UWM Special Collections - Comic Book Collection!

There are six methods we recommend when using PantherCat to search for comic books in Special Collections :

Method 1	Keyword search (retrieves the entire collection)
Method 2	Searching within the Comic Book collection (for something specific)
Method 3	Comic books by publisher
Method 4	Comic books by date
Method 5	Graphic novels
Method 6	Cartoons

Method 1: Keyword search (retrieves the entire collection)

If you are not sure what comic book you are looking for, or want to see everything that Special Collections has, this is the search for you.

1) In the Basic Search box, enter "comic books" (including the quotation marks- for more on Boolean keyword searching, see this page). Select Special Collections from the Quick Limit drop-down menu, and choose Keyword (and, or, not) from the Search By box.

2) This search gets you over 1,000 titles- in order to sort within the titles, choose a sort option from the Sort By drop-down menu, such as Title, Author, Publish Date (sorts by earilest date to latest date), or Publish Date Descending (sorts by most recent to earliest date).

Method 2: Searching within the Comic Book collection (for something specific)

So, maybe you know what you want to search for- you may have a specific title you want to search for to see if Special Collections has that particular comic book. This search allows you to limit you search specifically to our Comic Book collection.

1) In the lower right-hand corner of the Basic Search box, click the Set Limits button.

2) In the Set Limits screen, select Special Collections - Comic Books from the Location drop-down menu. Then, hit the Set Limits button (either at the top or the bottom of the screen).

3) There are now several ways to search. You can search by title, keyword, or even author. First, notice that the screen says "Search Limits are in effect." This means that you are ready to search within the Comic Book collection. The first example is of a title search, using Tank Girl as our sample search. Select the Title option in the Search By box and enter your title (Tank Girl) in the Search For box. Click the Search button to run the search.

4) Here are the results for this search:

5) You can also run this search using keywords, if you're not sure of the exact title. Using Boolean search terms (and, or, not, " ") this could be searched as tank and girl (example below) or "tank girl".

6) This limited search also works for Author searches:

Method 3: Comic books by publisher

Want to see everything Special Collections has by DC Comics? Or Dark Horse? Or Vertigo?

There are two ways to search by publisher: using the Set Limits button and searching by Field codes.

1) Use the Set Limits button (see Searching within the Comic Book collection (for something specific) ) but instead of searching by Title, Keyword or Author, choose Publisher in the Search By box. In the Search For box, enter the publisher's name (the example here is Dark Horse).

2) If you don't want to use the Set Limits search, you can search by Publisher another way, using the Field code for Publisher and a Keyword search. (Field codes can be a quick way of restricting a search to a particular part ("field") of the record when using the Keyword search type. For more on Field codes, see this page.)

* If you have been searching using the Set Limits feature, you need to clear the limits (button in the lower right hand corner of the Basic Search screen- only appears when limits are in place) or start fresh from the main PantherCat webpage.

3) In the Basic Search screen, choose Keyword (and, or, not) from the Search By box. In the Search For box, enter 260b, then your search terms. 260b is the Field code for Publisher. The example search is for Dark Horse and is written as follows: 260b "dark horse". Because this is a Keyword search, you must use " " around more than one word or and between words when searching for a publisher with more than one word in their name.

Method 4: Comic books by date

Looking for comic books from a certain time period? This is the search that you need.

1) This is another search using Field codes (like the Publisher search above), combined with a basic Keyword search for "comic books," like Search #1.

2) In the Basic Search screen, choose Keyword (and, or, not) from the Search By box. In the Search For box, enter "comic books" and 260c and the date/date range you want to limit your search by. Select Special Collections from the Quick Limit box. If you want to search by a specific date, you simply enter the date, for example: "comic books" and 260c 1995.

These are some of your results:

2) If you want to search for a range of dates, the date must be entered using truncation. For example, if you want to search for comic books from the 1960s, your search string would be: "comic books" and 260c 196?. The question mark tells the catalog to look for dates that start with 196, which includes everything from 1960 to 1969. This search will also turn up comic book series that may start earlier than the 1960s, but include issues that were published within the 1960s.

Here are some of your results:

Method 5: Graphic novels

1) In the Basic Search screen, choose Keyword (and, or, not) from the Search By box. In the Search For box, enter "graphic novel?". In the Quick Limits box, select Special Collections.

Method 6: Cartoons

1) In the Basic Search screen, choose Keyword (and, or, not) from the Search By box. In the Search For box, enter "cartoon?". In the Quick Limits box, select Special Collections.