detection,
Comics, manga, magazines and almost anything else that has a constant title, but a variable issue number, date, or volume & chapter presents a problem for calibre's current file handling method.
Calibre only uses the information in the title field as a file's name (+extension), so it cannot use "The Walking Dead.cbr" for several issues. To get around this behavior you must include something to differentiate each issue's title. Making it possible for calibre to create appropriate file names out of the title.
So, to use your comic as an example, you could try using:
- The Walking Dead 100
- The Walking Dead Jan 2010
- The Walking Dead 100 Jan 2010
- The Walking Dead 2010-01 (this one sorts the best)
Personally I'm using the manga's volume and chapter info in a specific and consistent format. This way I can easily see what the real title is and what extra info I've included. Particularly when their are dozens of issues in the database. For instance, "
title:
subtitle - v
001 c
001-
999" (everything in green is a variable, numbers use leading zeros to enforce correct numerical order).
One thing that I would recommend to any comic or manga collector - determine if you're going to deal with each issue/chapter individually or as a larger grouping (volume or whatever). What I mean is you can put a short summary in the description field, account for guest artists, provide individual covers, etc if you go per issue. But that is a lot of data entry. Or use volumes or groups of issues and lump things together - but at the cost of less fine detail.