I’m extremely excited to announce that Marc Diefenderfer is now officially the Editor at Trade Reading Order!

Marc used to review for IGN and has an excellent comic blog at With Great Power, but you should all know him already since he’s been a constant supporter and contributor for this site.

In his new capacity, he’ll be approving new contributor submissions, organizing and posting new list content and eventually overseeing content for the blog.

We’ll be slowly gearing up for a bit, but this is all part of moving towards bringing you a regular dose of that long form review content I know you crave.

Speaking of moving forward, I’ve also got some database and code updates worth mentioning.

I updated some backend code to make things easier for the contributors when sorting books in the database. You can read more about that in the forum here, though it only applies to those already with backend access.

I also created a list called Essential Spider-Man, which is kind of like it sounds. Here’s an excerpt from the forum thread about it:

Since we’re tagging characters on every book they appear in, Marvel and DC’s main cash cows are soon going to have huge lists. While cool for the collector, they will be intimidating and possibly confusing to new readers.

So I’ve been playing with the idea of more condensed recommendation tags for the primary books for that character. Here’s the Essential Spider-Man list (which is already about 200 books shorter than the primary spider-man list!)

I haven’t really decided what to do when there are multiple formats (like Masterworks vs. Essentials) but I am trying to include the newer or more complete editions (like the Birth of Venom trade instead of the other two that collect similar material).   As for characters that probably need this treatment, I’d say almost all of the ones that are popular enough to be on the front page. Wolverine, Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and so on.

After updating the core WordPress code and some of the plugins, I’ve had to fix a fair amount of light formatting errors. I think I’ve gotten all of them (except for the Recent Reviews in the sidebar, which I’ll be getting to shortly) but let me know if you see anything  misaligned or just looking funky in general.

The deadline for the Superman: Redemption Giveaway has been indefinitely extended, just until the next book is posted.

I’ve also finally brought the “Self Contained Series” taxonomy to life. It’s not doing much yet, but this taxonomy will hold little lists like “Preacher” or “Concrete”. You’ll be able to see the link to the whole series under “Series/Event” on the single book page for now. Once we’ve got more Self Contained books in, I’ll make the listing more accessible.

Finally, in addition to the new Spidey list, there have been a few database updates since the last update post. Here they are:

Concrete: Heights (Added to Database – Thanks Simon! – on the Self Contained list.)
New Avengers Vol. 5: Civil War (Tagged New Avengers)
Jonah Hex: No Way Back (Fixed Amazon link)
Bat Lash: Guns and Roses (Fixed Amazon link)
New Avengers Vol. 1: Breakout (Added to Essential Spider-Man list)
Spider-Man Family: Back In Black (Moved under the other two “Back In Black” books)

That’s it for now! I hope everyone is as excited as I am. You’ll hear a little hello from Marc on the blog soon.

As always, keep commenting and asking questions. Whether on the forums or the individual books, we’re happy to help.

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