One comic app to rule them all - Key Collector

I'll start off by telling a true story about an early experience I had during my return to comic collecting.

I'll place a TL;DR marker just past this part for your convince. I'll only be slightly offended. Oo

There is a local used book store, that my friend was gracious enough to point out, that had* plentiful dollar bins. Given my renewed interest in comic collecting, this seemed like the perfect way to get back into the swing of things. My goal was to simply find stuff I'd like to read. Keep in mind this was shortly after the covid scare bs was winding down. I'm very meticulous when it comes to checking every single issue while digging through bins. The worst is when the bins are full of loose books with no bags and boards. This local shop had a deal where you can buy a set number of dollar books and you get a discount. In this case I was after 10 books so I could get said deal and pay 8. I had made my way through almost all the boxes when I received a text from my wife wondering where I was at. I was at my 10 comic max but continued looking quickly just in case I spotted a prime hot swap candidate. In the last bin I found this book.

Just in case someone isn't familiar with this issue, it's the first appearance of Harley Quinn in a standard comic. A good copy easily can pull 1k asking price. Now I held this book in my hand for a hot minute as I was crouched down by this bin. I was completely oblivious as to what I was holding. My reason for the delay was for my daughter. I had it in my mind to buy her girl power books to get her into comics. I thought this would be a good addition to the random books I had already placed to the side for her to read. Then it happened again, the wife messaged me asking when I was coming home. With a slight tinge of agitation and the fact that I was already at my 10 book cap, I put this one back and hurried off.

A couple days passed and this book kept coming back into my mind like I knew it from somewhere. So I was doing some general web based scrolling on a site that listed key first appearances and I saw it. The book store I had visited was closed at the time of my discovery else I would have ran out the door to get it. The next morning I was there as soon as they opened, yes it was a work day and I took an early early lunch. To my dismay the book was gone. I made sure to go through every single dollar bin as well as all the regular priced back issue short boxes just hoping I'd find it. Nothing. Funny enough, afterwards I recalled a person standing off to my side in the narrow area these bins were located. My assumption is I made his year when I put that book back.

After the tragic event described above I made a vow to know all the in's and out's of every notable comic book created. This is when I was introduced to Key Collector and it was deff a game changer.

TL;DR START

So what is Key Collector and why does it matter? Well the easy answer is it does a little bit of everything, better yet it does it well. Not too complicated while lacking very little in terms of useful features. App barcode reader sucks cough

You can visit the site at the following URL: https://www.keycollectorcomics.com

GENERAL USE

The app is categorized by various use cases with the ultimate goal being to identify KEY books. A KEY is any comic that has a notable event, appearance or cover that's note worthy. IE Batman adventures #12 shown above. Some of the main categories are:

Even better news is that the above are just a drop in the bucket because KC (Key Collector) goes even deeper with its categorizations. And looking into these areas of the App is what makes it so beneficial.

Let's walk through a few sample use cases to get aquatinted with using Key Collector.

Scenario 1

Lets say we found a rando comic during one of our 1$ bin hunting expeditions, well use something that shows how jaded I am. Superman Adventures #5.

There are different reasons that might cause us to pause on a book during our hunting, one such clause for me comes from my Batman Adventures 12 miss. In this case it's another DC adventures series so I pause and shed a tear. This issue has an additional catch in that it uses a similar title over write graphic for a character that appears in the issue.

This is where KC comes in, we simple head to the issue lookup and do a quick spot check. The app is even simpler than the webpage user interface imo. That not being a keyboard VS tiny digital keys comparison btw.

Not only do we find that the issue is a key first appearance, we can see that there is a variant of the issue as well. In this case it's a newsstand variant. A pretty average looking book that I could see being in a 1/2/5$ box, with a 50 dollar ask based on condition. I'd pick it up easy mode after seeing that 50 high, more so cause I'm a huge first appearance collector... now.

Scenario 2

We find what we think could be a good deal on a complete short run of a Star Wars series (Ebay Etc). Let's use Kanan which has issues 1-12 and the seller is asking 100 dollars. Oi, that's an investment we can't just jump into blindly. Lets head back to our KC lookup, but instead of doing a check by the specific issue lets look up the full Kanan run by series.

Right off the bat we can see that there are 8 KEY issues in this mini-series. That's a start in the right direction for a good investment. If you notice there is an option to toggle between only seeing KEY issues and Non-KEY issues. If you look up a series and nothing shows up, flip that switch and see if it comes around. This doesn't always mean the set is keyless but KC is a pretty good indication.

So our next step is looking over all the book values in the set, I typically don't like to pay more than median price for a book else it's not really investment worthy. That said, if you've done your homework and know a movie is on the horizon or something that might boost aspects of a book then spend your money as you see fit. In this case the median total for this run (at the time of me writing this) is 104$. So not terrible given its sitting right at that max median price point. This meaning we would be encroaching into my personal comfort zone. This 'Mid' price is only taking into account the A cover values (Non variant covers). But what if we notice a few variants are in this lot of 12? Let's use issue 1 that has 7 variants to dig deeper.

Let's say that this set comes with a 2nd print issue #1. Hmm some people might tend to shy away from reprints but pay mind to the date released and the number of issues printed. I'll do a whole post on this later. Lucky for us the second printing looks very similar to the A cover so it could be over looked by your average Joe. BUTTT we know better and identify the 2nd print from the black starry sky in the background. More so the 2nd print is worth 120 bucks by itself in good condition. Of course a #1 var would be worth more right, so you ask what if it's only a variant of issue 2/3/4 (only other issues with variants in this series). It's ok because they have a good chance of being 1:15 incentives which means more rare, with each being valued higher than the standard A cover which means added value to our potential investment.

Scenario 3

Well what if we don't want to dig through stinky old yellow comic books, what if we only want to look up and buy the newest KEY books about to release. I mean nothing worse than going to your local comic book shop (LCBS) after work then get home and find you missed a 1st appearance or a variant cover by your favorite artist. This brings us to a couple awesome features but with a caveat... One feature requires a subscription. Hopefully with every low comes a high in that the awesomer thing about this app is its only 40 bucks for the year. Note you don't have to pay to play when using this app but there are some added features I use on the regular. In this case we want to use the free 'Keys this week' category.

This view allows us to see the full run down of all the books being released on the coming WED. Pay attention once again to the KEY toggle, with it off (Gray) you'll only see the KEY issues for that week. With non-keys toggled on, all the issues for the scenario week of Nov 19, 2025, now shows 103 vs 16. Using the Date drop down will allow you to go back through the previous release weeks to look for any missed issues as well.

Now let's take this a step further, what if I want to get in pre-ordering books (Another future post topic). There's a category made specifically for this. Provided it's looking down the road and things can change some times but here's where we look. Also this is where the game becomes P2P.

Now we can look a few months down the road and put in our orders for the books we want at a discount, if you use the right site. I need to make a special symbol that means future post worthy comment was made. Oo

Almost the end!

And lastly, not so much a scenario over just one of the main free to play features of the app, its ability to track your owned books. If you have a large collection or just a small box full you want to monitor, KC has a pretty straight forward method of tracking your issues. There are a couple ways you can go about this with the simplest being hand jam as you go, barcode stinks cough. Simply hit the storage icon to add it to your collection or use the heart if its something your on the hunt for and don't have. I use the heart for this purpose as well when a book I might already own has a variant I want and don't want to forget about. At the top of the page you can easily see your totals, even better the estimated total value.

With all the above said, there are still plenty of categories we could continue to dive into but I feel this gives a well rounded evaluation for someone not familiar with the tool. As I continue to create these posts we will most certainly be going into other glaringly useful sections. For one the Character lookup is butter or the search that lets you find all the work for a particular artist or writer is clutch before heading to a Con.

I appreciate you all staying with me to the end. I hope everyone has wonderful Thanksgiving. Until the next time. :)

Respectfully,

DD