[MarkWarner]

I've been having a play with AI (Gemini) and it is rather impressive. I asked it about our site and it has made a REALLY great suggestion which I'd like to implement. I quote:

"the idea is to create 'Curated Entry Points' - essentially digital 'starter packs' - to guide new visitors through a massive archive without them feeling lost in the stacks."

It then made a few suggestions:

1 The "Essential" Collections
Instead of a raw list of titles, these pages group comics by a specific "vibe" or historical importance.

2 The Golden Age 101: A selection of the most influential titles from the late 1930s and 40s.

3 Genre Deep-Dives: Dedicated pages for "Classic Horror," "Pre-Code Romance," or "Space Opera Adventures."

It finishes off saying, 'this approach turns a massive library into a series of small, manageable "reading rooms."'

I did start with a similar idea a while back, but gave up. This has given me new impetus.

So I'd like to make a new "Curated" section.

Now for the one major obstacle. I guess it is common knowledge, certainly among our more active members, I know NOTHING AT ALL about comics. Which as you can imagine is a slight handicap running CB+ and especially with a project like this.

So what I really need is for some of the really knowledgeable members to help identify small selections of books to add to the various curated categories.

I thought maybe 25 books (or 20?) in each section would be about the right number?

The books should be chosen as being generally representative, unbiased and not "pushing" favorite artists.

We can discuss what to add here on the forum and I'll do the rest!

A "little" warning  I know I didn't get any traction with my idea a while back about printing a book,  but if that happens again with this, I am going to "throw my toys out of the pram" 

[Robb_K]

I wouldn't say you know NOTHING about comics, as you must have learned a little about the different genres, and read some examples when you were an active member of the Reading Group, and you probably know more about still copyrighted and PD comics from The Golden Age and early Silver Age than many of us do.  You couldn't run this website and not pick up more than you realise. 

In any case, when I finish my next surgery and recovery period I hope to join this effort, and work on a "Funny Animal" section, as well as a "General Comedy" section of our Introduction to the different genres. 

[paw broon]

Great idea Mark, or should that be AI?
Anyway, as a died-in-the-wool masked mystery man fan, I know that is huge, so I'd suggest sub- genres within such a section. 
But you might think I'm going too far.
How many "entry points" do you want?
A GA 101 is certainly going to cause discussion, if not argument.
I love the idea of pre-code romance, But then again, I'd like to have non-American also.
As our foreign language section is huge, we'd need some thought on sections representing different languages, wouldn't we?
Thinking caps on chums.

[MarkWarner]

Well Robb, I obviously have picked some things up and can now throw a few names and publishers around. But making any form of "must read list" is a complete no-no.

I have been pondering more and been thinking about all the different sections we could make. Which is really cool, BUT then it struck me, that we might end up making another big area to drown newbies in! But hey-ho ... I am veering towards just 20 books in each. A light skim and then at the bottom, links to the categories section and also some important series in the genre.

Will take a little bit of time to code it, so time to ponder some more!

[Robb_K]

Well Robb, I obviously have picked some things up and can now throw a few names and publishers around. But making any form of "must read list" is a complete no-no.

I have been pondering more and been thinking about all the different sections we could make. Which is really cool, BUT then it struck me, that we might end up making another big area to drown newbies in! But hey-ho ... I am veering towards just 20 books in each. A light skim and then at the bottom, links to the categories section and also some important series in the genre.

Will take a little bit of time to code it, so time to ponder some more!

Of course, we should take advantage of our experts here, for THAT job.  And several of us have already volunteered to do that.  We look forward to doing that.

[MarkWarner]

Great news! I was wondering about 20 / 20.

20 sections with 20 books in each. Plus one extra section again with 20 books in. In this one each book is picked as the top representative of the other sections.

I am not sure if 20 sections is stretching it or not??

[Robb_K]

Great news! I was wondering about 20 / 20.

20 sections with 20 books in each. Plus one extra section again with 20 books in. In this one each book is picked as the top representative of the other sections.

I am not sure if 20 sections is stretching it or not??

I think there are enough distinct genres of comics to form 20 viable sections.  Remember, we should also have one for comic strips, and one for promotional giveaways, as well, as well as one for foreign language comics.  That leaves only 17 others.

Here's a list of 20 I thought of off the top of my head:

(1)Superhero
(2)Detective/Crime
(3)ScienceFiction/ScienceFantasy
(4)Horror
(5)War/Combat
(6)TeenComedy
(7)Romance
(8)Realistically-DrawnHumanCharacterComedy
(9)CartoonyHumanCharacterComedy
(10)Realistically-drawnHumanCharacterDrama
(11)FunnyAnimal
(12)ForeignLanguageComics&Scanlations
((13)ComicStrips&StoryPapers
(14)Adult Humour
(15)PromotionalGiveaways/PublicServiceEducation/Pamphlets
(16)Historical/Biographical/Science (Non-Fiction)                                 
(17)Western
(18)Jungle
(19)SeriesCompilations
(20)OtherTypes of Publishing(Cartoon&IllustratedBooks/Magazines/Fanzines)


P.S.  So we merge "Realistically Drawn Human Character Comedy" and Cartoony Human character Comedy into a General Comedy category, and drop the "Realistically-drawn Drama" category, and add the special 20 featured Artists, and the 20 major publishers, and other featured categories.  Maybe there'll be about 25, altogether?

[MarkWarner]

I think you are right There will be a masked section. Paw Broon will make sure of that!

8-10 might be a bit too precise. I think nice general topics with lots to choose from.

ALSO it struck me ... we were thinking about this as "standard" genres! Whereas samples could be anything "20 Typical Charlton", "Charles Biro", "1942" etc etc So a collection featuring major artists might get on the list?

[SuperScrounge]

So a collection featuring major artists might get on the list?

That would be a tough list to edit down since there are so many good ones. Artists famous for mostly works still under protection could help limit some numbers, but still...

Matt Baker, Walt Kelly, & Will Eisner probably.

Kirby and Ditko might have enough PD work to consider.

What about older artists like Charles Dana Gibson, are there enough books to consider him and other really old timers?

[paw broon]

Half way through a reply, questions and all when my screen went down.
I'll try again later.  So annoying.

[MarkWarner]

I am tending to a single artists collection so 20 books 20 artists. Somehow make the whole section a very brief introduction. What else that would make sense could be used apart from genre? 20 important series? origins (but I guess most are superheroes??)

[paw broon]

Good points SS.  Would we need a certain amount of examples to get an artist on the list?.  For example, I right away thought of Bill Lacey, but we have his work mainly in a dozen or so pocket libraries.
MMMs. Plenty to choose from but I wonder about Cap Marvel.  In case of anyone getting the hump.
Detectives. 2 of the greats are in newspaper strips and comics.  Rip Kirby, Buck Ryan.  Should  we have them listed in 2 different headings?
Superhero/MMM list at the ponder stage.
Foreign.  I'm wary of listing Captain Trueno, Roberto Alcazar, so Robb and others, if you have suggestions could we all take a look at them, just to be on the safe side? We have so much more to choose from.
It occurs to me that we have a large selection of compilations, some of which are very well done, with info.  But I'm not sure if we should go there.  Too much?

[Robb_K]

I think you are right There will be a masked section. Paw Broon will make sure of that!

8-10 might be a bit too precise. I think nice general topics with lots to choose from.

ALSO it struck me ... we were thinking about this as "standard" genres! Whereas samples could be anything "20 Typical Charlton", "Charles Biro", "1942" etc etc
So a collection featuring major artists might get on the list?

That's a great idea.  So, maybe we shouldn't worry about having an even number of categories.  Maybe the number of genres will be an even 20, and we might have the special groupings like Individual artist collected works in with Compilations in another group, and Foreign and British, Australian-New Zealand, and Canadian(IF we can gather enough) into a single section, with the American being the main (unlabeled bulk of entries), as the non-genre groupings?

So we merge "Realistically Drawn Human Character Comedy" and Cartoony Human character Comedy into a General Comedy category, and drop the "Realistically-drawn Drama" category, and add the special 20 featured Artists, and the 20 major publishers, and other featured categories.  Maybe there'll be about 25, altogether?

We should have a category for samples of major GA publishers' series.  And also one for 20 different notable Series?  And "
Superheroes will be separated from "Masked Mystery Men"  who have no super powers. 

[MarkWarner]

I think for this exercise our selections should be the briefest and most concise we can make them. So say for a superhero he'll get one entry, either in superhero section, artist, title or whatever.

Although with a minor tweak or 2, technically we could get this up and running very quickly. I want to use it as an opportunity to freshen up the code, which is getting on in years. One thing I will do is focus on allowing it to easily add other curated pages in the future.

So we can have the concise 20 /20 or whatever it ends up as, we are discussing here. And then as a companion we could have another section with more defined pages. These may not necessarily be just tasters. So Paw and Robb_K can then have their own more defined selections as well.

[MarkWarner]

I've been mulling this over and my main thought is CB+ is massive ... it is ridiculously large. You could not read  everything we have in a lifetime.

What is needed is a really tiny "induction course" or "sample". Something that once "completed" someone (like me) would have a rough idea about what it is all about.

In a way maybe things do not need to be the best, but representative?

So I'd like to shoot for 10 broad sections with 10 books in each. Each book will have a small paragraph explaining why the inclusion. 100 books in total representing all the site

I guess a few compendiums will be included, to squeeze it all in. But that's cool!

Once this is complete separate larger collations would great!

[Robb_K]

I've been mulling this over and my main thought is CB+ is massive ... it is ridiculously large. You could not read  everything we have in a lifetime.

What is needed is a really tiny "induction course" or "sample". Something that once "completed" someone (like me) would have a rough idea about what it is all about.

In a way maybe things do not need to be the best, but representative?

So I'd like to shoot for 10 broad sections with 10 books in each. Each book will have a small paragraph explaining why the inclusion. 100 books in total representing all the site

I guess a few compendiums will be included, to squeeze it all in. But that's cool!

Once this is complete separate larger collations would great!

I think it will be tough to squeeze roughly 16-17 "natural" different comic book genres into only 10 categories.  I will attempt that, to see how practical that would be.

[paw broon]

Well, that's snookered me.  Nearly finished a 20 entry list of MMM/Superheroes.  2 or 3 lines each.
Mark, I'll send it as an attachment to an email. As I felt "best" was too subjective, it's suggestions. 
Yes, I know others will think my selection is nonsense. If this isn't now what you want, let me know.
And if it is, you might fancy links, but that would take much more space.  I've suggested newbies use the search function.

[MarkWarner]

Sorry but sounds you go the hard work done ... and don't throw what you've done away as who knows what we'll be up to

As I think I mentioned before I don't think we should be stuck just in genre. So a section could be publishers with a typical book from each one. (Which gives people a chance to slip in a favourite book which has missed the cut elsewhere). Another maybe pre / post comic code? Another War time? etc

Romance would contain standard plus western love etc. The 10 categories would be really broad.

Just see if the 100 books can shed a light on it all. Might well be very useful for students and teachers We have a lot visiting here!

[paw broon]

Not a problem Mark. I should add that I compiled the list without using AI.  OK, I knew most of what I used but I forgot how difficult it is to do a precis. The CB+ search function got me to titles and companies quickly.
What was frustrating was the lack of space.  For instance, I chose The Black Terror and because I didn't want to go further than 2 or 3 lines, I couldn't add that as the series went on, the art became very good with Robinson and Meskin working on it.  An interesting task anyway.
Thinking cap on again.