Format

Required field

Per a Policy Vote of December 4, 2013, there are now five separate fields that record various Format data. These correspond to the five elements previously recorded in the single Format field.

1. Color (Color, 4 Color, Painted, 2 Color, Black and White)
2. Dimensions (Standard Golden Age US, Standard Silver Age US, Standard Modern US; Digest; Tabloid, A3, A4, A5, 8.5" x 11", 21cm x 28cm)
3. Paper Stock (Newsprint, Glossy Paper, Bond, Mando, Baxter)
4. Binding (Stapled, Saddle-stitched, Bound, Squarebound, Hardcover, Trade Paperback)
   • Binding terms are defined in part as:
     • a) Stapled: stapled through the top and bottom of the book
     • b) Saddle-stitched: stapled through the folded edge of the book
     • c) Squarebound: pages are glued along the edge and bound together by the cover. There are two common types and the term Squarebound may be used for either, as the difference is not always clear.
       • True squarebound comics are in signatures of usually 16 pages, or 8 leaves folded in half and bundled. A group of signatures is then glued into the cover and sometimes stapled. Most trade paperbacks are in this form.
       • Perfect bound are also glued into the cover, but as individual leaves. Most mass-market paperbacks are in this form.
5. Publishing Frequency (On-Going Series, Limited Series, Miniseries, Maxiseries One-Shot, Graphic Novel)
   • For Publishing Frequency, the following is suggested:
     • a) one-shot - intended as a standalone publication
     • b) limited series - intended as a finite series
     • c) ongoing series - intended as an open-ended series with no set endpoint
     • d) was ongoing series - a formerly ongoing series that has ceased publication

• Since you may not know all five elements, or they may change over the run of the series, Notes may be necessary to help describe special cases for any of these Format fields. Special cases would be things like "started as a limited series and became ongoing", "started referring to #75 as the final early on", "was supposed to be ongoing, but was canceled after one issue", etc.

• Page counts do not belong in any of these Format fields.

• Note that at some point the Format fields will be associated directly at the issue level.

Previously, this was a single field with five elements. The five elements were separated by a semi-colon. Most Series are still recorded in this method, and it is helpful to separate the elements into their new fields whenever working on a Series record.

(end of definition)

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