Template talk:Cite comic/Archive 1

Conversion to qif
Hi! I've been so bold to try to convert to template:qif, which is faster and server friendlier (one less call level). I am doing that to several templates at the moment. While converting, I think I found two bugs: I inserted two times the char "|" (at the beginning of the respective lines, it's a bit hard to see in the diff). I think there was some nesting error. Hope I'm not wrong. Sorry for intervening your work. – Adrian | Talk 22:40, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Obviously there is now something broken as can be seen in the examples. As this is not used in articles, I'll leave it for now, maybe you can see better what's wrong. Please feel free to revert. But trust me: qif is better than if. Sorry for that half baked edit. – Adrian | Talk 22:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

History
Created and added documentation: Hiding talk 21:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC) Converted to qif by Adrian and myself over the 14th and 15th December 2005. Examples finished, and reference added 16th December 2005. Hiding talk 20:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Requested move
This template should be at Template:Cite comic in conformance with all other citation templates of this sort. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 19:21, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Makes a degree of sense... and presumable the existing uses will still work after the move. Also, "comic book" would be inappropriate since this can also be used for web comics, strips, and so on. - J Greb 19:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Makes sense to me. Why would comics be different from all other media? -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 18:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 18:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ouch. There's actually a comic strip reference that should be used rather than this for strips and the like.  One job on the long to do list was to merge those two and the other variant for single panel cartoons into one and house them in a single template at cite:comic.  Hiding Talk 11:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Why's that an "ouch"? All that's left to do is the merge. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 18:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's an ouch because it's a prod in the ribs to get on and do it. Hiding Talk 10:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Heh. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 18:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The location parameter
I don't think we really need a location field. Seems kinda pointless. Opinions?--Rockfang (talk) 12:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * After double checking with the editor that added it in, it makes a degree of sense in that it brings this cite template closer in line with other "paper" media cite templates. That is, the standard for citing a book or periodical is to include where the publisher is physically located. It's optional, and it may be applicable to only a very, very small number of articles or cites. It seems to fit into a "no harm, no foul" type addition. - J Greb (talk) 22:26, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Not to mention it's required by MLA and several other academic citation styles. I and surely others who regularly use Cite book and Cite journal (where this parameter has been there from the start as a key citation component) have been adding location information to Cite web instances for years, just waiting for the darned parameter to be enabled there (currently the subject of an editprotected). I've probably added this field, as matter of proper citation course, to at least 300 web source citations in the last year alone. ("About us" and "Contact us" pages are your friend - they usually have a postal address, and when they don't, whois usually does.) —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 11:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * PS: This may not be instantly intuitive, but there are latent but strong WP:NPOV reasons to have the  field there, since the country, and sometimes the the region/coast or even city, of publication indicates a lot about the underlying assumptions, biases and tenor of a work.  Like, how do you feel about a grammar book published in San Francisco, CA, vs. one published in Oxford, England?  Not a crucial issue for comic books, generally, but on principle publisher location is simply an integral part of the full reference citation, and comics shouldn't get a "magical pass" to not comply.  It's not a mandatory field and cannot possibly hurt anything at all. (A clearer example might be: What questions for further investigation might a reader come up with, with regard to a comic book about underground life in South Africa, if the comic were published in South Africa, vs. in London or Amsterdam, given the history of South Africa?) —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 11:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Date query
Is the "date" field meant to show the date the comic was released or the cover date (which is usually a few months after the date of release)? For recent comics it's not too tough to find out the date a comic arrived in the comic stores, but for older comics it might be difficult to find this. I'm not sure whether "date of publication" refers to the day a comic arrives in the store, or the date listed on its cover and/or indicia. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * In most cases the cover date would be preferable since that's how most, if not all, indexing of the primary sources is done. - J Greb (talk) 22:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks — that makes sense. Perhaps the documentation should be changed to reflect this, since "date of publication" could be ambiguous? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:26, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it would also be prudent to add to the template doc for the date a mention of the cover date? In the Late 80's DC didn't put a month in their copyright blurbs in some titles.--Rockfang (talk) 23:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds very wise. If the date can't be found in the indicia, there's nothing left but the cover date.—  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 11:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It was already added. Thank you for the comment though. ;) Rockfang (talk) 12:06, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

For books, journals, etc., it's the publication/release date, not the date that paper/discs/whatever actually came out of the press. I'm dead certain there's the same expectation for comics or (beta-format video tapes or web comics or anything else for that matter). —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 11:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

A colorist field
Could someone add a colorist field? And a corresponding "multiple" colorist field like inkers and pencillers have?--Rockfang (talk) 20:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What articles are you looking to cite the colorists for? It might be easier to simply subst the template and then add that info. Would that help?
 * I'd rather it just be added to the template.--Rockfang (talk) 20:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Feel free to do so. Hiding T 20:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I would if I knew how. That's why I was asking if someone could do it.--Rockfang (talk) 20:34, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The trouble is it's a hard slog to do it, and like I say, it would only be useful in very few articles and therefore it's easier to just subst the template and add the extra info. If you provided me with an article, I could show you how to do it. Hiding T 20:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the offer, but I know how to subst stuff. I've gotten the colorist field working at Template:X6 using User:Rockfang/Sandbox, but I can't get the Co colorist field to show.  Any ideas?--Rockfang (talk) 00:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've solved that issue, but there are issues with that version of the template. It won't display the colorist field if the writer and artist are the same. Hiding T 13:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, how many works have more than one colorist? Hiding T 13:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for working on the template. I'm not sure of the number of multi-colorist comic books but one example is DC Comics' Secret Origins volume 2 #10.--Rockfang (talk) 16:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Let's refine that a little — how many stories from an issue have multiple colorists. I believe that if we're are using the cite properly, we're citing the specific story from a comic that has multiple sotires like Secret Origins. - J Greb (talk) 22:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok. Forget I ever mentioned co-colorist.  The point is, colorist should still be added to Cite comic.  It was a valid job title used by at least DC Comics from at least 1985-1990.  Would anyone have a problem with me adding it to this template?--Rockfang (talk) 00:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If we add it we'll have to add letterer. And the template is a bit of a mess, with the punctuation all messed up.  You've nudged me into accepting it needs to be done, so if you can hang on, I'll try and get it done.  I've long had it on my to do list to merge this with the cartoon and comic strip citation templates, so if you can hang on I'll get to it. And I apologise for being so grumpy before.  I'm somewhat frazzled at the minute doing increased hours at work. Hiding T 10:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You'll have my vote as Citation Template Hero of the Quarter if you pull all that off. PS: If letterists are credited and may be notable as such over a career, having letterists as well as colorists in here might be a valuable form of metadata. I'm pretty sure Cite book has illustrator and other fields that are similar in their rarely-used but sometimes-significant scope. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 11:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I never did work out how to merge editorial cartoonist and comic strip artist into this. I was hoping someone who worked on cite might have useful input, but I think after mapping it out it is impossible, since the same fields react differently depending on context. Hiding T 16:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

The page/pages parameters
I undid this edit. It was causing   to show up in all citations that did not use a page number. If the intention was to have a page number required for all comic book citations, I disagree with this.--Rockfang (talk) 12:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've got a feeling he was looking at the fact the the suggested parameter in the docs was "pages" but the template only looks for "page". The assumption seems to be that there may indeed be instances where "pages" was used and no one noted that they didn't show up. - J Greb (talk) 22:30, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Can someone with a better template code brain please fix this error on my part, rightly reverted by Rockfang, but still needing to be implemented correctly? The purpose of it is do nothing but make the   and   parameters be equivalent, because although the template only supported   the documentation has for a very long time given   (which is used by most of the rest of the templates in the Cite family) as equivalent. But it didn't work. It needs to, since   is actually broadly deployed.  Argh.  I've looked at it again and again, and am just not seeing where it is broken (though Rockfang is quite right that it was certainly broken). —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 11:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That should have fixed it. Hiding T 16:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Hurrah! —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 22:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Co-artist
Along the same lines as the colorist section above, I suggest Co-artist be added as well. If someone knows how to do this, please do.--Rockfang (talk) 05:16, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't it in there already now? —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 11:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Not that I can see.--Rockfang (talk) 12:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll have a sort through the history of the sandboxes to dig this out. Hiding T 16:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Why is it needed? Give me some examples so I know what I'm working for. Hiding T 17:59, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Some comics have Co-artists. For example, Young All-Stars #9 cover date February 1988.  Both Brian Murray, and Malcom Jones III were credited as artists on page 5.  I used a cite on Paula Brooks crediting both artists.  I ended using penciller, copenciller, inker, and coinker.--Rockfang (talk) 18:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. So you wouldn't need it to work with the inker or penciller fields. Hiding T 19:09, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm rebuilding the template in a sandbox. I think I nearly have it to satisfaction. Do we want a co-letterer or co-editor field? Hiding T 23:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think either will be used all that often, but you are welcome to add them if you like.--Rockfang (talk) 00:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

ISBN and OCLC
Shouldn't this have ISBN and OCLC fields like Template:Cite book? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sukael (talk • contribs) 20:44, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Possibly... but unlikely. Almost all of the cites will deal with magazines which don't usually carry an ISBN. - J Greb (talk) 20:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Why not? We've added 3 other fields that will probably rarely get used. Why not another 2? ;) In fact, maybe we should just stop using this template all together and just go straight to Cite book? ;) Rockfang (talk) 20:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't mind that... as long as somebody's willing to add artist (and coartists), inker (and coinkers), penciller (and copencillers), writer (and cowriters), panel, story (well, the existing "series" might work for that), and issue parameters - or equivalent support for them. Sukael \o/ 21:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * And the would be very, very silly. Using that argument all we would need is a single "cite" template with fields and mark up to cover comics. magazines, books, television shows, films, newspapers, web sites, speeches, hamsters, etc.
 * "One size fits all" does work, but not all the time. This is a case in point. Comic books are not books and books are not comics. The only possible cites I can think of where an ISBN would exist are 1) graphic novels, but then not always and 2) trade-paperback collections.
 * Graphic novels can use this template just fine.
 * The TPBs depend on what exactly is being referenced.
 * Reprinted material should be cited to the original publication - that is the magazine.
 * Original story elements added to the TPB (I'm thinking the extra pages in Kingdom Come) can be covered with this template.
 * Material pulled from forwards or afterwards should use the book template sine it is text.
 * - J Greb (talk) 00:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Don't think I've ever cited a "hamster" before. ;) Rockfang (talk) 02:28, 20 December 2008 (UTC)


 * No reason not to plan in advance... I'm sure a civilization will spring up one day that uses painted hamsters to transfer information. Who wants to start on the template so that it's ready once they're around? ;D
 * As for the ISBN, OCLC, etc. fields, I'm mainly thinking of trades - and manga, which are often collected as books but could definitely use the extra art-oriented fields of Sukael \o/ 16:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)


 * This is what the id field is for. Hiding T 19:34, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

URL and accessdate
I don't see any reason why this template shouldn't have the  and   parameters. Anyone else think they should be added?  Pagra shtak  14:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * If added, they will probably fall into the same category as the location parameter: hardly ever used, but won't hurt to have them available.--Rockfang (talk) 19:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I've got a draft in the sandbox. Take a look at the testcases and let me know if you see any problems. Here's a summary of changes:
 * optional parameters  and   added. If the parameter   is present, the url is linked there. Otherwise, the url is linked to the required   parameter.
 * Full stop added to the end and after the date to match the other templates.
 * Various spacing issues fixed. The current version has an extraneous space at the beginning before linked writer, and uses two spaces to separate writer from penciller, volume from issue, etc.
 * Use of non-breaking spaces changed. Instead of, we now have  , and other such fixes.
 * Writer with no penciller or illustrator now correctly uses a full stop after the writer instead of a comma.
 * Take a look and let me know if you see any problems with the sandbox version.  Pagra shtak  21:26, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I know next to nothing about template code. I suggest asking Hiding to take a look at it.  He seems to be a template guru. :) Rockfang (talk) 21:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The template has been updated with the changes.  Pagra shtak  12:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There were some punctuation changes to be made, I've introduced them in this full rewrite. Hiding T 19:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The volume/episode dependency problem
The ability of content in the  parameter to be displayed cannot be dependent upon the presence of a   value. Not all comics in the world are issued as volume/issue, some are just issued as issue numbers. The code to fix this can be ripped from Cite journal or Cite news, both of which use these fields but do not have this dependency issue. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 05:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You mean issue, yeah? When I wrote the thing the consensus was to always use a volume number, but that's moved on.  I know how to do it, no issues there.  Let me get my play area ready and I'll check for kinks. Hiding T 09:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, that's done. I've also amended the formatting so that vol is now in bold, issue is in brackets and page number and panel follows the issue number.  I can't quite work out how to get to grips with the citation core right this minute, but it's something for a rainy day. My only concern is the large number of author fields we have to use. Hiding T 11:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and yes, sorry, I meant "issue". I've been digging around in all of these related templates for so long that "issue", "episode", "volume" and "season" are beginning to blur. :-) —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 23:30, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Stray parenthesis when "issue" is blank
When this template is used for a work without an issue number (as, for example, a collection of a story arc) it places a stray end parenthesis after the work's title. See the Death of Superman example at Template:Cite comic for an example, or the citation of the collection Superman: Eradication! at Eradicator (comics) (currently footnote #6). Can someone more knowledgeable than I am about template syntax please fix this? Thanks. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll look into it. Poke me if there's no activity in a reasonable time frame. ;) Hiding T 15:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Yep — looks like this has fixed it. Thanks. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:11, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Year/Date
See ref 31 (Moore, Alan (w), Swan, Curt (p), Pérez, George & Schaffenberger, Kurt (i). Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? , DC Comics, ISBN 1-56389-315-0) in Superman. Headbomb {{{sup|ταλκ}}κοντριβς – WP Physics} 20:17, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Date is a required field, see the documentation. The format of that reference needs changing from year = 1997 to date = 1997.

URL parameter
Hi. I was commenting in a discussion at TfD a couple of days ago (see Templates for discussion/Log/2010 January 30) about a template which is a bit like Cite comic, in that it is used to cite comics, but it's adapted with a url parameter (amongst other things). As some comics are online (I think...) I thought URL parameter at Cite comic here might help when citing them, which I suggested at the discussion. Anyone agree? Disagree? Lord Spongefrog, (I am Czar of all Russias!)  19:11, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Please?! Lord Spongefrog,  [[User talk:Spongefrog#top|(I am Czar of all Russias!) ]] 21:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction with the reference (number in brackets why ? / vol. not written ?)
The following reference is given Ellis, Allen (1999). "Comic Art in Scholarly Writing: A Citation Guide". http://www.english.ufl.edu/comics/scholars/guide.html. Retrieved December 16, 2005 in the documentation.

The way to write the volume and issue are quite different. Many contributors on wikipedia comics seem to follow the rule described in the reference. Why does this template use bold and brackets for volume and issue and not vol. and # ? --Crazy runner (talk) 08:21, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Punctuation confusion
When there are multiple writers, the names are separated by commas. The problem is, when the names are in the "Last, First" format, you end up with what looks like a long list of names and surnames. The template (as an example) handles this by separating each person with a semicolon. Perhaps we could do that here as well. Khaotika 21:00, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

same notation, is it possible ?
Is it possible to try to have an Encyclopedia with the same notation inside the same article ?

In article, the sentence are made with comic # number.

In references, this template has to be use but it is nearly not use. Most of the time comic # number.

In references, you can find web links with comic # number.

What are the rules for external links ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.171.175.212 (talk) 07:00, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request
This template still wikilinks the |accessdate= field, a practice that has been depreciated in all other citation templates. Could an admin please remove this, it is the last line in the code. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 06:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done. Though not sure why this even has an 'accessdate' parameter. I thought that was only for web citations. -- &oelig; &trade; 07:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Work
Marvel and DC are two of the biggest comics publishers, it seems like in most cases it would be appropriate to put them in the Publisher field.

They have many imprints, to give just one example such as Vertigo (DC), or MAX (Marvel) and it does not seem appropriate to use the Publisher field for this information.

In keeping with other citation styles I would like to suggest adding a parameter "Work" where the subcompany or imprint could be mentioned. -- Horkana (talk) 01:12, 18 January 2011 (UTC)


 * [For now I'll skip over the awkward fact that there is nowhere to make clear that Disney is the parent company of Marvel, and Warner is the parent of DC Comics - it could be misleading if an article was only sourced to Disney subsidiaries for example (just as I would be very concerned if an article was sourced only from News Corporation publications).] -- Horkana (talk) 23:42, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I can see adding an "imprint" field... maybe. But standing practice has been to use the imprint as the publisher. - J Greb (talk) 23:31, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I am suggesting that instead of imprint we add a field called "work" which would be consistent with existing practice of cite web (and it would contain effetive the same information as "imprint") but the template would be good if the intended use of "publisher" was beter and more clearly documented. -- Horkana (talk) 23:42, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * But the "work" is the series, which is covered by the required "title" field. - J Greb (talk) 23:55, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Going from other citations: the work is the Los Angeles Times and the publisher is Tribune company; the work is Metacritic, publisher is CBS; the work is IGN and the publisher is News Corporation.


 * Okay maybe I've approached this too much with a specific solution in mind instead of addressing the problem. It seems like we need a way to express what imprint was used, and reusing the existing work field just seemed like one way to do it based on past experience.
 * Two examples:
 * #1 If a comic is from Vertigo how should I represent that?
 * #2 If a comic is from Millarworld and printed by Marvel under their creater owned "Icon Comics" imprint how should I represent that?
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by Horkana (talk • contribs)  14:36, 5 February  2011 (UTC)


 * Currrenly? Setting publisher one of three ways. Either "Vertigo", "DC Comics" or "DC Comics under the Vertigo imprint".
 * Adding an imprint field would allow a consistant notation, but I really wonder if it's needed.
 * - J Greb (talk) 17:16, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Comics specific formatting
A few issues are continuing to crop up as issues with this template and the way comics are normally referenced elsewhere:
 * The "volume/issue" format: I understand that periodicals are normally cited using the Vol(Issue) format. Comics generally aren't. This can cause two issues:
 * It can confuse editors in verifying information and clearly identifying sources.
 * It can render the cites useless to readers if the go looking for a referenced source.
 * Would there be any major issue with moving back to the "vol. X, issue" or " vX, issue" formatting?

There is also an MoS issue with regard to the Comics Project. The long and short, that MoS holds that "volume 1", in any format, not be use.
 * Mandatory publisher: Where this template is generally used there are normally multiple comics cited in a stretch. Often multiple issues from the same title. Having the publisher repeat in these instances is unneeded. Would there be any major issue with adding an "ibid" switch to the field to suppress it in 2nd or latter cites to the same title?

Would there be any major issue with setting up the volume field to suppress "1" if it is entered?

- J Greb (talk) 23:53, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * A few comments. The first thing is that the citations are visually confusing. A cite such as  "Justice League of America 2 (8) ((Jun 2007)), DC Comics" initially appears (to my eyes) to refer to "Justice League of America #28".  A cite like "Detective Comics 1 (833), New York, NY: DC Comics" looks like an area code. Dial 1 (833)?  I've been reading comics for such a long time that not seeing either a # or a "No." in front of the issue number is rather jarring.  "Action Comics #1" - fine. "Amazing Fantasy No. 15" - no problem. "Justice League of America 2 (23)" - huh?


 * Several of the template citations display rather than an actual date.  When looking at them in edit mode, I see "year".  Where is the month supposed to go and why is the year itself not displaying?


 * Do we really need to see "New York, NY: DC Comics" posted after every comic book? If a character has been published by multiple publishers (as in the case of Blue Beetle for example), then yes, I can see the use of this. For a character such as Superman, couldn't a simple "all appearances are in DC Comics publications unless otherwise noted" be made? While Superman has appeared in crossovers with other publishers, the vast majority of his appearances are in DC Comics and seeing it repeated numerous times makes the citation look overly crowded.


 * Are full writer-penciler-inker credits necessary for every issue? If someone is discussing a key storyline or event like "The Death of Gwen Stacy" or "One More Day" then I understand that knowing the creator line-up is important.  If the cite is for a minor detail (a  facetious example) "Spider-Man ran out of web-fluid several times" does the reader need to know that Jim Mooney inked three of the ten stories?  Seeing a litany of names in every citation gets to be overkill.


 * Clicking the "Cite your sources: " in edit mode is more user friendly than using a template. This template is counterintuitive, awkward, overly time consuming, and visually unappealing. If certain information should be included such as story title and credits, I'll be happy to include them. It's the template itself which I don't like.  If WP:CITECONSENSUS is to use the template, then I'll just not make citations to comic books anymore and I'm probably going to avoid the comic character articles entirely.


 * I recently worked on the citations for the Pope Benedict XVI (see January 26 and February 3 in Revision history) and List of states with limited recognition (see February 3, 2011 in Revision history) articles. Both of those articles deal with controversial and contentious subjects and there are frequent edit wars there.  No citation formatting issues were raised with my work there.  Comic books are more of a minefield than politics or religion?  Who would have thought that?


 * I hope all of this doesn't sound too much like a rant. Wikipedia has been a great deal of fun and the last thing I want to do is upset any apple carts. I've been reading comics since 1973 (yeah, I'm old) and I'd like to help out here.


 * Mtminchi08 (talk) 11:31, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I see a similar problem with book citations and page references, in that case they reference the books in one section (in better articles using a ref group to gather them all together) and then keep the page references very short (and in rare cases the best editors who understand all the awkward formatting are able to nicely link the short page references on to the detailed book references). So as they do that for books we might do the same for comics, making a detailed reference either in the infobox, or in the footnotes and then keep the page (or issue) references short. I would do this too, unfortunately it is easy to badly and way to hard to do in clear and tidy way, with nice interlinking. From the articles I can't see much existing consensus, not that many articles even have inline references to individual issues, the predominant style seems to be to put all the relevant information in the infobox and the external links.
 * I also find the lack of either # or No. to look quite odd. If I stop and think for a while I can figure it out sure but the heavy use of abbreviations too make the citations very unclear for me. Consensus and consistency are one thing but we may be trying too hard to fit comics into an unsuitable citation style.
 * The details can be overwhelming, it takes a lot of care on the part of an editor to know when to include them or not. There is no point repeating all those details when the infobox in the same article has them too. Referencing a comic in a non-comic article though it is good to have a lot of that information.
 * — Preceding unsigned comment added by Horkana (talk • contribs)  14:36, 5 February  2011 (UTC)


 * Couple of things:
 * date - The docs for this template note "Full date of publication, found in the indicia. Also known as the 'cover date'." The field should carry the full cover date based on the source. No seperation of "year", "month", and "day".
 * Required fields - Aside from title, date, and publisher, an editor is not required to fill in the other fields. "Action Comics (April 2000) DC Comics" is an acceptable minimum from this template. And the "ibid" I'm suggesting would allow a notation be entered for publisher for the 2nd or later instance so the next minimal cite would present ad "Action Comics (June 2003)".
 * - J Greb (talk) 17:26, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And two other nagging things...
 * First is the necesity of the story, writer, and penciller/artist fields. Yes, clearly identifying those would be part of a full cite in a general use encyclopedia. Part of it is needed credit where credit is due. Part of it is narrowing what part of the magazine is being cited. A good chunk of the comic books out there are "one issue, one story" but not all. Citing an Adam Strange story that was a back-up feature in Green Lantern or one of five stories from Detective Comics whin it was an actual anthology is going to need the story title.
 * That being said, there is a degree of over kill in the persons department with this. When getting beyond the writer and penciller/artist, credits become much les important. Inker and editor are boarder line with there being cases where those two individuals had a strong impact on what the issue is being cited for. But those are few and far between. Colorists and letteres almost never have that importance. There isn't a need to partially index the issue/story in the reference.
 * The second is the need to fill everything or to even use this template off the hop. Frankly, even with this being the direction where the cites are heading, the template doesn't have to be used when initially adding a ref. Adding a cite to a section that needs it is the important thing. If it isn't consistant with or as detailed as it needs to be, that isn't a biggie since there are others that will likely wind up adding to or polishing it.
 * - J Greb (talk) 19:39, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Important Note:
 * As currently coded, the template does not require the "publisher" field to be present. That pretty much moots the second issue.
 * - J Greb (talk) 18:00, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

(w, p, i) for |Cartoonist?
It's a bit odd that the |Cartoonist field would produce (w, p, i)...there are any number of cartoonists that don't pencil, and produce their artwork directly in ink (Ralph Steadman, for example), some cartoonists sometimes pencil and sometimes don't (like Robert Crumb), some of them only "pencil" in character placements as a guide for their inks.

Besides, the whole penciller-inker thing is heavily a Marvel/DC kind of thing. Outside of Marvel and DC-type comics, it's highly unusual to have separate pencillers and inkers. Acidtoyman (talk) 07:24, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Small quibble with the last point: having the art chores split up is a norm in most of the larger North American produced comic books. But that is a bit beside the point.
 * "Cartoonist" and "Artist", which places (p, i) could place and "a" instead of "i, p". And to be honest, if a strip is referenced which has one person providing the writing and another the art, cartoonist should not be used. - J Greb (talk) 14:03, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I ran into this with Chester Brownhe writes and draws all his own work, and describes himself as "cartoonist". This is probably most common in alternative comicshaving a separate writer is not common (see Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Gilbert Hernandez, Dave Sim, Jeff Smith, Jim Woodring, Seth, Adrian Tomine and close to everybody else in the "genre").
 * And I don't want to start something over this, but I was talking comic books. Carl Barks, Jack Cole, Alex Toth, Will Eisner, Walt Kelly, C. C. Beck, Joe Shuster, Dan DeCarlo, and almost all of the EC comics artists all inked their own work (John Severin and Will Elder had a notable partnership in the early 1950s, but in the end, they ended up doing almost all of their own work themselves---Elder inked all his own work for Mad).  In underground comix and alternative comics, inkers are virtually unknown (in fact, I can't think of a single example off the top of my head).  Also, in non-American comics the penciller-inker arrangement is rare, even in teams (in Japan it's common to have one artist pencil and ink the characters while having an assistant doing backgrounds and laying down toner, but I have yet to hear of a Japanese inker).  In the grand scheme of things, certain Marvel/DC comics may be the top sellers, but the still make up only a small part of the "comic book" world.
 * Are we supposed to avoid using Template:Cite comic when talking about non-Marvel/DC and non-North American comics? That's virtually all comics!  Acidtoyman (talk) 23:15, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, we are.
 * And frankly when you cite a comic you are going to list the person or people responsible for it. The person who wrote it. The person who drew it. And in some cases the persons who inked it, colored it, lettered it, and edited it. The first two are the important ones though. The writer is going to be tagged with "w", no ifs, ands, or buts. The person who drew it is either a penciller ("p") or an artist. As I pointed out, using the parameters of either "artist" or "cartoonist" could, and likely should, drop an "a" instead of "p, i". It would also allow cartoonist to to cover authors of works who do it all but but either aren't identified or self identify as a "cartoonist".
 * - J Greb (talk) 23:55, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, first off, I never argued for dropping the "w" for writer, did I? Why are you trying to make it look like I did?
 * The Point: I was arguing that "cartoonists" often don't pencil at all (i.e. Ralph Steadman and Robert Crumb, whom I've already brought up), so the "p" and "i" are inappropriate for "|Cartoonist".  Go back and read my first comment.  I would think that the default would be not to have "p" and "i" unless a penciller and/or inker were explicitly supplied.  Otherwise you end up with the ridiculous situation of an artist being identified as a penciller when they never touched a pencil (or the editor just simply not knowing one way or the other---why identify someone as a penciller when you don't actually know they use a pencil as part of their workflow?  Too many people would just assume they did).
 * Second, you just seriously claimed that Template:Cite comic is to be exclusively used for Marvel/DC-style comics? Even major historical companies like EC with million-selling comics are to avoid it?  REALLY?!?!?!?!?
 * That's just unfathomable. Even worse that you've just simply decreed it so without any attempt at justifying it or trying to reach a consensus.  Acidtoyman (talk) 00:55, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Second, you just seriously claimed that Template:Cite comic is to be exclusively used for Marvel/DC-style..." Sorry I miss read your previous ending, and I think that is what set me off. This is supposed to cover citing any comics - strips, books, magazines, serials, and so on.
 * And frankly, the common way "cartoonist" is applied is someone who writes and draws the material. And that is what the parameter was put in to cover rather that "writer_and_artist". If the field is being used for the person who only wrote the cited work, then it is being misapplied. - J Greb (talk) 02:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I know how "cartoonist" is usually applied. That's exactly what I've been pointing out.  I used Template:Cite comic to cite Chester Brown, who was the cartoonist (as in writer and artist) of the comic being cited.  It showed up as Chester Brown (w, p, i), even though no information was given as to whether he actually pencils his work.  I happen to know that he does pencil his work before he inks it, but how would the template know that?  The template make the wrong assumptions when using the |Cartoonist parameter.  For another example, Jim Woodring is a cartoonist who won an award for a fully-painted comic that he did both the writing and artwork for.  Choosing the |Cartoonist parameter would again list him as Jim Woodring (w, p, i), even though there was no inking involved, but there was certainly cartooning involved.  Acidtoyman (talk) 02:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Hrm... the more it's kicked around, the more "a" sounds like a solution...

If you have a few citations your are keeping an eye on, see if the change works better.

- J Greb (talk) 21:57, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I only had one (that I can remember, on I Never Liked You). Yes, it's kicked in.  Thank you.  Acidtoyman (talk) 22:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The reference should say the word "page" otherwise people don't know what the number is
It just list a number in the reference section, without telling people what that number is. Comic issue 2, page 3, looks like Comic_Name 2: 3. That could mean version 2 of the comic, third issue. Why not list it as Comic_Name #2 page 3? Add in a # before the issue, and then the word page instead of the colon.  D r e a m Focus  10:23, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Using "pg #", "ppg #-#", and "pnl#" might be a good idea. The move to Pg/Pnl was to keep in line with cite templates for journals or other magazines. And to be honest it is a little dense to decipher for a general reader.
 * As for the hash before the issue number - it really isn't necessary, especially if the other number are in some way identified.
 * - J Greb (talk) 13:21, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Anchor
This template does not currently support an anchor: I have updated the sandbox. It does not support harv, as the author/artist wikilinks will mangle the anchor name. Use of sfnref to create ref is recommended. I also added  so that the citation is highlighted when it is linked to.

---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:13, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Gadget850, that will be really useful, been trying to figure out if I could do this for ages, will make citing individual pages from a single issue much easier. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 16:52, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd say this is a good thing except...
 * The short version is only preferable to using "name=foo" if we are actually citing page/panel in the stories. Almost to a cite this is never done.
 * Even if it were, I'm concerned it would lead to plot bloat based on citing each point in an issue seperatly instead of condensing and just citing the story.
 * Normally - and I know this is at odds with the conventions mentioned above - the "short" version would be "Title, volume, issue, page" not "Writer, year, page".
 * Using the writer/year also creates a problem if multiple thing by that author from the same year are cited.
 * - J Greb (talk) 21:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Anchors are used to link the in-text citation to either a shortened or a full citation using the or  systems. Citing an in-source location is optional.
 * Bloat is an editorial issue that cannot be fixed by any template.
 * sfn supports loc; example added.
 * The convention for multiple works by the same author in the same year is to add an alpha suffix; examples added.
 * Adding ref to the template simplifies the markup. The anchor can be added by use of wikicite; example added. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:10, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * "Even if it were, I'm concerned it would lead to plot bloat based on citing each point in an issue seperatly instead of condensing and just citing the story." I understand what you are saying but citing an individual point is only necessary when you are doing something very specific. If you're citing the story of Spider-Island, just cite the issue/story/collection. If you're quoting something or making an assertion based on a piece of dialogue, you can now very easily add a cite to the specific page/range without adding an additional source as tends to happen at the moment "[ref] Spider-Man #1 p2 [/ref]" and so forth. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 23:23, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * So what is the procedure here? Is this active because it doesn't seem to be working for me. I used Cite Comic/Sandbox and that works and it seems to work nicely here User:Darkwarriorblake/Venom (comic book series), though I've only used it once so far. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:27, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it is in the test sandbox for now while we discuss this. Please don't use the sandbox version in articles. Let the discussion go fro a few days. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 19:12, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

✅ ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 12:55, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Full parameter set
Hi, I'm only a user of cite templates, the way I use them is that I copy/paste the full set, fill out all known/given fields and delete the rest. I've used many cite templates, but this is the first, where I can't find the full set on the template page. Could this be fixed? Thank you! Zoli79 (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Language field
A quick question, why does this template not have a language field? What happens when someone is citing a piece of manga that is only in Japanese or a work by Jean Giraud that is in French? --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 19:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * That actually makes sense... and it should be easy to add the code to appende the right templates from Category:Language icon templates. - J Greb (talk) 22:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Should be working now... just use the labguage codes... and it is set to ignore "en". - J Greb (talk) 22:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I had a similar problem, and checked this talk page for a solution. I'd like to add some thoughts about the issue: Zoli79 (talk) 21:42, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * As I discovered, this cite template only accepts language templates in the language field. (I tried |language=Hungarian, the result: Template:Hungarian icon, with |language=Hu it worked fine). The descriptions of some cite templates specifically calls ones attention: "Use the full language name; do not use icons or templates." (cite journal, cite book, citation etc.) It would be recommended to follow them or at least to make it possible for a user to write out the full language name.
 * How do I give the translated title? This might seam as a different issue, but if a comic is in another language, than usually its title is also in that language. In this case a translated title is recommended in the citation. At this point I'd refer to the previously mentioned other cite templates.
 * The Description of parameters section does not mention language. Since there is no full set given, one would think, there is no chance to specify the foreign language. You have to come to this talk page and read the previous discussion to discover this option.
 * In the case of other citations, the language is in parenthesis right after the title. Here, as I discovered the language is at the end of the whole citation (behind the page no., publisher, location etc.), which is again not in line with other citations.
 * You are probably comparing this template to the templates. CS1 is based on a core template, thus they have a common look and feel. Cite comic does not use the core, and it has fields that the core just can't handle, thus a different look and feel. --—  Gadget850 (Ed) talk 23:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * There's no reason the template shouldn't look, feel, and behave like other commonly used templates as much as possible, with exceptions limited to where they are unavoidable. Curly Turkey (gobble) 23:26, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with Curly Turkey here, but look and feel only concerns my last and half of my first remark. Zoli79 (talk) 08:18, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

CS1
Per above discussions, there seems to be some move to making this compliant with the series. All of the current fields would be retained.
 * The separators between authors would change to a semicolon
 * Some fields would change order
 * Language currently uses an icon template— this can be retained, but it really does not add any pertinent information

I have a lot of experience doing this, but we need a clear consensus before I go ahead. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 14:42, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

current

CS1


 * FWIW, check out what I've done at User:Curly Turkey/Cite comics (under discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics), which optionally allows dropping the parenthesized rôles and adds the "#" to issue numbers (as recommended by MOS:POUND), with the option of pre– or postpending something else to the issue number in exceptional situations.




 * ——— Curly Turkey (gobble) 00:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, it would be great, if the template had the same format as CS1! Thank you for the efforts! Since you mentioned it: I for myself would find the language field important and to also include translated title. In your cite book example I've noticed that you wrote 1 for volume. I believe, a volume of a book means something different, than a comic series volume. I'd rather see the volume no. a bit explained and put into parenthesis (ie. (vol. 1), (series 1), or (1961 series) etc.) Since the given example falls closer to a journal (as a matter of fact, comic book series are periodicals), while GN-s, TPB-s are closer to books. Here's what I came up with using cite journal:
 * CS1 (Journal)
 * Zoli79 (talk) 18:23, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Zoli79 (talk) 18:23, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

penciller field not working
Check the refs on Anole (comics). All cites using Cite comic with penciller full are displaying an error message "Unknown parameter |penciller= ignored " Please fix this.-- Auric talk 12:16, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Those refs are using cite book. --  Gadget850 (Ed) talk 12:23, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Layouts parameter
Can someone please add a "layouts" parameter? It would be included if the "penciller" and "inker" fields are used. I've been trying to cite a few books, where the artists consist of someone doing layouts, and others doing pencils and inks. This would be tremendously helpful to accurately cite and credit them. Thanks. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 02:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Error message and tracking category for unsupported parameters
I have added error tracking for unsupported parameters to this template. See. A red error message appears when you Preview the article, where the Cite comic template is used. In the category, the articles are sorted by the name of the parameter that is unsupported.

I have added this error-checking to a number of heavily used templates, mostly infoboxes, and it usually goes smoothly, highlighting errors that improve the articles that end up in the category. Every once in a while, parameters are missed or something goes wrong. If that happens, don't panic, just post here and I will be happy to fix it. Revert the change if you feel that you must.

If I have made any mistakes in coding, or if template changes are desired, please let me know. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Explain roles
Perhaps we could explain roles when hovering over letters? --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:26, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah that could work.★Trekker (talk) 07:47, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Huh?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:09, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I assume he means like this: MCU for example.★Trekker (talk) 12:32, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yep that is what I mean. People who are not comic fans may not be aware of the meanings of the abbreviations but may still come across them in an article. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:24, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah I agree, I like the idea.★Trekker (talk) 17:37, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oh, yes, that's what that markup is for. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:41, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Language field still doesn't seem to work
I wrote, but it just generated a template redlink. I tried the three-letter code and full language name but with the same result. I even tried other language codes that all did the exact same. It certainly doesn't help that the field lacks documentation, yet shows up as a primary field in ProveIt. Is it even meant for use or deprecated? Gaioa (T C L) 10:47, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
 * . The set of language templates that were being used has been deleted. I switched to the updated template. It should work now. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:16, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Quotation marks
When one adds URLs for webcomics, the right mark becomes separated from the rest of the sentence by a space. See examples below:
 * Before:
 * After:

The thing is that most cite templates (cite book, cite web, cite news, etc) don't use the above-mentioned pattern. In fact, it's as follows:
 * Munroe, Randall (w, a). "Citogenesis" xkcd 978 (16 November 2011)

Given the above, I suggest to stick to standards and fix the template.--Russian Rocky (talk) 17:53, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * . – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:17, 18 August 2020 (UTC)