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Check back here for detailed information on updates to the reading orders or database, reviews by myself or any of the other site contributors, and general comic news we find interesting! You can also subscribe to an RSS feed for updates.

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By | Saturday, October 16, 2010 | 11:47 pm | 0 Comments | Blog > Database Updates

A bunch of updates!

I added 19 books to the database and they are currently sitting on the Unplaced Books page. These are mainly upcoming releases.

The Batman: Jam Packed Action (Digest)
Justice League Unlimited: Jam Packed Action (Digest)
The Essential Showcase 1956-1959 (Just found this one, collected during the 70s? My copy is in the mail, I’ll let you know more once I’ve checked it out.)
Batman: Imposters (Softcover, Release August 16th 2011)
Aquaman: Death of the Prince (Softcover, Release July 5th 2011)
Batgirl: The Flood (Softcover, Release May 24th 2011)
Batman: Streets of Gotham Vol. 3: The House of Hush (Hardcover, Release August 2nd 2011)
Tales of The Batman: Gene Colan Vol. 1 (Hardcover, Release July 26th 2011)
First Wave (Hardcover, Release June 28th 2011)
Deadman Vol. 1 (Softcover, Release May 17th 2011)
JSA All-Stars: Glory Days (Softcover, Release May 24th 2011)
DC Universe: Legacies (Hardcover, Release August 30th 2011)
Justice League International Vol. 6 (Softcover, Release May 31st 2011)
Batman: Under The Red Hood (Softcover, Release May 10th 2011)
Birds Of Prey Vol. 1: Endrun (Hardcover, Release May 17th 2011)
Green Lantern: Brightest Day (Hardcover, Release June 2st 2011)
Green Lantern Corps: Revolt of the Alpha Lanterns (Hardcover, Release May 31st 2011)
Infinity Inc.: The Generations Saga Vol. 1 (Hardcover, Release June 28th 2011)
Legion Lost (Hardcover, Release June 21 2011)

I’ll sort them as I start making my way through the unplaced books again. For a long time I’d been concentrating on the Pre-Crisis parts of the DCU Recommended Reading Order, but it’s looking pretty tight now. I think I can turn back to focusing on the recent releases again. We’ve got a little catch up to do! Honestly, once we’re really up and going, I don’t want the unplaced books list to ever be over one page long.

I also moved Death: At Death’s Door (Digest) to be right after Sandman: Season of Mists since Gorblax reminded me that it is an alternate retelling of the storyline. I’ve got a lot of user suggestions/update/changes to make, but I’m working my way bit by bit through last months comments and will make the changes while doing other updates. Thanks for all the feedback and advice!

Speaking of which, I also added the individual issues of Time Masters: Vanishing Point to the Bruce Wayne: The Road Home reading order. Thanks to Duncan for the tip. I’m not sure about the placement yet, but I’m going by release dates.

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By | Friday, October 15, 2010 | 12:38 am | 0 Comments | Blog > Database Updates

I added the breadcrumb trail (that was on the front page) to individual blog posts, which should make the navigation around the site a little easier. Right now it is above the byline/date, but the placement may not be final.

Most of my time tonight has been spent implementing the edition custom taxonomy. I played with having a “dc-edition” and “marvel-edition” and so on, but I think I’m settling on letting it work like “creator” – the same taxonomy used for all posts.

It may be confusing at first, because the “hardcover” list will list ALL hardcovers in the database, but I know I’m going to have to put some serious work into the filtering tools at some point, and I want people to be able to look for a list of hardcovers by a certain author and so on. If the hardcover lists are segmented by publisher or shared universe, that will give some trouble. Right now the filter doesn’t work with custom taxonomies, but I’m sure it will in the future – more and more functions are supported with custom taxonomies in wordpress every day, and it would be crazy if no one is working on it right now.

And if they’re not, I’ll just have to figure it out myself.

Anyway, the Tor archives are now marked as Hardcover and Oversized, but it only works in the backend. I’ll let you know when the functionality is public (and then again when enough books are tagged for it to actually be useful.)

All the Marvel books will be going up with edition tagging, so you’ll be able to look for a list of hardcover omnibus editions right away.

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By | Thursday, October 14, 2010 | 7:46 am | 67 Comments | Blog > Comic Issue Reading Orders

The current cause for fan excitement (and confusion) is Bruce Wayne: The Road Home. It’s part of the larger overarching Batman: RIP / Battle / Return / Etc storyline and will eventually be included on that trade list, but as the comics come out in issue format you may be wondering how to read them.

Along with the main titles, there is also a companion of sorts being promoted as “The Search for Bruce Wayne.” That runs in issues 1-6 of Time Masters: Vanishing Point. You could probably read those six issues separately after the main bulk, if you wanted, or you can try them as listed here. As with most time travel stories, chronological order may not ever really be possible. Let me know if you have any tips or tweaks!

Here’s the full list, with release dates.

Pre-game:

Batman RIP / Reborn (as much of the Morrison run as you’d like.)

Batman & Robin 1-9

Red Robin 1-14

The Main Event:

1. Batman & Robin 10
2. Batman & Robin 11
3. Batman & Robin 12
4. Batman 700
5. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 1 – (Early July)
6. Batman & Robin 13
7. Batman 701
8. Batman 702
9. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 2 – (Late July)
10. Time Masters: Vanishing Point 1 – (July 25th)
11. Red Robin 15
12. Batman 703 – (September 9th)
13. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 3 – (August)
14. Time Masters: Vanishing Point 2 – (August 25th)
15. Batman & Robin 14
16. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 4 – (September)
17. Time Masters: Vanishing Point 3 – (September 29th)
18. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 5 – (October 13th)
19. Time Masters: Vanishing Point 4 – (October 27th)
20. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne 6 – (November 10th)
21. Batman & Robin 15 – (October 20th)
22. Red Robin 16
23. Road Home: Batman & Robin – (October 13th)
24. Road Home: Red Robin – (October 13th)
25. Road Home: Outsiders – (October 13th)
26. Road Home: Batgirl – (October 13th)
27. Road Home: Catwoman – (October 20th)
28. Road Home: Commissioner Gordon – (October 20th)
29. Road Home: Oracle – (October 27th)
30. Road Home: Ra’s al Ghul – (October 27th)
31. Batman & Robin 16 – (November 3rd)
32. Batman: The Return – (November 17th)
33. Batman, Inc. #1 – (November 17th)
34. Batman 704
35. Red Robin 17
36. Time Masters: Vanishing Point 5 – (November 17th)
37. Time Masters: Vanishing Point 6 – (December 15th)

At this point it’s starting to move into Batman Inc territory. Perhaps it’s a new list? We’ll see.

As always, let us know if we’ve made any mistakes in our ordering! Please keep spoilers out of comments, since most people reading this post will not have read the event yet.

Thanks to Duncan in the comments below for the advice concerning Time Masters: Vanishing Point, Herbzilla for chatting with me about putting in B&R 1-14, and Amanda at Comic Book Issues for advice about Batman: The Return and Batman 703.

Thank you to Sean for advice on where to put in Batman 700, 701, and 702. Thanks to gbeenie for advice about B+R 16/The Return.

Huge thanks to LEO for additional tweaks, especially the addition of Red Robin 15 and 16.

Matthew over at Multiversity also posted an excellent in depth rundown of the entire Grant Morrison epic with issue by issue commentary, which may be of interest to you.

Enjoy!

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By | Wednesday, October 13, 2010 | 11:57 pm | 0 Comments | Blog > Database Updates

Looks like we came through the server move with relatively little downtime (so far)!

We’re now on our own private server, so while it will cost me more per month (maybe a lot more if I’m not careful about optimizing this site before it gets any real traffic), we should see a lot of improvement in stability. Hopefully, we’ll also see some speed improvement! Let me know, of course, if any of you notice anything weird – or even if it just seems to be working better!

I’ve also fixed the tag problem on the front page and made some layout changes. I shaved about 25 pixels and the bottom dotted border off the little welcome header and then halved the second set of info boxes above the blog. This should get the blog posts and featured content up above the fold for most site users.

I’ve also increased the amount of featured content to 12 thumbnails from 8 and I’ll be thinking about adding some more (not super important) content to the bottom of the right sidebar.

Known Issue: I am still having a problem uploading images – it’s possible that avatar uploads may not be working right now either. I’ll let you know when I have an update.

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By | Wednesday, October 13, 2010 | 6:16 pm | 6 Comments | Blog > News

First of all, thanks again to all our users (registered and nomadic!) especially those of you who wrote in for this giveaway contest.

After a little shuffling and bouncing down the list, our three winners are decided. We moved from the random choice to giving another book to a quick email responder, since the random users must be on an extended vacation or something. Future giveaways may last a week or so and have different criteria, so don’t worry about always having to be super quick on your toes.

Everyone’s first choice was the Batman trade, so we had to do a few coin flips, but I think everyone will be happy with the outcome.

Without further ado, here are our winners:

Rat A Tat (Matthew from Warren, MI) was the first person to email in and gets The History of The DC Universe prestige format books 1 and 2!

HobbitFoot (Jonathan from Allen, TX) was the second reader to email me and will be receiving Showcase Presents: The Justice League of America Vol. 1 for his efforts.

Natohendo (Nate from Franklin, WI) signed up quickly right after the post and is getting Showcase Presents: Batman Vol. 1 as his just reward.

Keep your eyes on your mail, gentlemen!

All shipments will be going out this week, probably media mail unless parcel is cheaper – so it may take a few weeks to get to you from where I live in Savannah, GA. Enjoy your books!

Thanks for participating and for sharing your profiles and collections with the rest of the site. Also a special thanks to the three of you who emailed me or were randomly chosen from the UK (two of you who would have had books if you didn’t so graciously bow out to let me send it to some greedy yanks.) Even if I can never afford to send these little books overseas, I’ll try to think of something special I can put out there for our international readers!

As for everyone else, I hope to have a lot of giveaways in the future so fear not – you’ll get another chance! I’ll keep in mind that everyone likes Batman.

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