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Cleaning up the list

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I recommend that we break each section into two subsections (major publishers and minor publishers), for the sake of ease in dealing with the list. The problem is, how would we classify major vs. minor? I would recommend a criteria of more two imprints, but under this idea, Comico was a minor publisher, and Studio Ironcat a major one. So we'll have to think on this one. Any ideas?--Mitsukai 19:43, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

An example of what I'm talking about, based on a major/minor criteria of at least two imprints, can be found here.--Mitsukai 20:00, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I dunno, mate. The distiction between major and minor publishers seems dangerously subjective to me. For example, if we're going by manga sales, Tokyopop is the major publisher while DC is a minor one. If we go by original comics, the ranking is reversed. Furthermore, it gets confusing when one tries to account for the Image evolution and reorganization. I say we leave it alone. --Strannik 22:01, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I came here looking for any mention of the need for a legend for the Active list, presume the first date is when the publisher began operations and the second is when operations ceased, and Red BG is for defunct and green is for active, and the green check mark is redundant to the green BG and the red X mark is redundant to the red BG. Not having had anything to do with this, I am just guessing.
However, I would suggest that a way to classify major and minor publishers in a way that would not be OR or subjective would be to pick a date and use the sales numbers that Diamond uses for comics they distribute. Then the list could be sorted by the number if units distributed, without making a call as to what is "major" or "minor".
Additionally, the list needs to have Country broken out. Could be on the same page, or different pages, but having the publishers from the whole world thrown together makes things confusing, especially for publishers who are not available outside their regional markets.
Finally, regarding the Column for "Titles" section, I would suggest that the top two issues from the Diamond list noted above would be reasonable for most publishers. Possibly use the issues from their Annual list instead of Monthly, due to some aberrations like #1 issues throwing off the month. --Kid Bugs (talk • contribs) 21:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Picking a Diamond date, while allowing a subjective analysis in some form, would cause qualifications for publishers that have been major but ceased to exist before that date (EC, Valiant), those which do most of their business outside of the US direct market (whether that be foreign publishers or US publishers like Scholastic and Archie), and for the longer term maintenance of the list, any publishers that may became major after that date. Frankly, I don't see that the distinction is needed; the list should already sort out ultra-minor publishers by having blue-linked publishers only.
As for relying just on the color to highlight certain items, that would be an accessibility issue, as some reader are color blind, and others may be working with a monochrome web device. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:50, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I don't see why not. --Strannik (talk) 07:47, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]


 Is 4Winds, publisher of Scout, still in business?

Added Custom Comics of America, who made the RaceWarrior series. Anyone but me have them?--Alexrules43 20:08, 21 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

omission

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FYI, Event Comics is missing from the list. (Not an active publisher AFAIK)

What is a comics publishing company?

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We include companies like Dell and Fawcett, which had comics branches of larger publishing firms. Should we include, say, Pantheon or Scholastic Books, book publishers with substantial squarebound comics lines? Certainly, Scholastic with Bone, Amulet, Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, and so forth gets a lot more pages of comics into people's hands than a lot of the smaller publishers listed here. --Nat Gertler (talk) 06:53, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might be reasonable to include them if the company has an arm devoted to comics, as Pantheon does. For companies that just happen to have published comics, I don't think you could ever hunt them all down, and I don't think it would be useful to readers to have the list populated with nearly every known publishing company on Earth, most of which only published one or a handful of comics. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 22:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Claypool is not defunct

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Claypool continues to publish new comics material - just as an online publisher rather than a print publisher. The put up some new material today, in fact. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:46, 2 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Combine lists?

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Now that the lists are tablified, why not combine them? We could see which companies were defunct by the "defunct" column, and by sorting by column you could get all the defunct companies together automatically. It would require less maintenance, and be more helpful to readers, I think. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 22:24, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I support that. I've done something like that at List of animation studios--Cattus talk 22:49, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are you volunteering to do it, or should I go ahead? It's a bit of a job, and I'd hate to do it just to find out it's already been done. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 03:51, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You can do it :)--Cattus talk 12:23, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okey dokey. I'll probably do it tomorrow. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 13:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 02:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete companies that have no info?

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There are an awful lot of companies listed here that are nothing more than an external link---not even a founding date or any other data on them. Would it be so terrible just to delete them?

There is also an awful lot of redlinks. Should we be preserving them? CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 02:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good work on the list. As for your question, I guess we should keep the red links as long as they have reliable sources. Red links without reliable sources should be deleted.--Cattus talk 18:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the problem is that we've not defined "comics publisher" for the purposes of this list. Is someone who does online comics a comics publisher? Someone who does minicomics? It's hard to judge what to include without that. (For problematic cases, the best thing to do is to flag them as Citation Needed, then if no data is added for a few months, delete.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:05, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, someone who self-publishes a minicomic is certainly a publisher, but not a publishing company, and this is a "List of comics publishing companies". Further, something like Chester Brown's "Tortured Canoe" was never used for publishing anything but the Yummy Fur mini, so it will never be notable apart from YF.
I agree we should decide on what a "comics publisher" is. A few sections above, I suggested that we shouldn't include companies that only incidentally have published comics. I think that leaves the door open to a company like Pantheon, which does not focus on comics, but does have "Pantheon graphic novels" section (although not an imprint. I think they're stamped "Pantheon" like their other books). CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 21:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So is notability to be a drawing line? (That's not inherent; notability is a standard for having articles, not for being included in an article.) You say that the person self-publishing isn't a company, presumably relying on the "group of people" definition rather than "a business" definition, but there have been lots of comics-publishing businesses of reasonable place in the field that were just one person. Heck, to avoid unflagged WP:COI concerns, I'll cite myself as an example -- I am the only person here at About Comics, we've (that's the royal, corporate "we") been publishing for more than a decade and even though we've worked with over 100 freelancers, none of them have been an employee of About Comics. It's hard to see that my being just one person makes About Comics less significant than some two-person company that turned out two issues each of two titles; dividing the list on that basis seems arbitrary. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Companies can be sole proprietorships (they're not defined as "a group of people"). Aardvark-Vanaheim is now (Gerhard sold his stake in the business to Sim). AV definitely belongs on the list. Tortured Canoe does not, and Brown's best-selling stature isn't going to change that.
I wasn't thinking notability per se, but notability apart from a single publication. If we included every label every minicomic has ever been published under, well, we'd end up with a list of one-shot minicomics publishers, with the odd incorporated publisher here and there (hey, we'd get to include my own Acid Toy Productions, the label I published a bunch of minicomics under when I was 19! Yay!)
I think we should look at this as: "What would be most useful to readers of this list"? I think, if the publisher doesn't already have a page (which would automatically warrant inclusion), then we should at least be providing a reference to show that the publisher is not 100% tied to one title. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 23:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see it simply - no article, no links to legitimate articles, remove them. If they only have a link to their website, but no article? Delete them. This is what I did on my own this afternoon as I was unaware of this discussion. However, I'm about to WP:BEBOLD and re-remove the ones I removed this afternoon, as they have no place in the article. MikeWazowski (talk) 00:44, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the problem is: is this a list of articles about publishers, or a list of publishers? If any of those publishers can be slapped with a reliable reference, I think they deserve to stay. If there's not enough info to warrant an article, then the link should be removed so we don't have a pile of redlinks.
Check out Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists#Listed items before removing things.
Part of being BOLD is discussing things and coming to a consensus. You've deleted, been reverted, and now we're discussing things. We haven't come to a consensus, so you'll just get reverted.
I suggest slapping a {{cn}} on every one of the items listed (even the links). Even lists need citations. Any of them that doesn't get a citation after a reasonable amount of time should be removed. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 00:54, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a list of articles. It's a list of publishers. Stop removing them. Curly's suggestion to slap [citation needed] on those without links is appropriate. Note the need for support and then leave it alone for QUITE a while. After all this time, the list deserves some patience. Doczilla STOMP! 04:17, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed some of the sources aren't independent ones. I hope we'll be able to replace those with independent sources as we go. I'm thinking for now those should get tagged so we remember to fix those and don't think the clean up is done. Cloveapple (talk) 05:22, 17 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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There are almost 30 publishing companies that aren't linked to an article but to their websites. Should these be turned into redlinks? I think I'll be bold and remove them. Discuss... Rwalker (talk) 20:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion's happening in the above subsection. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 01:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dates in sortable table

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I've been reference hunting and I have more precise dates for when some of the companies launched, folded, or were bought. In a number of cases I have a month and year and in a few I have an exact date. Is there a way to add this to the table without messing up the sorting feature for the dates? Cloveapple (talk) 19:01, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of ways to deal with it:
  1. My preferred way, and by far the easiest and most logical, is to list the dates YYYY-MM-DD. Many cultures do this already, and it's widespread in computing as it makes sorting easy. Unfortunately, most English speakers are allergic to this style, and chances are extremely high that another editor will come along and "fix" it for you.
  2. As per Help:Sorting#Dates, you can enter it either [[YYYY]][[MMM DD]], [[DD MMM]][[YYYY]], [[YYYY]][[DD MMM]] or [[MMM DD]][[YYYY]], and Mediawiki's date formatting feature will display the date base on user preferences (so that, say, British and Americans will see the date displayed differently). This feature automatically sorts by year. If all you have is a year, don't link it, though. Only link if you have the full date.
  3. You could also just use the year, and put the full date information in the article itself.

Thanks for helping, by the way. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 22:01, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the explanation. That page makes my head spin, but I think I get the basics. If I understand correctly, if I started adding months and days then I would have to add in hidden zero values for all the dates that are just plain years? I'd be ok with doing that but it would make the table even harder for other editors to add to, so I think I better not. Option number three is looking more attractive by the minute! :-) Cloveapple (talk) 20:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not true. For the dates that are just plain years, you just put in the plain year (not linked) and it's supposed to sort itself by magic. I do think the page on sorting could be written more clearly. Although option 3 certainly is the most straightforward. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 21:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've just decided to leave it be. If you decide to tackle it, I'll follow your lead but I'm just dense when it comes to this stuff. Cloveapple (talk) 22:06, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Required change

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The logos column on this list needs to be removed. It violates WP:NFLISTS. Further, this article now uses 88 non-free images. This is more non-free images than any other article on Wikipedia, in fact more than TWICE the number of the 2nd highest user. This is unacceptable under WP:NFCC #3. Further, every single non-free image has no rationale for use on this article, which is a violation of WP:NFCC #10c. Would someone please remove this column? Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 03:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it appears far too many of the logos have been tagged as being under copyright when they actually don't qualify. I've removed the clear violations, and retagged the rest with {{PD-textlogo}}. You might want to check these things out before "requiring" an entire column be removed. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 13:31, 18 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the remaining logos still tagged as under copyright per WP:NFLISTS. Even the free logos should be removed, as they violate the Logo Manual of Style. Alpha_Quadrant (talk) 01:33, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the logos weren't being used as icons as such, but it's pretty obvious the column's going to be pretty empty, so I've removed it. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 00:31, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

About Comics

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I won't edit it in myself out of WP:COI concerns, but yes, About Comics is still (mildly) active - you can see a listing for a book we published late last year here. And we are US-based. --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:30, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information and thanks for the sensitivity about COI. Cloveapple (talk) 05:35, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Independent sourcing

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I posted this next note as part of the conversation above, but I think it got lost in the larger conversation so I'm reposting it.

I noticed some of the sources aren't independent ones. I hope we'll be abyle to replace those with independent sources as we go. I'm thinking for now those should get tagged so we remember to fix those and don't think the clean up is done. Cloveapple (talk) 03:26, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the sources aren't independent, then they don't need to wait for a replacement. Such "sources" should be obliterated with extreme prejudice. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 04:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, there's no reason to obliterate WP:SELFSOURCEs for the relatively non-promotional statement that they exist. This isn't to say that we shouldn't replace them with an independent source when possible, but we should not delete the existing source until we do so. --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Citations per column or per publisher?

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I'm about to go through and add a bunch of citations for publishers that I can match up to the GCD (and add a few missing U.S. golden age publishers, with citations). I notice some rows have multiple citations for the country, start date, end date, etc. Is this always required, or can I put a single citation for the whole row in the notes column or on the publisher name? Ixat totep (talk) 18:59, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you look closely, some of the entries have different sources for, say, the founding date and the date they went defunct. Personally, I throw the citation on each column to make the source for each piece of data totally unambiguous, but I don't think there's an actual rule that it has to be done so. CüRlyTüRkeyTalkContribs 01:17, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Column for "Titles"

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In my opinion, it makes sense to list the best-known titles for every publisher, say, two, or three at most. This would be a benefit for someone recognizing a publisher by title only, or searching for a title specifically. There are some instances where titles are already listed in the "notes-section", like Matrix, or 12 bis. Looking at entries like Rolf Kauka or Dark Horse, i don′t think titles added to the notes section are all too useful (Arrow Comics, Adventure). Would a new column "Title(s)" make sense? Do best-known published titles at all? Regards, Gott 17:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would fall under Original Research. Also, the titles that companies are best known for change over time—for instance, DC's cowboy comics were amongst their best-selling titles in the 1950s, not Superman or Batman. I don't think titles should be added to the notes section, either—that section should be for info such as mergers, company name changes, etc. For Aardvark-Vanaheim, for instance, the note is "Most titles moved to Renegade Press in 1985". Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:45, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think that most things that were a likely to list that anyone would be looking for would have their publisher more efficiently identified through other means. That isn't to say that some reasonable descriptor of the publisher might not be in order, but a few titles may not serve that, particularly as folks who do not know the publisher already are likely to not recognize the title. It's clearer to note that a publisher specializes in Japanese comics translated into English than that they put out Neon Genesis Evangeline and Ranma 1/2. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:50, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in agreement with Curly Turkey and Nat Gertler on this, for the reasons mentioned above. -- stoshmaster (talk) 15:37, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don′t think that′d fall under OR in every case, but the concensus is clearly "no titles". Thanks for your opinions, regards, Gott (talk) 16:05, 13 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ardden Entertainment

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Ardden Entertainment has changed names to Scout Comics and Entertainment. Here's the new website link: http://www.scoutcomics.com/index.html#about Hope this helps! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.196.200.120 (talk) 22:26, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Trouble sentence

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Victims of the acute paper rationing of 1945-1949 which bankrupt many U.S. Publishing Companies during WWII, O.W. Comics, Inc., was a short-lived house consisting of two comic veterans, William "Bill" Woolfolk, who had worked for MLJ and Facett, and John Gerard "Jack" Oxton, Sr., a film editor with Paramount in NYC. Anything after 1945 is not "during World War II", someone should fix that history. (Also, a single "house" should not be a plural "victims", "Publishing Companies" should not be capitalized.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:38, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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