America's Best Comics

"Promethea vs. the Terrific Tom Strong"

"America's Best Comics (ABC) is a comic book publishing brand. It was set up by Alan Moore in 1999 as an imprint of WildStorm, an idea proposed to Moore by WildStorm founder Jim Lee when it was still under Image Comics" (Wikipedia).

The quote above illustrates one of the "complexities" of organizing any collection of comic books. Imprints designed to market publications -- in this case, comics -- to specific consumers have created seemingly ever-changing Publishers under which one might list a comic.

Should "Tom Strong" -- originally published with an America's Best label -- be listed as an America's Best comic? Seems most logical. A WildStorm comic? Perhaps... An Image Comics comic? Eh...?

Well, no. On comiXology.com you'll actually find "Tom Strong" comics listed under DC Comics. How's that, you ask?

"America's Best Comics" #1

At some point in the chain, DC must have "taken charge" of the comics once published under the America's Best label. (However, the cover images used at comiXology appear to keep the original publisher's logo in most cases.)

Yet, the characters Moore writes about in his imprint "America's Best" come from an even older publication with the name of -- you guessed it -- America's Best. Though, actually, the Publisher of "America's Best Comics" is Nedor/Better Publications, according to mycomicshop.com. It is the title of the mag that is "America's Best."

(BTW, I believe Tom Strong is the guy in a red t-shirt just right of center next to Black Terror on the left, the guy with the skull & crossbones on his black outfit.)

So, you can imagine how confused one might become looking for "accurate" information about a comic.

And how hard it might be to develop a system to accurately organize something that has ever-changing characteristics.

Which could be said about most things in life, I suppose.