Cataloging Comics & Manga
Rogan Hamby (Equinox) and Meg Stroup (SCLENDS)
Terminology
Comic Books - serials started as humor titles in 1933. Today they are popularly associated with superheros but are very diverse with a wide readership. Usually published as serials in ongoing or with pre-set lengths.
Serialization to Enrage a Monk
Black Panther vol. 6 by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Issue 1 June 2016 (released April 6th)
continued until #18 November 2017
Then it continued with #166 in December 2017
Difference in Terminology
Trade Paperback - If you aren't a comics reader you may think this is published in a trade paperback, as in larger format than mass market paperback. To comics readers it is a softcover collection of the serial that usually but may not adhere to a certain physical format. It exists in contrast with an OGN or Original Graphic Novel. Trade Paperback Collection. May have additional content.
Quiz time!
Interior presentation looks like chapters of a novel.
One thing to Get Out of the Way
Not all comic books are appropriate for juvenile audiences. The term comic came from a children's material, the content didn't stay in sync. One of the most famous is Kitchen Sink Press's O.t.C.D by Reed Waller and Kate Worley. In 1988 a comic store was charged with obscenity for distributing it. In response the CBLDF was formed and it went on to win two Eisners, the highest artistic award.
Not all are Juvenile Appropriate
Alison Bechdel's Fun Home has been challenged even on college reading lists for discussion of sexuality and works like Maus, are so stark in depicting the horrors of real life about that they can be inappropriate for young readers.
Terminology
Manga / Shonen / Shoujo / Yaoi / Yuri
Usually published in weekly or monthly anthologies and then collected. Read right to left but US publishers may reverse page order and in older titles often re-ordered panels to read left to right. Often more than one set of numbers applies to same title - e.g. Bleach v. 8 contains vols. 22, 23, 24 (individual, omnibus, collections).
What is a Volume?
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vol·ume /ˈvälyəm,ˈvälˌyo͞om/ noun
a book forming part of a work or series.
There is probably no work used more variable than 'volume.’ In comics it means a run of a serial. When it restarts with a new #1 it is a new volume. However trade collections have their own volumes. So this is trade collection is volume 1 of volume 6. This one happens to call it book one, of storyline. NOWHERE INSIDE DOES IT MENTION THE SERIES OR VOLUME!
Convoluted Credits
245$a Jame Tynion IV
Convoluted Credits
Example: Why the Cataloger Is Crying
Bleach
Want to read the first manga volume? You’ve got lots of options:
. . . and this is only one of many formats.
Pause for catalogers to compose themselves.
Cataloger’s Judgment
Catalogers have our trusty fallback of cataloger’s judgment, and RDA does give us some latitude in these judgment calls.
However, as Albert Camus famously said of cataloging: “Everything is permitted does not mean that nothing is forbidden.”
100: Noelle Stevenson, $e author, creator.
245: $c written by Noelle Stevenson & Grace Ellis; illustrated by Brooke Allen; colors by Maarta Laiho; letters by Aubrey Aiese.
700: Grace Ellis, $e author, creator.
700: Shannon Watters, $e creator.
700: Brooke Allen, $e artist.
700: Maarta Laiho, $e colorist.
700: Aubrey Aiese; $e letterer
What’s in a Name?
Considerations, Vol. 1:
Considerations, Vol. 3*:
Imagining a Core Record
If you are developing core record standards for your library, consider taking advantage of as many MARC fields as possible to describe the item fully. Readers may have very specific search objectives, and additional detail helps out circ staff. The following fields can be useful:
245, 246, 250, 336 , 500, 521, 546, 650, 655, 700, 710, 800/830
Cataloger’s Judgement Alert: thorough records are great, but don’t get bogged down in convoluted description. Aim for consistency, and remember that a bibliographic record is always a work in progress.
Questions? Comments? Horror stories?