Automatic Creator Name Corrections

One of the secrets of ComicBase’s ability to manage hundreds of thousands of creator credits is its built-in Creator Alias table.

This Creator Alias table came about as part of a huge database clean-up we undertook starting some years ago. The goal was not only to correct as many typos and misspellings as possible, but to try to put in place something that would prevent the same errors from reoccurring the future. We also wanted to try to address creators who, either on purpose, or by simple misspelling on the part of their editors, wound up working under aliases.

What we did was to run an analysis of all the names we saw a single creator listed under, and standardize those to match up with their most commonly used name. So, for instance, Dennis O’ Neil, Denny O’ Neal, Dennis O’Neil, Denny O’Neill, Sergius O’Shaughnessy, and Wan Chang O’Shauhnessey all get automatically changed to “Denny O’Neil”.

Some 20,000 similar match-ups are built into the Creator Alias table. Although you can’t access the table yourself, you can apply its magic by using the File > File Tools > Rebuild Lists command, and choosing to rebuild your issue information. In addition to its other clean-up tasks, this will standardize your creator credits, as well as discarding any redundant information (e.g., if you had the credit “Art Adams, Arthur Adams” it would get replaced with just “Arthur Adams” (his most commonly signed name)*

* I should note that our standing offer to all comic creators: If you’ve signed various ways over the years, but now prefer your name to appear a given way, just get in touch with us and we’ll change our official designation to whatever you like.