obsessions...

[ratcreature]

cereta recently brought up the topic of Batman obsession. To that I can just say that buying strange looking merchandise is harmless. I just spend well over an hour tracking down the Romany dialogs in Gotham Knights #20 so that I could provide translations (though I don't speak Romany) for its entry in my Batverse resource site. Thankfully I was correct in my assumption that the writer used web resources so I didn't have much problem to find the phrases. It didn't help though that the comic made at least two typos (typos that are not due to different transcription systems) in the Romany parts... it's no wonder I don't have success in googling misspelled phrases.

Comments

[cereta.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't know whether to be proud of what is arguably my most successful pimping to date, or a little scared. Or maybe both ;).

[ratcreature]

Don't be scared, I've been a really obsessed dedicated comic fan for most of my life, I mean, the first thing I did when I got my Atari ST computer as a teenager was to design a database not only for my collection but also to cross-reference it with the secondary comic literature (i.e. magazines, books and such) I had amassed so that I might look up every instance a specific artist, writer, publisher etc was mentioned in one of the hundreds of comic magazines. I never made a serious dent the backlog of my collection, but I gathered some experiences with databases.

So when comics are concerned detail-obsession is my regular mode. For example, I have two shelves with zines that collect articles treating Duckburgh like a real universe for "scientific" study, so that you have articles exploring the economics of Duckburgh, or how it works "biologically" that sometimes you see Donald's teeth and sometimes not, and reference their evidence with the issues. I also own several reference works that contain indices of every Duck comic Carl Barks ever created, indexed for their titles, their publishing date both in the original and the German editions, for character appearances, no matter how minor the character, mentioning of special objects, special themes... And of course I own a number of special interest books on Duckburgh, like a collection of all the paintings and art that can be seen in the background of Carl Barks' Disney comics, analyzed for the trends in both popular and high art in Duckburgh, that sort of thing.

I'm just much more into comics as a medium as I'm into tv series, and thus it really shows when a comic universe catches my interest. You just nudged me into Gotham's direction...

BTW, if you want to find out where the typos and translations are, and what the "Kalderasha" means that Dick mentions when he's asked to place Yoska's name, or about pecularities in the continuity of the names of the elephants in Haly's circus, who Dick has a connection to, or a number of other things... the entry for Gotham Knights #20 is now available:
http://www.ratcreature.net/batresource/archives/000010.html

On the database

[cereta.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have to say that I'm genuinely in awe. I like the format, especially with the various links to character info, series, etc. I think it could serve as a genuine resource for people trying to track down various references. Very nicely done!

Re: On the database

[ratcreature]

Thanks! I also have a lot of fun to read the comics again, this time paying attention to all the little details, and I notice new things I missed with the first reading. The only disadvantage is that it's in the site's nature that it'll only grow slowly (I think if I even manage five to ten a week on a regular basis it's an *optimistic* estimate), because to enter all this takes some time for each comic, so it will be a while until it's comprehensive, and I think the progression towards usefulness will be gradual. I hope that once I made a good start, with maybe the Nightwing and Gotham Knights series, and the site has grown big enough to merit some attention, I might even find other fans who'd volunteer to catalog Batverse comics in a similar fashion, using the same template and categories, so that the site can grow quicker. Movable Type allows me to give author accounts to others, so that they can enter data too, without them having too much power over the whole blog. So at least the possibility to transform it into a group effort some day (if it works out) is there without having to move the whole thing to a different system.

Also a good side effect is that this way I'll reread all the comics at least once which will (I seriously hope) slow down my urges to buy new ones to a pace more agreeable with my finances. *grin*