Collectorz.com Comic Collector Pro 3.3 by Guest Reviewer Ben Sweetser

Collectorz.com Comic Collector Pro 3.3 (www.collectorz.com/comic) reviewed 3 May 2007
Price: Trial, free (limited to 100 comics)
Standard - $24.95
Pro - $39.95 (includes free lifetime updates) :reviewed

Pros: Awesome browsing and filtering capabilities, intuitive and flexible interface, online database to assist with entering comics
Cons: No way to automatically update comic values, could have a better wish list checklist report, no apparent consistency checks on data submitted to the online database
Bottom line: Comic Collector is a very reasonably priced solution that really makes browsing your collection fun.

Ratings:
Inputting new comics :4 stars
Entering an existing collection :4 stars
Searching and browsing :5 stars
Wish list :3.5 stars
Determining the value of your collection :1 star
Overall :3.5 stars

Collectorz.com makes database programs for tracking many different types of collectible items. Their Comic Collector software allows you to track just about anything comic related and provides a flexible interface for interacting with your collection. With version 3, they added a new online comic repository to make it easier to add comics to your collection. There is not much information about how this database is maintained, but it appears to be entirely user maintained, and it is unclear if there is a review process before the information is added to the database. I suspect there is some sort of review, as the comic I submitted to the database was not immediately available.

Inputting new comics (4 stars)

Comic Collector provides various means for entering comics into the database: individual issues, multiple issues, or automatically add issues. Because the database is maintained and updated entirely by user submission, the third option is not generally the best method for adding new comics if you get your new comics within a couple days of release. With this in mind, I added my new comics individually, entering in the title, store, purchase date, purchase price with the assumption that I would go back in later to update the comics with the information from the online database later. Certain parts of the entry aspect were made easier through little thoughtful touches, such as auto complete when the title, store, publisher, etc. are already in the database. The same is true if you enter credits and characters. In the date fields, I was able to add today’s date by pressing the F4 button on the keyboard.

Entering my 30 new comics took about 14 minutes, but did not yet contain many details that I could later get by using the “Update Comics Automatically” option, which checks the Comic Collector online database to get information entered and uploaded by other users, including covers, credits, and characters. It does not overwrite any information that you have entered. If you prefer to enter information yourself, the interface is well designed to make this process as easy as possible, including drag and drop of cover images onto the comic record.

Entering an existing collection (4 stars)

Comic Collector’s “Add Comics Automatically” feature is a powerful way to add comics that have already been added to the Comic Collector online database. Simply search on the series and select the issues in your collection. Comic Collector provides the ability to preview issue information to verify that you are adding the correct comics. I entered my 550 issue collection by typing in the titles and selecting the issues. If you have all the issues for a title, there is an option to select all the issues. The slowest part was adding 50 issues of the Avengers, because each issue needed to be manually selected. The process overall was pretty quick and took about 24 minutes to get the comics entered. All of the past issues were found, even some of the more obscure titles.

If you prefer to add issues on your own, Comic Collector a slick interface for adding multiple issues. You select the range for the comics to add and then check or uncheck the issues you have or don’t have. Once you have the issues selected, you can enter some basic details to identify the comics.

Comic Collector only supports importing from other Comic Collector databases, so if you already have your comic data in some electronic format, you are out of luck and will need to re-enter into Comic Collector.

Searching/browsing (5 stars)

Searching and browsing is one of Comic Collector’s strongest features. A tree view on the left that can be grouped by pretty much any category you can imagine allows you to determine what comics to display on the right side of the window. On the right side, you can view your comics in a list view, or the very satisfying thumbnail view, that lines up resizable cover images in rows for viewing. Want more details on a particular comic? Click it in the list and the details are displayed in the bottom of the right panel. The views are very customizable to meet your particular tastes, especially the comic detail views. Comic Collector even handles wraparound covers gracefully, allowing you to see the front and back covers together. Additionally, if your favorite artist, writer, or character has a website, you can attach a link in the database to open the site in a web browser.

The tool bar provides quick access to the search features, which filter the views to only display comics that match the search criteria. You can perform a quick search that searches through all fields or perform a more advanced search by narrowing your criteria to particular fields (for instance, show me comics with the character “Spider-Man” where the artist or penciler was “Todd McFarlane”). Comic Collector’s reporting features are also very powerful because of this searching and filtering capability.