[paw broon]

Only a thought but going by the indicia, this is an Andy Hardy comic. Same with other Dell titles. Yes, I know, before I get shouted at, all about 4 Color. It simply seems counter intuitive. Please don't go into GCD'S ways of listing for me.
I have always preferred to file Dells under title. I happily accept our way of doing things on CB+. There is something bee like buzzing about in my aging brain about this one.

Link to the book: 0480 - Andy Hardy

[MarkWarner]

I prefer to follow GCD it makes tech admin SO MUCH easier and it is consistent.

[Robb_K]

I prefer to follow GCD it makes tech admin SO MUCH easier and it is consistent.

Ideally, I suppose, it would be the best of all worlds to file single-character-titled books in "catch-all" type series, with BOTH their catch-all series (i.e. Dell's "Four Color Comics"), and also with their character-titled series, so that people not familiar with the peculiarities of particular publishers could easily find books starring their favourite characters.  But, I realise that doing that would result in use of a significantly large additional storage space, which would cost extra money, that for a non-profit website like CB+, dependent upon user donations, would be an untenable burden.

[paw broon]

Quite right Mark.   I have no wish to advocate change.  Perhaps my difficulty is with GCD.  They always go with the indicia, I believe, but not in 4 Color listings.  Let them get on with it, it's a great idea but, like some other folk, I prefer to have little to do with them.
I hope my chuntering wont affect my being an admin.

[SuperScrounge]

They usually go with the indicia, but publishers can be sloppy with indicias (when they have them). I believe the period where Archie Comics became just Archie there were a couple of issues where the name flip-flopped in the indicia and the indexes followed the indicia to a T so you had an odd break-up in the sequential order of the indexes. So now they tend to go with what is least disruptive. I believe the Four Colors are left that way because of historical precedence. Sometimes you will see notes on the indicia name changes on the main page of a series at the GCD like this page for Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen https://www.comics.org/series/1027/

[Robb_K]

They usually go with the indicia, but publishers can be sloppy with indicias (when they have them). I believe the period where Archie Comics became just Archie there were a couple of issues where the name flip-flopped in the indicia and the indexes followed the indicia to a T so you had an odd break-up in the sequential order of the indexes. So now they tend to go with what is least disruptive. I believe the Four Colors are left that way because of historical precedence. Sometimes you will see notes on the indicia name changes on the main page of a series at the GCD like this page for Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen https://www.comics.org/series/1027/

At least for the lead character-titled series whose numbers start AFTER the number of ad-hoc issues in the publisher's the catch-all, multi-title, showcase series (such as "Uncle Scrooge" Number 4 starting after 3 "Four Color Comics" issues), it is clear that the ad-hoc issues were determined to be part of the self-numbered character title series.  Therefore, logically, and ideally (if cost and manpower issues could be put aside), issues from both numbering-style series should be housed together, in chronological order of their release, with a slot holder scan of the issue's front cover, and a referral and link to the page in the character title series where the book is presented in full.  This should also be done for series that started with the self-numbered regular monthly or bi-monthly issue, and were later demoted to the ad-hoc, sporadic issues in the "Four Color Comics" series, such as "Krazy Kat".

I'm not saying that I would vote for changing our current policy, as there are 1300+ issues of "Four Color Comics", and there may be other showcase series from other publishers that operated that way, like Magazine Enterprises' (ME) "A-1 Comics".  The cost of doing such would not likely be insignificant, and the labour would be extensive and time consuming.  And I think readers (including myself) would much rather have the people who might volunteer their time and effort for such work, rather using that time and effort to scan and upload other comic books we don't already have up on this website.

[crashryan]

Personally I think the way things are arranged currently is the best way of dealing with a complicated system. It's fair to call the series "Four Color" because for the first 99 issues the cover bore the words "Four Color Comic" in one form or another. Alternately one could call it the "One Shot" series, based on job numbers that began appearing on the first story page. This seems to have begun with #41, Mother Goose and Nursery Rhyme Comics, job # NROS-414. For a long time strip reprints didn't show a job number, only Dell originals, but eventually they got numbers. Smitty, issue #99, seems to be the first. It's labelled S.O.S. 99-463. The first part is an abbreviation for the book title followed by O.S. for "one shot," then the issue number and a code for the date: year (46=1946) and month (3=March).

With minor variations this remained the system until the early 60s when for some reason certain one-shot comics appeared with a different sort of job number that appeared both on the cover and in the indicia. For example The Man from Wells Fargo (1962) was numbered WELLSF. 01-495-207-624. I haven't been able to make sense of the number other than that the last digits once again signified the year and month. These books appeared while the sequentially-numbered Four Color series was still running.

I favor grouping the Four Colors by issue number because it provides a truer chronology of Dell's output. The company knew that some titles would remain one-shots but they didn't know in advance which other titles would spin off into their own series. I can see the bookkeeping benefit in a blanket series like Four Color. It avoids the company launching endless orphan #1 issues. Mailing privileges may have had something to do with it as well, but probably not as the Four Color series didn't offer subscriptions like the standalone series did.

I admit that it is annoying to have a title's early issues to be listed in the Four Color section. However for reading and researching purposes I sniff out the FC issues with the search tool, then download them into the folder with the self-titled issues.

[MarkWarner]

Paw Broon lol no of course not. The very thought!