Comic book collecting is the best hobby in the world, for a variety of reasons. But to collect comic books means you also inherit the accounting aspects of the hobby, such as storage, organization, cataloguing, inventorying, and determining the value of those precious little paper floppy books.
Some of these accounting aspects can feel unnecessarily like opening a walnut. You spend all that time and effort trying to get through a dense, impenetrable shell that by the time you finally complete the chore using specialty tools and implements, you’re like, “Huh. It’s just a walnut.” and the entire process felt like a lot of effort for very little enjoyment.
CovrPrice is a comic book collection management tool that is linked directly to a price guide based on real sales data. Most importantly, CovrPrice makes the process of organizing your comic books enjoyable. Nothing feels like a chore. The UX is wonderfully designed so that nothing about the process feels impenetrable. CovrPrice reminds users that comic book collecting is the best hobby in the world.
CovrPrice: The Prettiest
To begin, let’s talk about the look and feel. The user experience (UX) of CovrPrice earns an A++. Vibrant thumbnails of comic book covers are the key visual in CovrPrice. Table data like fair market value is a breeze to navigate. Helpful information like if the issue is a key is readily available and trending prices are up to the minute.
The above image is a sliver of my comic book Wishlist. I shared this screencap because it’s a general representation of the look and feel of CovrPrice. Notice the clarity of the information presented. First, a colorful thumbnail of the cover is shown and that’s followed by identifying information and the current fair market value of the comic. I pull this up on my phone in the comic shop and I’m easily able to experience the thrill of the hunt.
When I was talking with John Sulaitis, co-founder of CovrPrice, I shared that I certainly enjoy spreadsheets, but what I love most about CovrPrice is that it doesn’t feel like a spreadsheet like many other comic book cataloging tools do. Instead, the UX of CovrPrice is designed with such care that you get the database features without ever sacrificing the artistry.
I shared with John that I never want to forget about the art of comic books, even as I’m executing the rote task of inventorying, cataloguing, and storing comic books. Sure, I’m a card-carrying nerd, so I love things to be in order, but us Nerds can’t live on spreadsheets alone, we need art, beauty, and delight in our lives as well. CovrPrice does that balancing act between being a robust database and a delightful experience perfectly.
CovrPrice: The Most Accurate
And, look, at this point I’ve said very little about about the price guide and sales data features of CovrPrice, which is the core functionality of the software. First, the sales data is presented beautifully, which is something you’ve probably already guess based upon my effusiveness toward the UX. But it should also certainly be noted that the price guide features of CovrPrice are up-to-the-minute and are an aggregate of several sales sources. There is a lot of horsepower under the hood of CovrPrice, in other words.
We’re in a speculator-driven bubble in the comic book industry. Other comic book websites are artificially driving up demand on a narrow set of mostly MCU-related key back issues and the industry has long leaned on sales gimmicks such as variant covers, a practice that is only accelerating.
So it’s more important than ever to have honest and fair price guides at your finger tips. CovrPrice isn’t stoking speculation, its formulating based upon real sales numbers, so if that’s what the comic is actually selling for, then so be it, at least you have honest data. It’s not a price you wish it would be, it’s a price based upon aggregated data from recent actual sales.
CovrPrice: A Comic Book Price Guide
As I mentioned, I’m an actual CovrPrice user, so I’ve drank the Kool-Aid. The point of this article is to lead you that Kool-Aid water, but whether you drink or not is up to you. But I do encourage you to give it a try, for no other reason than comic book collecting is the best hobby in the world. You can find it here and there is a free 10-day trial to make it easy.
Because if you collect comic books, you’ll need a pretty price guide.
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