Comic Collector LIVE!!!

by: sidekick 1 year, 3 months, 1 week, 16 hours, 19 minutes ago 4

It all started with my summer resoulution of bagging, boarding, and cataloging my comics. I had Comic Collector Live Beta on my home CPU and thought that I would really put it through the works when summer came along. Boy was I suprised! Lets just say that I actually own over 10 thousand comics, and have in the past made several attempts in cataloging them. I have made many purches at cons and on ebay for software that would aid me in my databaseing. Most of them were limited in some capacity and/or were a rip off. So I was not too excited to work with CCL until I actually began using it. This thing ROCKS the boat! A few highlights of the program:

First, and greatest, CCL (Comic Collector Live) is FREE!! . If you want it right now you need to go to Comic Collector Live and just down load it for absolutly NOTHING!!! CCL has a point and click user interface; you may have to type in your title to add it to your catalog, but once you actually pick your Title then all you have to do is click on the issue and it is added to your inventory. What adds to this non-typing selection is that a picture of the issue appears in the right hand side of the screen letting you know the cover of the issue you select. Fear not, there are multiple covers for to take care of all those issues that thought they needed to have 50 different covers.

Second, you can grade your comics and leave notes about your comic once it is added to your inventory. CCL has a 12-step selection process to grade your comics. You can grade one or many if you would like, and for the novice grader it is not a bad selection tool in determing what your comic(s) should be graded.  This tool can be a bit frustrating when you just want to grade the comic NM or M, but that can be easily alevated in the reports area. The Edit Issue tab lets you add signiture information, selling information, and personal information. You can leave as much information about the issue you feel is nessary for your collection or for those who wish to buy your comic.  Because, did I mention, you can also buy and sell comics at CCL (more to follow)!

Third, CCL has a report area that allows you to access a variety of information on your collection. My favorite follows:
Summary- A summary of how many comics you have in your collection and what thier vaule (at orginal cost) is. This is a fun item in that you can be overjoyed at how much your comics would be worth, and a negative item in that you now know how much money you spent on your comics. Remember if your Superman No. 14 only cost 10 cents then that is how it will show up in your collection. What the actual value of the comic today is something you will have to find out and insert manually. 

Collection- Is simply that my friends, it is your collection in order with everything from Publisher, Title, Issue, Cover, Printing, Cover Price, Paid, Sell Price (more on this later), Condition, and CGC Rate. You can even add your own custom headings if you need to. You can download all items in the Report area as an Excel or PDF format.
Which means you can take your collection with you!  No more days of shifting through you own home made Excel spreadsheet trying to keep up with Publishers and Titles.  It is all done for you....hehehehe!  Once you open your newly updated Excel sheet you can select the title and issue number(s) and insert your rating manually if you want to speed up your grading for titles.

Wish List- This is an option in you selection area that allows you to mark a particular comic as one you wish to own. It could be because you need it to finish your collection, or because you are simply greedy. Whatever the case, you can mark it for yourself, but it doesn’t stop there. Since CCL went live it is basically a selling and buying site as well. Your wish list is fed into the system and you are sent alerts letting you know someone on the site is selling that comic! Think about this people...no keep thinking....ok...got it?. Often times, you have to go out to Ebay and look up a particular comic and then bid your ass off to get it. Sometimes you have to wait months for a particular comic to come up before you can buy it. Well not anymore, with CCL you hit a comic in your Wish List and with soon to be over 40,000 users you are bound to be alerted that your dream title is available for purchase. 

I may be presenting a rose colored picture of the program, but there are a couple of things that I have found that hopefully will be addressed in the newer versions to come. First I actually have some comics that are not in CCL. Users update daily so I am sure sooner than later I will be able to find my comics that are missing in the program. Until then I have to set them aside and wait for the program to catch up. Secondly, I know the value of the comics at their orginal price, but I do not know what my comics are worth today or what they are recently selling for. There are some sites out there that provide this information, but they do not update the price with the rising and falling of the market. Maybe if Overstreet Price Guide got on board with CCL we could have weekly updates to our catalogs for the current selling prices. Also, I am not sure if it is possible to transfer your collection from CPU to CPU in the CCL program itself. Sure you can do your catalog in a Excel document, but I have multiple CPU’s and if I get a shipment of comics in either at home or work, I would like to have my collection in CCL form wherever I may go. But these are not major issues and the program is still in early stages.  I am sure with time many new things will come out of CCL. 

Here is the current press release I was sent by Dave Macy public relations for MidTen Media,
"Since the launch of Comic Collector Live’s web site and free collecting software in early March of this year, over 35 thousand comic enthusiasts and counting have been busy organizing their collections and building their wish lists.  Joe Butler, the creator of Comic Collector Live, says the response has been very good but thinks its just starting to snowball. “ With the ability to buy and sell through our CCL website, we expect to triple the number of members using our service and collecting software,” says Butler.  “Our website wish list is rapidly approaching 400 thousand issues and comic book retailers have been contacting us about selling their excess inventory through Comic Collector Live.” Comic Collector Live was conceived with the idea that auction sites like eBay and Yahoo were not tailored to comic book collectors, and selling on those sites could be a tiring process.  With CCL, the user organizes with just a few clicks and once the “store” is set up, can simply click to sell single issues or lots.  The system allows the user to organize their collection quickly by clicking a mouse and also click a wish list button to fill in holes in that collection. A notification is sent to the member when a seller posts an item that matches an item on the buyer’s wish list. “Comments about our software and our website have been overwhelmingly positive,” says Butler.  “We have an active and growing community and we also have a huge database including cover art that our team is working on 24/7 to handle adds, change requests and more.  My desire is to have a system where true comic book fans can buy, sell, organize, and also talk comic books—and Comic Collector Live is where they can EXPERIENCE EVERYTHING!” Comic Collector Live is in the middle of a huge marketing campaign which includes advertising in MARVEL, DC, WIZARD, and some of the top Indies comics.  This fall Comic Collector Live will be the premier sponsor of the 75th Anniversary of King Kong – a special prequel/sequel six-part comic book series about Kong and Skull Island, with the Comic Collector Live logo to be featured on the front of every comic book published for the anniversary series beginning in October."