Atlas Tales - Timely Marvel Atlas Information

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Atlas Tales Statistics
Number of Titles:329
Number of Issues:4,485
Number of Stories With Information:27,062
Number of Cover Images:4,497

Atlas Tales News

April 25, 2006: New links!
April 7, 2006: With a redesign of Atlas Tales imminent, I have begun to experiment. The newest feature is a tooltip to help you to tell who the creators are in the issue index. The creator's names are now red - and will one day be clickable - when you mouse over them, the creators full name will appear. More to come.
March 28, 2006: There were no updates for the last few days because of a computer meltdown. My home computer's motherboard failed and I was forced to spend my extra time repairing it. I guess it was a blessing in disguise because I now have a practically new computer and 2 GBs of RAM! So, I'm back. Let's get some indexing done!
January 14, 2006: The cover on the front page is now a random cover from the current month. If you want to see another, just refresh the page! I added a new dump of the Atlas Tales data on the files page.
January 13, 2006: Due to a major project that I have endeavored on, my time has become severly limited. Full time job, full time project and more programing for the Kirby Museum pretty much has tapped me out at this point. so, I kinda semi retired from my monthly 50 Years Ago cover posts on the DC History list. So, I thought I would bring the concept to the Atlas Tales front page - which never gets updated enough. I'd eventually like to do a random mix of covers for every page refresh - that'd be fun! Someone suggested more cover galleries and cover gallery themes. Great idea. I'll see what I can do.
November 2, 2005: By suggestion from Joe Moore, I added a 'featuring' field to the search criteria. Now you can search for character appearances that are noted in the database. Could come in handy! I still have lots of new stuff coming but some other real world stuff has come up and limited my Atlas Tales time. Waaa. Don't worry, still more fun stuff to come.
September 27, 2005: Reprint information is here!! Finally!! I'll be entering lots of reprint info in the next few weeks thanks mostly to Joe Moore. Stay tuned there are lots more exciting features on the way.
September 20, 2005: I changed the way the links to issues and titles work. Before they were something like this: index.zdz?_sI=1213. Now they look like atlastales.com/sI/1213. This does two things. One - is is easier to read and two - it makes it so that Google (and other search engines) may now index the entire site. This is good because it can increase traffic and make it easier to find individual issues and creators. By the way, I have an Atlas Tales Version 2 in the works. I don't know how long this is going to take but I am pretty excited about it right now - so maybe that will translate into more hours spend on it. If you guys have any suggestions - please send them along. Thanks!
September 16, 2005: I have not been too happy with how the "graph" page loads - the initial page that shows a "graph" of all the issues of a title and a summary of the credits I have for each issue. You know, the page that shows when you pick a title from the dropdown list of titles? Well, those pages were dynamic for every load. As more and more info is put in the database, it became slower and slower - especially for the longer running titles. So, what I did was make a static page for each title. It is much faster. Don't worry, I put hooks into the admin section so that anytime I update information, a new static page is made. Not all the static pages exist yet, they are being made as we hit the title "graph" pages for information. So, if one still runs a little slow when you click on it, never fear because the next time you click on it it'll be very fast. Yea!
September 13, 2005: Due to the Los Angeles power outage yesterday, this site was down for about 8 hours. I'm not too happy about it - I'll see what the hosting company comes up with today in response. Hopefully this won't happen again.
July 8, 2005: Added a new cover search. Now you can search for artists and stories by cover! A nice by product of this is that you can enter a date range and see what issues were published then. So if you want to see what issues were published in June 1955 - enter the month and year in the first date area. Cool huh?
July 3, 2005: Added two new links for information pertaining to the late, great Sam Kweskin.
June 11, 2005: For some reason, when I update Crime Can't Win it doesn't show up in the "Recent Updates" section. Very strange. When I find some time, I'll dig into it and see what is up. Anyway, I updated Crime Can't Win 8. Never mind, I figured it out. The ole single quote in the title was breaking the SQL. A very common problem that seems to bite me often. You'd think I would learn. :)
June 1, 2005: Added a new Word .doc format dump of the database. It is much more readable and accessible to a human. Hope it is useful. It is in the file section.
May 18, 2005: Thanks to all the people to contribute to the site - Ger Apeldoorn, Joe Moore, Tom Lammers, Chris Bonham, Frank Motler, Jack Selegue, Doc V, Chris Brown and all the others I am very shabbily forgetting. I have taken on a very large project in addition to my regular job and family commitments - so it has been all I can do to just keep up with entering data and adding/updating covers. I really want to add the Contributors, Creators and Reprints sections and I will do that ASAP - which may not be all that soon. All we have is time right? One new link on the Links page. Send in those links!
March 28, 2005: If you aren't a member of the DC History yahoo group - we are having a lot of fun over there. When I first joined it a few years ago, it was an outlet for cool DC covers from history. Over time however it began to reach out to other publishers and adding cover themes. A while back Hoy Murphy started his 40 years Ago from Marvel series that has always been a nice arrval in my inbox. When he requested someone do Atlas covers from 50 years ago - I happily volunteered. Just finished my second months worth!
March 4, 2005: Added a couple of new links - check them out. Wanted to add a big thanks to Joe Moore for all the indexing information that he has been sending my way recently. Thanks!
February 15, 2005: I have added a couple of links to some new cool Atlas stuff that I stumbled across. The date stamp feature has also been implemented. If any one has date stamps on their books, I'd be happy to record them if you pass them along. Thanks!
February 6, 2005: I'm wanting to make the site a little more exciting and by adding a few more features. Here are the current ideas: 1) Reprint information - for stories, issues that these were reprinted from or lists of issues that they were reprinted in. 2) Articles - informational articles about the history of Atlas and its comics and creators. 3) Other Atlas Magazines - Pics and information about other non-comics publications that carried the Atlas globe, Canadian and Australian reprint issues and possibly cover some pulps as well. 4) Reviews - reviews of issues and stories. Maybe with a rating system that is completely searchable. 5) Creator Bios and pics - Pics and interesting facts about the creators of Timely/Atlas comics. 6) Arrival Stamps Info - I love the arrival stamps to tell me when these books actually arrived in stores. I have been keeping information that I found in the issue notes but I want to make them searchable - ie. add a specific database field to keep the info. 7) Search Cover Titles - Sometimes I need to find a story that I don't have indexed. Sometimes I can find it by looking at the cover titles - but they are not currently included in the search results. These would be completly seperate from the regular search. Unfortunately, this is way too ambitious for my current workload. I'm hoping to squeeze in a few features here and there as time permits. If anyone has any information, reviews, articles and/or scans that they would like to contribute to any of the ideas, I'd be very happy to take any donations. Maybe an influx of new stuff will inspire me to find more time. Email
January 17, 2005: Holidays are over, time to resume normal operations. Until, I announce new features to the site here are the December 2004 statistics for Atlas Tales: Successful requests: 63,704 Average successful requests per day: 2,058 Successful requests for pages: 10,366 Average successful requests for pages per day: 334 Failed requests: 32 Distinct files requested: 21,333 Distinct hosts served: 793 Data transferred: 1.34 gigabytes Average data transferred per day: 44.42 megabytes And the all popular search query report (or what search criteria people entered to find Atlas Tales): 124: atlas tales 18: atlastales 10: man comics # 28 8: marvel mystery comics#2 7: cache:ancryyuupucj:atlastales.com/?_si=1476 wessler/brown 6: cache:zdtrp8rjujqj:atlastales.com/?_si=3037 current detective stories 5: cache:00nkc57igfaj:atlastales.com/?_si=3782 leading magazine corp 4: black gay toons 4: strange tales of the unusual 3: the man in the bee hive tales to astonish 3: timely/atlas comics 3: love romances colletta 3: annie oakley comics 2: timely comics cover usa 2: marvel comics new 2: gun girl comics 2: millie the model 42 2: kid colt outlaw comic september 1962 number 106 2: uncanny tales 52 2: marvel mystery comics And the Referrer report (or what sites sent people to Atlas Tales): 36879: http://www.atlastales.com/ 155: http://www.atlastales.co/ 109: http://uk.search.yahoo.com/ 56: http://www.google.com/ 51: http://www.vipercomics.com/ 46: http://search.yahoo.com/ 38: http://www.hembeck.com/ 15: http://search.msn.com/ 14: http://64.233.161.104/ 14: http://groups.yahoo.com/ 12: http://www.google.ca/ 11: http://www.google.co.uk/ 10: http://en.wikipedia.org/ 9: http://p206.ezboard.com/ 9: http://www.google.com.au/ 8: http://www.faxo.com/ 8: http://64.233.187.104/ 8: http://www.whois.sc/ 7: http://www.angelfire.com/ 7: http://64.233.179.104/
December 4, 2004: The new Atlas Tales link page is here! Contact me if you want to add your link! Also, if you guys hadn't noticed, I have revamped the eBay links for the titles (go to the title in Atlas tales and click the "Search eBay: Current" link on the bottom left). With some search suggestions from Ger, I think we have a nice helper for finding Timely/Atlas comics for sale. Hope it is useful.
November 11, 2004: It has been a while since I had some news. First of all thanks to Robert Bagg for a whole boatload of Marvel Mystery Comics covers. I think the collection is almost complete! Also, thanks to Tom Lammers for 25 more comics added to the index. Went to Wizard World Texas last week and while I dodn't get World's Greatest Songs 1 like I wanted, I did get some goodies! Ideal 1,3, Justice 7, Lawbreakers Always Lose 8. Additionally, a Melvin the Monster 3 came in the mail. What a good week! Anyway, by request I added newer snapshots of the source code and a new database dump. Looks like there is a project in the works to do an ACG site usuing my source code. That sounds really cool! Sure hope it works out.
October 19, 2004: Search terms for this site so far this month: #reqs: search term -----: ----------- 64: war comics cover 28: atlas tales 20: miss america comics 7: atlastales 4: captain america atlas 2: kid slade gunfighter 2: mystic comics 2: captain america gay 2: terry toons 2: billy buckskin 2: girl detective image 1: astonishing atlas comics 1: kathryn mclaughlin berlin airlift 1: if existis sql 1: ger apeldoorn 1: tessie the typist 1: romances of the west atlas / timely comics 1950 1: love trails atlas / timely comics 1949 Sorry no Slash fiction here. Berlin Airlift? Someone has been googling themself!
October 16, 2004: Thanks to Rodrigo Baeza for the information for Battlefield 10.
October 11, 2004: I'm having troubles with my new interenet service provider - Comcast. The internet connection is very spotty - it'll work for a minute and then not be able to find the internet for an hour. Needless to say this makes it very difficult to update the site. I have several new books that need their indexes posted as well as some more of Ger's index, but until Comcast pulls their head out, updates will be sporatic.
September 29, 2004: Thanks to Robert Bagg for donating cover scans to Rusty 15, 17, 18 and 20.
September 27, 2004: Thanks to Michael Dewally for donating his indexes to War Adventures 2, War Comics 8, Suspense 15, Apache Kid 10, Spy Cases 9, Wild Western 20, Space Squadron 5 and Sports Action 11. I still have Ger Apeldoorn's massive index that I'm working on - It'll start appearing soon!
September 15, 2004: Thanks to Michael Dewally for donating his indexes to All-True Crime Cases 49, Battle 7, Crime Exposed 11 and Crime Must Lose! 11. Thanks to Tom Lammers and Ger Apeldoorn for donating issue indexes that I haven't gotten to yet. I promise to get those up ASAP.
September 13, 2004: Thanks to Robert Bagg for donating cover scans to Young Allies 11 and 13. Things are going to be slow around here for a couple of weeks. I have bought my first house and am doing all the things that go along with that - painting, packing, moving. Gonna be pretty hectic but things will be back to normal in October. Thanks for your paitence.
September 8, 2004: I added three new titles - Strange Tales Annual (only issue 1), Snafu (magazine sized Atlas 1-3) and Captain America 128 Page special. Changed the search feature to automatically do wildcard searches Here is why: Wild card searches are automatic. I implemented this after realizing that not including a "!" at the end of a title would exclude you from getting the result unless you put a wildcard designator ("*") after it - not the intended results. So if you are searching for "I Flew in the Berlin Airlift!" entering any word will give you the title. I hope that makes sense.
August 30, 2004: Thanks to Frank Motler for donating cover scans to War Combat 5, Young Men 12,21,22,23, War 11, 3-D Action 1, War Adventures 12, Battle 8, 26, Battlefield 3, Spy Cases 11, Navy Action 2, Battle Action 13, Justice 5, 41.
August 28, 2004: Thanks to Robert Bagg for donating cover scans to Captain America 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 57, 62, 63, 66, 68, 70.
August 23, 2004: Here are search terms that people used to find this site this month: #reqs: search term -----: ----------- 5: dan decarlo gallery 4: mystery tales #25 3: leon lazarus marvel 3: atlastales.com 3: gay black comics 2: millie comics 2: atlas tales 2: krazy comics timely 2: all winners comics 2: uncanny tales 2: awful oscar comic cover 2: joe maneely 2: carrabotta 1: venus timely comic 1: crandall homer 1: powerhouse pepper index 1: lee decarlo 1: blaze the wonder collie comic cover 1: marvel uncanny tales 1: mitzi's adventure I think some people got what they were looking for - but not all!
August 22, 2004: Thanks to Michael Dewally for donating cover scans to Man Comics 12, Battle 7, Crime Cases 10, Crime Exposed 11 and Crime Must Lose! 11.
August 13, 2004: Lots of updates lately but they may be slowing down. I have caught up with most of my backed-up indexing, although I still have about 30 of my own books to do. They are mostly Patsys and Miss Americas which I really don't enjoy indexing. Thanks to everyone that is donating images, Robert Bagg, Frank Motler and Frank Strom. Extra special thanks to Nick Caputo for helping with cover credits - especially inkers over Kirby. Thanks to Tony Isabella for mentioning this site in his column of Sunday August 8th, 2004.
July 30, 2004: By request (from Robert Bagg), I have set up an updates section that will list any updates that have been done to the site. This includes cover, story and title information - as well as cover images (updated or new). I hope this is helpful to all. I want to say thanks to every one that has been donating cover images. Especially Ger Apeldoorn, Frank Strom and Lynn Potter. We all appreciate it. Thanks! I've also added a files section. I have added zip files of the source code for the site and two different formats of database exports. Hopefully these will be useful as well.
July 2, 2004: Search is here! I have implemented the first phase of the search section. Just click on the Search link from any page. This version of search only includes story searches. So, you can search for all the stories by Joe Maneely but it will not include cover data - just stories. Title searches are also coming - ie. the ability to see what titles were published in Mar 1955. I have included some help for the search on the main search page. Hopefully it answers most of the question that will come up. Let me know if you have any additional questions. One of the features that I wanted in phase one is the ability to sort the results by different columns. So, if you searched for stories by Dick Ayers, if you click on the column names it will sort the results based on that column - click the column name again and the results will change from ascending to descending (or vice versa). Cool, huh? Future features: 1) Ability to export results to either a PDF or Excel file. 2) Title searches 3) Cover searches - hopefully rolled into the story search but that'll be a challenge. 4) More data. :) Also, I have just finished the coding within the last hour, so some bugs may still be in there. Let me know if the results aren't what you expected (ie. wrong) or if errors appear on your screen. Internet Explorer doesn't underline my column names in the results page. I'll work on that later - not a biggie. Homeland Security and I recommend using Firefox(http://www.mozilla.org) - if only for tabbed browsing. Anyway, I hope you guys find this addition useful. If you have suggestions or comments, please let me know.
June 30, 2004: Not a whole lot going on. I have some covers to add this weekend but there are probably only about 20 new ones. The other 15 are upgrades. I have started on the search section but haven't found the time nor will to move forward with it. Maybe a bolt of lightning will strike and get my ass moving. Part of the problem may be the lack of good purchases lately - nothing has really given me a spark to ignite my excitment for the books or the site. But, I am trying for an Ideal #3 tonight. That might just do it. Wish me luck.
June 7, 2004: All of Tom's information is entered - except for a short 11 issue update he sent this weekend I have started the long road of indexing my books. There are at least 100 more to do. Oh why, oh why didn't I index them as I got them? I have started development on the search feature. Can't wait for it to be ready!
May 21, 2004: Only 4 more files left to import from Tom's collection. The problem is that they are the four biggest files! Lots of Millies and Patsys. These big files take me about 2-3 hours to import each. I'll try to get the motivation to finish over the weekend. I am changing the front page a little bit. This little news section is the last thing anyone wants to see first when visiting the site, so I have a added a "Featured Issue" section that I think is much more appealing. Underneath the image is going to be a "What is" Atlas section and a short intro on how to use the site. Still need the search section. Also added a "previous" and "next" link in the issue "Go To Issue" box for easier navigation. Made the cover gallery link more obvious - I hope. Put instructions under images to "click for a larger image". Changed navigation bar to show which links are actually active and added some up and coming sections.
May 15, 2004: About halfway importing Tom's scripts. Even with the script that is parsing the information, I still have to go over the information twice before importing. Once to check for quirks in the parsing and then again to make sure the information translates to my database correctly. It can be time consuming. I was hoping to finish the importing this weekend but it looks like it will go on through the week. I have also begun indexing and entering my books that aren't already covered by Tom's index. Looks like I actually have quite a few that Tom doesn't! :) Of course the image importing continues - nearing the halfway point and it looks like there will be plenty of disk space for them all. That means we can store some other goodies also.
May 5, 2004: It rained here last Saturday. So, I spent the entire day working on the importing script. I probably could have been done by now if I didn't decide to do it right and make it much easier for any other info to be imported. It's probably overkill but.... Still uploading up images regularly but the atlas search on eBay is producing half the pages (6 instead of 12) that it was producing just a few months ago. I wonder why that is? Hmmm....
April 25, 2004: Continuing the work on importing Tom's indexes. I have the program completely parsing his information - which is good. I'm working on the importing mechanism. It is proving quite daunting. I need the script to check current information against the new spreadsheet and add/modify/erase as needed. I also want the program to be as flexible as possible so that it can be used again for other imports of information. Sometimes I start to think that I should just enter everything by hand but that would be silly. I'll be adding about 50 new images this afternoon.
April 12, 2004: Lots of clean up in the last couple of days. The contact us link works now. I'm working on a help page. The script to import Tom's info is about 40% done - so, all that info should be entered by this weekend (cross your fingers). Thinking about adding a links page and a files page too.

April 6, 2004: Added the statistics at the bottom. It's really nice to see that what kind of info the site contains. I was a little surprised that I have more stories than covers. I spend a hell of a lot more time on the covers.