Tintin

I am no series expert, but surely there's a lot listed as part of the Tintin series that doesn't belong there? All the non-fiction books about Hergé, colouring books etc.

Looking at the listing, it does appear to be curated with some effort. Many of the items are repackages of the original stories so any one of them might have a grouping of three of the original graphic novels, etc.

I find it more frustrating to find a series page like Tom Swift where the pubic domain works have been "published" in eBook or print-on-demand anthology editions. To my sense of things, these unofficial copies (permitted because of the copyright status) don't really belong in the series listing even though they are probably in someone's "collection" of books they have or might wish they had.

A page like the one on an author like Clive Cussler can get things from lazy catalogers who can't be bothered to list their books individually but instead say something like 8 Clive Cussler Books.

In a Jules Verne listing there are differences in the ways that a given story was published in various countries or by different publishers. One nation might put Mathias Sandorf in one or two volumes while another might put it in three.

These usually mean that the checkbox system doesn't let you see how complete your series or author collection is except by scrutinizing the list to say that certain items should not be counted for your context.

For the Tintin books, I can see why they do it this way. Someone who is a big fan of this material will want a way, at a glance, to see what they have yet to find and this sort of series listing can do it even if the works are not all available from a single publisher or in any given country.

James

The "order" listing seems really odd, though. There are a slew listed as "900". Now I know there are a lot of Tintin books, but 900? And multiple 900s? And even the lower numbers have different books given the same place in the order. Seems to me that's confusing.

But I'm not a Tintin fan, so I'll leave it to those who are to decide whether this works for them or not.

>2 Keeline: Some effort has definitely gone into it, I'm not disputing that. But would you really create a series consisting of the primary works and then add non-fiction analyses, biographies of the author etc? Surely not?

>3 lilithcat: "900" is probably a cheat to push the item to the bottom of the list.

Any large franchise may have a complicated series page. Consider, for example, Star Trek. There are also numerous subseries for specific TV shows or publisher book groupings.

Most of the Tintin ones I see that are not pure graphic novel fiction works are companions for characters. I've also seen some examples where a book about the author is a companion volume to a set.

James

Well, they're not companion volumes of a set in this case. OK folks, I seem to have misunderstood the concept of an LT series if biographies of Tolkien are part of a series comprising Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I will tiptoe out and not touch that page then.

Isn't the solution to create two series, one with just the Tintin books and another with that plus all the meta books?

There actually is, in other languages.

I tend to agree with anglemark - the Tintin series do not include anything Tintin related - there should be a Tintin series which just contain the Tintin graphic novels (also including the official omnibus editions etc).

Whether there is then a greater agglomeration of Tintin works under a different name I am rather neutral on.

Also with Tintin it looks as if we have language clashes too - maybe we need Tintin (in English) and a Tintin (en Français) series.

>10 andyl:

there should be a Tintin series which just contain the Tintin graphic novels

Agreed! I'm astonished it doesn't exist (as I gather is the case currently).

>2 Keeline: I find it more frustrating to find a series page like Tom Swift where the pubic domain works have been "published" in eBook or print-on-demand anthology editions. To my sense of things, these unofficial copies (permitted because of the copyright status) don't really belong in the series listing even though they are probably in someone's "collection" of books they have or might wish they had.

I don't see it as any different from 87th Precinct, which is still in copyright, but has a huge number of foreign or book club omnibuses. It's the same type of mess, and equally fair or unfair to prohibit adding those to the series list.

What's wrong with including the omnibus editions, especially as they are at the bottom?

I like having omnibus editions in a series, but I think they should have some semblance of organization.

I also think the omnibus editions belong in the series, but I do prefer them to sort to the bottom. Can any of you series gurus tell me how to make them go to the bottom in this series?

http://www.librarything.com/series/Duncan+Kincaid%252FGemma+James

To order omnibuses change the first number in the series listing.
Here is one example of an omnibus series listing in CK: Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James (4.5|Omnibus 3-4).

So this sorts at position 4.5. But if you change the 4.5 to 100 or something, then
it will sort on the number 100, putting it at the bottom. So you could use 101 for an omnibus
containing 1-3, and 104 for an omnibus containing 4-6, and 101.5 (or something) for an omnibus containing 1-6.
It's really up to you what numbers you pick for the omnibuses.

Aha! Thank you so much, Al! I knew there had to be a way but I was just not grasping it despite the instructions on the page.