The beginnings of the UHBMCC go back to the time when I still collected German Marvel comics (starting in 1974 with "Die Gruft von Graf Dracula" #1 which was the translation of "The Tomb of Dracula (I)" #1 and also included a few five-page horror stories).
Over time, my collection expanded to other series and I had to find a way to keep track of my comics. I took some pieces of paper and wrote down the series name, the issue number, the title of the story and who created the story.

Little is left of these early days, mostly because I replaced the hand-written papers by computer print-outs later. But by chance I found a few of the old pages and here is an example from "Planet der Affern", which was the translation of "Planet of the Apes".

The German Marvel comics of the early years (called "Hit Comics") were published in an undiscernabel order. It got better when the Williams publishing company took over. They started with seven series, five of them were back-uped by stories of from other series (Fantastic Four / Daredevil, Spider-Man / Sub-Mariner, Thor / Silver Surfer, Hulk / X-Men, Avengers / Captain Marvel, Tomb of Dracula, Monster of Frankenstein). Later, the publishing range was expanded by Iron Man / Ant-Man, Dr. Strange and Planet of the Apes.
The best thing was that the series started with #1 and went straight up, with only a few omissions. (E.g. Hulk started with "Incredible Hulk (I)" #1-6, then continued with the stories from "Tales to Astonish".)
The not-so-good thing was that all annuals and specials were missing. So in the German comics we never saw the wedding of Reed and Sue.
The even-less-good thing was that the time line between the series that was established in the US originals was broken because all series had started at the same time. So we read the adventures of the Silver Surfer in "Der mächtige Thor" long before he was introduced in "Die Fantastischen Vier". Also, the original stories used as back-up stories were split over two or three issues. Story lines that went from one series to another in the same month in the USA were sometimes years apart in the German comics. You can imagine that this lessened the fun of reading the comics. And awakened in my the desire to get the correct order of things.

Resolve came when I found some volumes of "The Marvel Comics Index" by George Olshevsky. They not only covered issues that had never been published in Germany but also series that we never saw at all. And each issue was given with the original publishing date. I rejoiced and created the first date table of my comics, here you can see a part of it.

The blue notes show the US issues, the red and green notes show the German issue. (The Sub-Mariner story from "Tales to Astonish" #79 was missing in the German comics.)

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The early 1980ies brought two big changes for me:

1. Computers were now available for home users at reasonable prices. So I could get rid of all the hand-written stuff and use the advanced abilities of database programs (searching, sorting, inserting, deleting, undoing - just try that with pen and paper.)
2. I finished school and moved to Vienna. Here I found not only work, but also a (more and more) stable supply of US Marvel comics. Therefore I dropped the German Marvel comics and went straight for the real thing.

The first work was of course to enter the data of all the German comics into text files, which were later migrated to database files. Of these files only a few print-outs survived, here the complete "Die Gruft von Graf Dracula", which ended with #33 (it seems bad circulation can even kill a vampire).

The data of the US Marvel comics followed a little later. First, to keep track of my collection, then for completeness' sake. ("The Marvel Comics Index" helped a lot to get things right.)

The dash at the end of each line shows that no Captain America comic was published in Germany. And Hauptmann Deutschland was not invented yet.

Collecting comics and computing data for my own personal enjoyment went on for the next one and half decade.

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In 1998 the internet had arrived at my home and I joined the Marvel groups in the usenet (rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe, rec.arts.comics.marvel.xbooks), which for the first time gave me the opportunity not only to "talk" with Marvel fans around the world, but also directly to the creators themselves.

During that time, I created my first own homepage and with the newly won knowledge of HTML it was only a small (ok, maybe not so small step) to export the DB to HTML pages, calling it "The Unofficial Database of Marvel Comics Creators". Actually, I wanted to call it "The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators", but there was already a site called "The Handbook ot Marvel Creators" maintained by Paulo Costa and I did not want to make the name too similar.

Lacking a server place where to put the HTML file, I just packed them and distributed the archives per e-mail to whoever was interested from the newsgroup. This started at the end of 1998 and went on for a few months. Here is one of my first postings that I wrote, announcing version 3 of the UDBMCC (dated January 3rd, 1999).

A look at the version 3 of the UDBMCC. (This is not the complete HP, but only the frame work and the page for The Avengers is working - it is just there to give an impression how things were.)

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Sending the data by mail and not trying to forget someone who "subscribed" was not an easy task. As web space was getting cheaper and eventually free, in spring 1999 the UDBMCC went online for the first time. At first, due to limited space, not all files were available online, but it allowed me to put the archives with all files in the 'net and allowed all users to download them whenever they wanted.

A look at the version 5 of the UDBMCC, which was the first online version. (The page does not work anymore.)

During the next months the UDBMCC was expanded, not only by the number of comics it presented, but also by new functionallity. I understood how to use JavaScript and used it for better navigation. In March 2000 the UDBMCC had reached version 17 (again the example is reduced in size, only the links in the left frame are working).

But then it ended with a single letter.

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This letter was sent by Paulo Costa, the keeper of the Handbook of Marvel Creators. He proposed to merge both sites into one - a proposal that I accepted with open arms. The merging was also reflected in the name, and so in May 2000 "The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators" went online for the first time. A look at version 6 of the UHBMCC shows that I also used the merging to restyle the user interface. (In the first page you can enter the DB and the navigations are working - not exactly as they did then, but it gives you an impression how the site looked like.)

Until the merging was completely done, it took some more versions. Then Paolo and myself added as much Marvel comics as we could find, expanding the DB further and further.

Alas, for personal reasons Paolo dropped out a few years later and the UHBMCC would have become a single-person-project again, hadn't there been a lot of people who offered their help. Either on a single occasion, or on a regular base - without their help, the UHBMCC would not be where it is now.

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Over the UBMCC contained more and more comics, and I added more functionality (like, the skins, the rating, the German translation, the character's appearances, the search.)

But when the version came to 100, I decided that a reworking of the user interface was in order. There were several reasons for that, including that not everyone liked the color scheme I had used, but the most important was that my personal taste had changed. Influenced by the advent of the smartphones, I opted for black as base color, but added a few more colors for people with less somber minds. And thinking of smartphones, the layout was changed to make the pages useable with screens less than 1024 pixels in width.

Some guys asked me why I did not make the UHBMCC more interactive, like a Wiki. There are two reasons:

1. This would be the dead of the offline version of the UHBMCC. And while the internet is becoming more and more present wherever we go today, there are people who simply like to be offline and still enjoy a good page.
2. Whenever there is a way to enter data on a site, there are those who abuse the possibility. Just look at the troubles Wikipedia has with opposing opinions. Further, the juridication of Germany (to which I am bound as my site is hosted in Germany) is strict about the duties of a site owner regarding the removal of illegal contents. And I do not want to spend my time to control each and every bit of data someone enters to my site.

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With V120 the UHBMCC contains more than 40000 comics with more than 82000 stories and more than 32000 features indexing the work of more than 6500 people involved in the creation of Marvel comics since 1939. And these numbers will increase as during the last years Marvel has the larges issues-per-month publishing rate since ever and it does not seem as if they were going to stop.

For the future I have still a few ideas buzzing around my head that hopefully will improve the usefulness of the UHBMCC. But if there is something you'd like to have, just drop me a line. I'll see what I can do.

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