Batman Adventures #12 Newstand Edition2466

Originally Posted by kaptainmyke

Originally Posted by DarthLego
Technically, no. They are not considered variants by the publishers. It is collectors who decided to seek them out as variants.

Originally Posted by DarthLego
Technically, no. They are not considered variants by the publishers. It is collectors who decided to seek them out as variants.

Originally Posted by DocBrown
Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveRicketts
The single most time consuming thing for the grading room to do is researching comics to make sure they have the right book and entering the key comments into the fields. It's a very tedious job.

CBCS doesn't denote newsstand/direct versions because of the following reasons...
1) It's obvious if you're looking at the book. Sellers can sell it as a Newsstand copy, and buyers understand what that means.
2) It's taking the number of books in our database and multiplying it times two. That's twice as many books for the graders to keep up with.
3) It exponentially increases the chance that we will make a mistake on the label. Label errors cause wasted time and money. Label errors cause customers to send books back for reholders, causing more wasted time and money, and introducing unneeded frustration onto the customer.

When CBCS opened we put together a case study on this because, quite honestly, the graders thought it would be awesome. Once we got into the pros and cons, it was determined that it would prevent us from being able to be productive at the level we needed to be. Once the graders understood the level at which this would complicate their jobs, it was found to be an albatross.

To sum it up, newsstand would be cool for us to add, but it would ultimately result in increased prices and significantly increased turnaround times.

The problem with this explanation is the following:

1. Yes, it's obvious when you're dealing with certain books in hand, especially from June of 1979 to July/Oct 1993. Before and after that, however, it's not so obvious.

2. When you're dealing with a census and a database, that "obviousness" disappears, since you're only looking at data, and not books. This data is PRICELESS IF you are going to have a census and a registry, which you realllly need to have.

3. It's not any different than dealing with a variant. Variants, even if they result in exponentially increasing the chances for error, are necessary to denote, for obvious reasons. DM and NS notations can be just as easy to implement. You have to input the title, the date, the issue number (I assume these are culled from your database), adding another box to check needn't add to your burden in any substantial way, and it should be second nature to the professional handling these things.

4. You need to have someone on your team who is an asshole. Who makes people mad, because all he/she does is make sure that everything is completely accurate at all times. Nitpicky as all get out, and not worried about what other people think of him/her, because Quality Control is all they care about.

As TommyJasmin said, it's part of the job. It's not difficult, despite what the case study says. And yes, it requires more diligence, but this is an area that is RIPE for beating CGC. The expenditure in time and resources to set the program up is MORE than offset by the increased revenue of people looking so slab one or the other or both.

I would even be willing to have you fly me out to Florida and help set it up as a consultant.

I'm afraid the company has settled for "we can't", rather than searching for ways to ask "why not?"

By the way...there are experts out there who can tell you precisely what a particular comic is, from whatever era they specialize in, just by looking at it. I assume you naturally consulted those people if there was any discovered deficiency in your in-house knowledge...?

Originally Posted by kaptainmyke
What if the majority of your paying customers requested the variation between newstand editions?