. If you have a question to ask of any of the other site contributors, feel free to comment on one of their posts or click their author name (should show below the blog post or review) for more information about them. Please let me know if you think anything is wrong or could be updated! I’m never too proud to debate a point in public. If you think a book is placed wrong, feel free to make a note of it on that book. Even if I disagree, I’ll leave your alternate viewpoint up there – a lot of this stuff is very subjective and your opinion could help someone place the book on their shelf! If I agree, the book will be moved. Either way, your comment will remain, showing your public contribution to the cause. And you’ll have my heartfelt appreciation! |
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Hi Ian,
Thank you very much for your hard work, in making such a useful website. I was scouring the internet looking for a chronological look into DC’s publication history and I found a few that caught my attention. After examining what they were offering, I realized that I was needing something a bit more exhaustive or empirical in scope. Your examination and hard work, was (and is) exactly what I was looking for and because of that I thank you.
I’m not new to the world of comics, per se, but I am interested in starting a thorough reading of what DC has to offer. Batman has always struck a chord with me, and with your help, I will be able to enjoy his and other character’s stories more fully. Rock on, Ian, keep up the good work. Peace.
-David
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David! Thank you for your kind words. It’s really great to get such positive feedback.
I’m still going through and tagging Batman in a lot of books as I update, so you should see his list become more populated over time.
Right now, at least, all the modern books he’s starred in should be on that list (and it’s a large one! The biggest for any character, I think.)
I’m not sure if you’re already knee deep in Batman comics or if you’d been waiting until you found a list of what to start with, but starting with the modern books on that list (Year One) and working your way down is a pretty great way to do it.
It’s actually how I read him myself, though I had to tweak it as I went along – when I was a kid I watched the animated show all the time and read whatever I could get my hands on, as an adult when I got back into it I wanted to start from the “beginning”!
I’m very satisfied with how the Year One Era is right now. If you like that, I’d highly recommend grabbing the Chronicles books. It’s really awesome to see how they mirror each other and the Golden Age stories can be much more fun to read that you might assume.
Eventually I’m going to put some “essential reading” lists up for important characters, that just have the best books tagged on them instead of every appearance, but for right now the full list is my priority.
Thanks again, David! Let me know if you have any advice or would like to see something here that I haven’t got – I’m always super excited to get feedback.
-Ian
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I just wanted to say thank you for the amazing amount of work that you’ve put on this website. It’s becoming an essential tool for me when ordering my trades.
Keep up the great work!
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Francisco! Glad to hear the site is useful for you.
I really appreciate your comment. Please let me know any time you think of something that would make the site better :)
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Ian
Thanks very much for this. It is incredibly informative and certainly helps me place events in order.
Mort
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No problem Mort! If you haven’t already, try signing in and adding books to your collection – it will automatically sort them for you according to the reading order (or alphabetical if you wish) :D
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Hello Ian,
Thanks for making such a useful website- I know that I will definitely be taking a look at the Ultimate Marvel reading order in the near future!
I know that you are in the process of writing several Marvel Alternate Universe reading orders and wanted to lend a hand with Marvel 2099. Although I have read only a little of the comics, I found a rather handy reading order. Although there is no authentication or any information on how the reading order is presented, I would assume that it is chronological. I’ve included a link below if you want to take a look at it.
http://www.forumlogr.com/thread/2tBmt2aM0Wqy/Marvel-2099-reading-order.html
I am looking forward to any future reading orders!
Thanks again,
Andrew
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Thanks for the link, Andrew! That should come in handy for the issue reading order section of the site. I think there are only a couple titles released in trade for 2099 so that won’t be much of a big deal there.
I’ve been on a bit of an unfortunate hiatus due to work, but I hope to get the site really booming again in october. Always really happy to have encouragement from visitors!
-Ian
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This is my first visit to your website. I was seeking a reading order for the entire crisis run, but your “recommended reading order” seems to include 15 Jonah Hex trade paperbacks. I’m not sure how you came up with this, but when I click on recommended reading order, I get this ridiculous list of 1,800+ trade paperbacks. This makes no sense. If I’m missing something, please let me know, but after 20 minutes of attempting to navigate this convoluted site in search of a simple list, I’ve had enough. Every reading order search comes up with the same irrelevant list. A little help if you please. Thanks.
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Hi Erik, I’m sorry to hear it’s not working for you. Hopefully I can figure out what we’re doing wrong or clear up some confusion.
When you say Crisis, I’m assuming your looking for titles that tie into the various DC crisis events? Or the direct titles like Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis, and so on? The “Recommended Reading Order” list is one for the entire dc universe, including anything remotely related to it (hence Jonah Hex, since he’s an in continuity character – and actually does show up in CoIE, I think, now that you mention it.)
Have you tried filtering the list by the “Crisis” tag? It isn’t tagged on every crossover, but it does have the main titles in order. Perhaps that’s closer to what you’re looking for? Here’s the link:
http://www.tradereadingorder.com/dc-series/crisis/
I think you’ve brought to my attention that if you land on it randomly (not coming from the dcu navigation) the explanation for the RRO is a little lacking. That first sentence should really read “This is my preferred reading order for the entire DC Universe” – something a little more specific, since apparently some people are finding that page via more narrow search terms.
I’ll change that now!
Does that help at all?
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Erik, following your advice, I changed the text on the RRO to this:
“This list shows every book connected to the DC Universe in my preferred reading order.
The main goal is to help people arrange books on a shelf and decide what title to read next. This is a list of books that can be read start to finish with the least amount of spoilers and awkwardness, and with the maximum enjoyment of events, cameos, and crossovers.
All of the DC character, series, and event reading lists are created in relation to this master list. If you are looking for something more specific, check the tags to the right or create a filtered search!”
I hope that’s a little more clear.
I was also wondering (and I hope you’re not too frustrated with answering – I’m always trying to improve the site!) which search you were using, the one up top (that has a little google logo) or the one to create filtered lists? I’m not quite certain I’m happy with the google search applet, and am starting to think about looking for alternatives or seeing if I can tweak it more. If looking for “crisis” just keeps bringing you back to the wrong list, then that’s terrible!
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Ian,
Thank you for your assistance. As is often the case, I just don’t have enough time to spend an hour looking for this reading order, which is why I went to you in the first place! I appreciate you making small alterations in the Recommended Reading Order Section. Sometimes frustration can build quickly when trying to successfully complete 13 tasks at once. But I now understand what the reading order I kept seeing was. Sorry about the somewhat hostile comment. Now I can take a shot at reading all of this!
-Erik
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No problem, Erik, I’m glad it helped. My similar frustrations were why I started this site in the first place! I’m actually using it to help me organize some of my reading.
If you’re looking for crisis info, specifically, there’s also http://crisis2crisis.com/ – it’s a little out of date, but a lot of great work has gone into getting that in order too, and it has a lot of the important crossovers on there, just not for the latest books.
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THANKS!
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My pleasure. Let me know if there’s anything else reading order related at all I might be able to help with :D
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I had posted a reading order to Blackest Night as a post and asked if you could move it to a topic thread. However I figured out how to add a topic and then proceeded to put the BN order up. Unfortunately I couldnt delete the post I had added to the FC Comic Issue Order forum. So, I deleted the contents and clicked on REPORT POST. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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it’s no problem. The forum is a little weird right now, honestly, and needs some work to be fully intuitive and functional.
What you did was just fine – I think I’ve cleared it up a bit and I’ll put your Blackest Night post on the front page just like the last one later tonight.
Any time you want to post a reading order, you can do something similar to how you did it. In any case, I’ll see anything you do on the site and respond if you’re having trouble. So no worries!
I really appreciate the participation – it’s always better to try than to give up, right? :D
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Hey Ian,
I just came back from NYCC where I bought a few comics and I stumbled on your site out of pure googling luck looking for a reading timeline. I’m impressed by the sheer amount of stuff in your list.
I used to go on http://www.thedcu.net/continuity/index.html which is a cool site too but he hasn’t updated much since Final Crisis.
I noticed that some of your stuff isn’t in the same order which is hard on my OCD brain. For example I currently have Batman: Faces between Shaman and Monster Men but you have it much later in your list…
Also I’ve been looking everywhere for where to put the Bird of Prey Batgirl/Catwoman and Catwoman/Oracle in my list but I can’t find the info anywhere.
Keep up the good work and update your cover thumbnails, you’re on the right track!
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Hi Mel, thanks for dropping by!
Batman: Faces may be misplaced, honestly. Do you think it works better before Monster Men? It’s been a long time before I worked on that part of the timeline.
Are those Birds of Prey books prestige releases? I feel like they may be contained in a different birds of prey volume. But… I’m not entirely sure. They may be separate.. We’re talking about the 2003 releases, right? I’ll look into it, but I’m guessing you can just place them by release date sometime in 2003.
Thanks for pointing these out to me, I’ve got em on my check list now. Let me know if you have any other advice!
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I’ve put in the Birds of Prey: Batgirl/Catwoman and Catwoman/Oracle based by date, kinda, right after the Catwoman trade that stretches into the first half of 2003. Until I have a chance to hunt them down and read them myself, I hope that works. Let me know if you think they could be placed better, and again, thanks for the heads up!
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Sweet! thank you, you’re the first chronology I’ve found to actually include these two so thanks.
I will let you know when I read them but don’t hold your breath :)
I’m reading in order and am currently at Knightfall part 2… which I never seem to go past because it bothers me to read KnightsEnd without reading KnightQuest.
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I want to be absolutely inclusive as possible. For the dc, it’s easier, because I’m also trying to collect all those books myself! I’ll be able to confirm placement on everything eventually.
For marvel, I’ll have to work more with others, but hopefully the site will be just as accurate for all reading orders. It just takes a good community :D
I totally agree with you about KnightQuest, by the way. It’s such a total pain to skip from wheelchair bruce to on top of his game batman. Doesn’t make any sense. They really need to release a Knightfall Omnibus Vol. 1 and 2 that collects EVERYTHING.
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What would a huge increase in relevant traffic mean for your business? If I could greatly increase the amount of customers who are interested in your products and services, wouldn’t you be interested.
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you mean my hobby? I don’t sell anything and this site is pretty much a fan effort. We’ve got some affiliate links to help pay for hosting, but that’s about it.
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HiIan,
I’ve been a fan of this site for a little while now so I finally signed up and it’s awesome!
One thing I did notice that appeared to have a weird placing was ”batwoman elegy”. As you’re probably aware Grayson appears as the batman in the opening issue; yet in the reading order it appears before batman RIP, as well as final crisis, battle for the cowl and long shadows. Other than that I’d say it’s all spot on to my tastes. :D
Keep up the good work.
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huh, yeah, that sounds wonky. I’ll check it out and try to find the proper place for it in a future update. Thanks!
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By date, it seems to go right after B+R. I’ll try it there! Thanks!
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I don’t know if this is the correct place for this kind of thing…but..I can’t believe you haven’t done a review for AMERICAN VAMPIRE. Book is great. maybe you can check out my reviews of it on the DC boards (vertigo) and take from that. Then see if it’s something you’d like to include. I would love to do reviews of it myself for you, sadly i’m not able to include pics etc. Just a thought.
–Darth Davis
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It’s alright to leave a comment anywhere :D
I actually haven’t read it yet! I did see your writing for some of the original issues (and replied to you in the update thread on the general board – not sure if you saw that) and if you wanted to work it into a review for the whole trade, I’d love to post your work! You’ve already got your account set up, so all you’d need to do is send me the review.
You can use the Submit Review form or email me directly. You can put the text in an email or a word doc if you’d like.
Don’t worry about pictures – I can handle that!
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could you add in the DC TPB for 2011 releases heres a list http://www.collectedcomicslibrary.com/books.html
also LOVe the sight i use it almost daily. Also Ive found that your reading order is way more accurate then other claiming to have a proper reading order for DC which i tried to follow but realized it was WAY off. I went straight back to following your guide exclusively. The ONLY issue was your placement of Justice League of America Sanctuary and Second Coming were reversed in the order.
Please keep up the good work and if there is anything i can do to help this site grow and or maintain its amazing level of excellence please do not hesitate to ask.
Keith
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Hey Keith, thanks for the comment! :D
I’m gonna get the dc updates in as soon as I can (today was actually my last day at my day job, now that I’m working freelance I should have more time for the site.) Expect them up sometime in the next month or so. Sorry I can’t go any quicker, I gotta upload 3000 marvel books, finish the Wildstorm and Image lists, and then I’ll be able to keep each list up to date!
Thanks for the tip about Sanctuary and Second Coming. That’s exactly the kind of help I need! :D With careful readers checking my work, the site will grow quickly.
It does look like they’re backwards, and for the life of me I don’t know why I placed them that way. They should just be placed by date, yes?
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yes they follow basically right after each other with the final crisis, Salvation run, etc in-between them.
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Thanks Keith, I’ll update it asap! Besides helping with stuff like this, just hanging around the site, chattin on the forums and leaving encouraging comments – it all keeps me believing that this project is worth all my time :D
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I love for a way to further organize “my Collection” into other lists like just batman books or teen titans books etc. as well as having the giant dc universe chronology. Some times i just want to see where all the bat titles and bat family books in my collection fit within one another same as with titans and such. Is there a way to add like custom collections off of the main one we have?
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not yet, but it’s coming. I don’t really have an eta, but the code/plugin that handles the collections right now is being heavily reworked. What you’re talking about (the ability to sort/filter by almost any criteria) is on its way, hopefully. It’s pretty complex stuff, so I’m not able to do it myself, but ideally I’ll have some good news soon!
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Hey Ian,
I just wanted to finally work up the nerve to thank you for all your hard work here. I’ve been using your site for a couple months now and it helps me so much stay in sync with what I need to be reading. It’s even helped my trip to the comic shop when searching for trades.
Keep up the good work, it is truly appreciated.
Falisha Ann
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Good to see you posting here, Falisha! :)
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This site is awesome! Started getting back into comics after taking some years off to do the family thing. I used to be a Marvel junkie, but am now branching off into DC and this is exactly what I need. I am using the collection feature to keep track of what I have read from friends and the library over the years so I don’t repeat. The scope of this site is beyond belief. Well Done.
[Reply]
Thanks man! There’s still a lot of work to be done and recent books to be added, but I hope to get back to it soon. In the meantime, feel free to comment anywhere or at the forums if you have any questions! :D
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Wow.
I started my own lists in excel last year(not like this) because I was confused… and now I’m speechless.
Thank you. Thank you for doing what had to be done. I’m sure you’ve heard it and it will be said again.. This site is amazing! Amazing.
-Mo
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Glad to hear I’ve been able to help you out, Mo! We’ll keep adding books and hopefully will be able to keep up with everyone’s collections.
If you’ve sorted stuff we don’t have online, feel free to let us know in the forums!
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I love this website! I hope you keep updating it. I have been planning my epic DCU read starting with the Golden Age and going from there. This website has been invaluable to organizing and putting my trades in order. Thank you so much, I hope you keep updating. For some trades like during Infinite Crisis and the Grant Morrison Batman Saga, I suggest sometimes stopping mid trade, skipping to another, reading part, then going back. Just to get scenes in order.
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Hey Jonny, glad the website has been useful to you as it is. There’s always the hope of more updates, though it slumbers at the moment.
Feel free leaving comments on those actual books, other readers might find the tips helpful. I tend to be either too lazy to skip around in trades, or just give up and go to a stack of sorted floppies.
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Hi Ian, I love the improvements you have made to the site. It really has grown. I was wondering if you had any plans for allowing users to track a reading journal or list. It would be nice if I could mark the books on my list as read and add comments or star rating.
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I’d love to have features like that, but we don’t have a developer for the project. Everything I’ve cobbled together so far is some tweak on existing wordpress code or plugins. If someone is interesting in helping me develop more community oriented features, I’d definitely take them up on it.
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Thank you very much for your site. It’s extremely useful.
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Thanks! Let me know if you have any issues or advice!
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I love your site, you do great work and have served as my reading list for our library. Is there any way to combine the great work you do with the great work at http://collectededitions.blogspot.com/2009/09/dc-trade-paperback-timeline-tpb.html. Collectededitions is a little more up to date, and they have some great reviews. You have a more extensive list, the ability to search by artist or character, and the ability to “check off” books. Both sites do not seem to have time to update, which is understandable, you both have lives. Is there any way you could do a good old-fashioned team-up to do what you cannot accomplish alone?
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I’ve emailed him before but not gotten a response. I think that maybe he finds it to be competition?
As it is, I’m trying to start updating again. I do know that I’m very behind. Ideally I’d like to have every book in our timeline have our own review, not as competition, but because I think having multiple reviews of a book out there is very helpful to readers. I certainly like seeing different viewpoints for movies, but old trades don’t really have many reviews out there.
Thanks for commenting, I hope to see you around here again!
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I just found your site.
About 4-5 years ago, when I was catching up I REALLY could have used your site. You could find reading orders for trades back then, but most were quite @*!#%.
What I really wanna say is: This is a GREAT website – especially for guys new to trade-comic-reading and trying to find through the jungle out there.
My ONLY wish would be that you – alternatively at least – connect the big events with ISSUE-per-ISSUE reading orders like you already have them(or at least SOME) on the blog. It’s more enjoyable to read events in the original publishing order, even though it’s somewhat ridiculous to cycle through your trade’s while (re)reading an event.
Thanks for listening and keep going(!), it’s a REALLY great site, congrats!
René [bremen, germany]
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Hi Rene, sorry for the long gap between comments.
I certainly want to do more issue by issue reading orders. It does take a back seat to the overall trade listing, but I intend to hit as many as I can over time. If you’ve put together any yourself, feel free to let me know and we’ll put them up here!
Best,
Ian
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Hi,
I’m pleased to announce my new online graphic novel, Phi. –Would love to get your feedback:
phi.carlosaleman.com
Thank you,
C. Aleman
[Reply]
Feel free to email me and I’ll try to give what feedback I can. Thanks for saying Hi, Carlos!
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Hi
Your website has been really helpful I am collecting the marvel pocketbooks the Uncanny X-men series, your page has made it easy for me to get the books in order. Days of the Future Past was a bit pricey on Amazon so I bought lowest price at 11 quid. I am up to Scarlett in Glory at the moment, the one with The Morlocks and the Silver Samari. Although I have not bought Legacy of the Lost yet I know it collects x-men 185 – 191. There are also a few X-men the Hidden Years Pocket books out, which I am thinking about buying
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Yeah, those ones were a bit hard to find compared to the US collections.
I’ll try to update it as I can – is our listing of Legacy of the Lost in error?
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Hayoo!
First off, love your site your a saint to be putting this much time and im sure gray hairs into something so expansive. I recently found myself under medical house arrest do to a yet to be determined auto immune disease, so i have been using all this free time stuck inside collecting every Batman TPB my wallet and wife will allow. Any-who im trying to get my collection organized in reading order but im having a lot of difficulty placing Streets of gotham, the return of Bruce Wayne, and the road home, in proper order. Any advise would be super A+.
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No gray hairs yet, thankfully, but I did have a big medical issue last year myself, so I seriously sympathize. I know this response was slow, but I hope you’re doing much better.
I think I’m a bit behind on the DC order, but if you follow the blog I’ll make sure to post updates as I try to catch up. Thanks for dropping by!
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Not sure if cross-linking is allowed, but the dude over at Collected Editions blog has put together a totally comprehensive listing of DC trades in timeline order. You can find it here: http://collectededitions.blogspot.ca/2009/09/dc-trade-paperback-timeline-tpb.html
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Cross linking is fine and if you dig around you’ll see this site discussed a lot. I think it is a great resource if you’re looking to start at a particular series. As I mentioned above, I contacted him about working together on this project way back when we started, but was greeted with total silence.
However, it’s by no means comprehensive. There’s around 2300 DC trades and OGNs and he’s missing a fair deal of them (most of them already in our database). He also is missing almost everything pre-crisis. Check out our DC lists if you haven’t already.
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Sweet blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News.
Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News?
I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Appreciate it
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I would like to thank you for the efforts you’ve put in penning this blog. I really hope to see the same high-grade content by you in the future as well. In truth, your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get my own website now ;)
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