Five of Dave Sim's publications are numbered starting from 1, so that the same number can designate five different issues.Out of 948 advertisements noted on September 5, 2026, 26 ranks appear in at least three of these series, and ranks 1, 2 and 3 in all five. An inventory built on the usual series + number pair cannot describe this collection: it is missing a field.
The problem addressed here is not that of the buyer who fears paying too much. It is that of the collector sitting in front of his boxes, who tries to record what he owns and discovers that his file cannot express the difference between five objects.
The cause is not accidental. A long series, published over three decades, has been redivided in several ways: by narrative arc republished under its own title, by republication at an accelerated pace, by archival collection. Each redistribution is perfectly legitimate, each starts from 1, and the cumulative result is a space of numbers where several objects overlap.
Five counters, one story
I crossed eight questions from the American market on September 5, 2026 and duplicated: 948 distinct announcements. The amounts quoted aresommes demandéesthat day, no sales were ever concluded; they are used here to situate families in relation to each other, not to establish values.
Five families emerge with low ranks. The original series, present in 314 ads, runs up to rank 300. Three republications start from 1 and cover ranks 1 to 26, 1 to 59 and 1 to 92 respectively, out of 155, 136 and 153 ads. A more recent and rarer archive collection appears in 41 listings in ranks 1 to 3.
The count that counts is that of recovery:26 ranks appear in three or more families, and ranks 1, 2 and 3 appear in the five. For these three values, writing “number 2” in a card leaves five possible readings.
Three rows, five items
Numbers 1, 2 and 3 exist in the five families noted. No other element of the series + number pair allows them to be separated.
Twenty-six rows of three lanes
Beyond the first three, twenty-three other ranks still appear in three families. The area of ambiguity is not a handful of cases.
Levels that do not overlap
At rank 4, the three republications hold a median of $2.90 when the original series sits at $49.99. The gap betrays the confusion better than it excuses it.
The rarest family is not the most expensive
The archive collection, the least represented with 41 listings, is priced at $8 to $13 depending on rank — well below the original series.
This last point deserves a word, because it contradicts a stubborn intuition. The rarity of a family on the market on a given day says nothing of its value: the archive collection is not widely offered because it is recent and probably not very widely printed, not because it would be sought after. Confusing “few announcements” and “rare item” is a misreading that the number of observations, cited each time, helps to avoid.
It should be noted that these five families are not five editions of the same issue. These are five different divisions of the same continuous story: a given rank does not cover the same content from one family to another. Number 4 in a republication does not correspond to number 4 in the original series, nor does it correspond to number 4 in another republication.
This is what makes any correspondence table illusory. There is no arithmetic rule connecting the counters: each family has its own starting point in the story, and only the declared content allows you to know where you are.
Why the serial + number pair is no longer enough
A comics inventory is almost always based on two fields: the title of the series and the rank of the issue. This model works as long as a title designates a single sequence. It falls as soon as the same story is redivided under several titles whose ranks overlap.
One might think that the title is enough, since the five families have different names. It's true about the object; it is much less so in the files. A collector who places “number 4” under a series he calls after the character — the most natural reflex — has just crushed the distinction. He only noticed it when looking for the booklet years later.
The parade takes place in a third field, which is neither the title nor the rank: thepublication family. In other words, the answer to the question “in which division does this number fit”. This field costs nothing to enter when you have the item in hand, and it cannot be recovered afterwards.
A fourth field makes everything exploitable: the position in the story. When the copy or the announcement indicates it – in the form of a range of episodes repeated, the name of the arc, or simply the year – it allows families to be linked together. It is the only possible bridge between five meters which, by construction, do not communicate.
We must measure what this fourth field really changes, because we may believe it to be redundant with the third. The family says in what format a booklet was published; the position in the story tells where he is in the story. These are two distinct questions, and the second is the only one that allows two specimens belonging to different families to be compared.
Without it, a collector who owns ranks 1 to 20 of a republication and ranks 30 to 60 of the original series cannot know whether these two sets overlap, follow each other, or leave a gap between them. However, he has all the necessary information in his boxes: it is printed on the copies, it is simply not in his file.
This is the kind of field that is considered superfluous as long as the collection is small, and whose absence becomes irreparable when it grows. Rating it costs a few seconds per copy at the time of purchase. Reconstructing it later requires reopening each box, copy by copy — and that's exactly the work an inventory is supposed to avoid.
Finally, a remark on what is exemplary about this collection. Five parallel counters on the same story is an extreme situation, but none of its ingredients are: a long series, republished arcs, accelerated republication, an archive collection. Each of these mechanisms exists among many publishers. This case does not show an anomaly; it shows, concentrated on a single title, what happens elsewhere in a more diffuse way.
Six consequences in an inventory
Five objects on a line
In rows 1 to 3, a card bearing a simple number describes five fascicles at a time. The line exists, it designates nothing.
Invisible duplicates
Two specimens from different families placed under the same rank appear to be a duplicate. They are two separate objects.
Imaginary holes
Mixing families in the same sequence creates gaps that do not exist: we look for ranks that belong to another division.
No lookup table
The counters are not deduced from each other. Only the declared content places a booklet in the story.
Mixed estimates
In row 4, three families at $2.90 and one at $49.99. An average calculated without distinguishing families does not describe any real object.
High rank wrongly reassures
Beyond 92, a rank necessarily belongs to the original series. Below that, there's no certainty — and that's where most of the market is.
What this statement does not establish
He does not catalog these five families. The observed rank ranges — 26, 59, 92, 3 — are those that were on sale that day, not the actual range of each release. A family can have more numbers than any advertisement offered at that moment.
It says nothing about the content of each rank. I notice that the meters overlap; I don't know, from announcements, which episode of the story each issue takes up. This is precisely why I recommend noting what the copy states rather than reconstructing a correspondence.
Finally, the medians per family are based on very unequal numbers, from 41 to 314 announcements, and mix various declared states. They place relative orders of magnitude. Reading them as odds would amount to committing, at the family level, the error that this article denounces at the rank level.
Translate this into a file
The rule:add a "post family" field and treat it as part of the identity, not a comment.The inventory line no longer says “number 4” but “number 4 of such family”. It is this couple, and they alone, who designate a copy.
Complete this field when you have the item in hand, never after. The full title is printed on the cover; it disappears from your memory within a few weeks and never appeared in the ad you read. It's free information while the copy is in front of you, and expensive afterwards.
Also note the year of publication. In a series published over thirty years and recut several times, the year decides between families in the vast majority of cases, and it can be read in the bear. This is the field that will save you when the title has been copied incorrectly.
Finally, keep track of the position in the story as soon as the copy gives it — a range of repeated episodes, an arc name, an original number cited in parentheses. It's the only bridge between meters that don't communicate, and it's what will one day allow you to know if a coveted booklet is already at home in another format.
Because the same story, published over three decades, has been recut several times: arcs republished under their own title, republication at an accelerated pace, archive collection. Each division starts from number 1, which is legitimate taken in isolation. The cumulative result is that 26 ranks appear in three or more families, and the first three in all five.
No arithmetic rule connects the counters: each family begins at a different point in the story and advances at its own pace. The number 4 of one does not correspond to the number 4 of another. Only the content declared by the copy – range of episodes, name of arc, year – makes it possible to situate an issue in the whole.
A « famille de publication » field, populated with the full title printed on the cover. It is part of the identity of the copy in the same way as its rank. Add the year, which decides the families in most cases, and the position in the story when the copy gives it.
No, and it's a classic trap. The archive collection is the least represented in the survey with 41 advertisements, and yet it is clearly below the original series in asking price. Few announcements can mean recent or little circulation as well as rare and coveted: the number of observations is always read next to the amount, never in its place.
In one direction only. Beyond rank 92, no observed republication goes that far: the issue therefore belongs to the original series. Below, no possible conclusion — and this is precisely the area where most of the announcements, and therefore most of the risk, are concentrated.
One more field, five distinguished objects
My Comics Collection keeps the publication family next to the row, so that five issues no longer occupy the same row.