IntelliScanner Comic Edition Seems To Have The Power To Organize Even Lazy Fans' Collections

I was thoroughly disappointed in this product, after researching all the other usual suspects available on the Mac side of the fence. They do a handy dodge when describing how their system actually works with comics when others like Delicious Library fail: they suggest that they have a comics database, which would presumably be a partnership with gcdb.com or comicbookdb.com, but instead, it's just a sticker-based barcode system and a scanner and the database software. Ie. take your 333,000 issue comic collection, apply individual bar code stickers to each effing book (at considerable per-code expense) and then manually enter the data in the database for all comics, then assign the bar code to the entry in the db. YAY! I appreciate what they are tying to do but this is a marketing maguffin to me: the product is more suited to a retailer or for-profit e-seller keeping track of inventory.

I looked at Booxster for a long time, as this software-only solution links up with the above mentioned comics databases. You can't scan anything, but since the bar codes on comics are worthless for unique ID purposes anyway, no great loss. But you can at least enter the comic issue or series or whatever and have Booxster look it up in the databases it links to. However, it turns out they are basically data-mining, as neither database team was ever consulted or agreed to be part of the product resource. And the most obvious route is the other direction: use comicbookdb.com to build your comic library, then export it to Delicious or Booxter or whatever. But that's pretty challenging on it's own, as the unique ID for the comic in the comicbookdb.com system doesn't come through the export.

The best solution I've found is to just build your collection online at comicbookdb.com. The one saving grace is that you can add a series name [Hellboy] and ask it to add all issues to your collection, so you don't have to enter each one. Additionally, you can set up subscriptions just as you might for a comicsaver file with your LCS, and then it will continue to update itself as new issues are released.

I had HIGH hopes for this product, but sadly, as Len Goodman would say: 'what's on the label is not whats in the tin!'

PS for those interested in trying the intelliscanner system out, if you buy from the mfr directly, there ar eno returns, but if you buy from thinkgeek, you CAN return it if it doesn't pass muster!