Elements, Pages, Episodes and Page Configuration

Just a bit of background info on some of the terms I use when discussing the contents of weekly comics, annuals and specials... 

In a weekly comic, each feature (e.g. Mustapha Million, Calculator Kid) will usually appear as a single episode...

The first Calculator Kid episode occupied a single page 

MERGED_TITLE	CCD_DATE	PAGE_START	FEATURE_NAME	ARTIST	REPRINT_ORIGIN	ORIGIN_DATE	ELEMENTS	ELEMENT_CONFIG
Cheeky Weekly	01-Jul-1978	24	Calculator Kid	Terry Bave			1	F

  

But an episode can span more than one page, often covering one and a half pages,

The first episode of Creepy Sleepy Tale occupied a page and a half 

MERGED_TITLE	CCD_DATE	PAGE_START	FEATURE_NAME	ARTIST	REPRINT_ORIGIN	ORIGIN_DATE	ELEMENTS	ELEMENT_CONFIG
Cheeky Weekly	22-Oct-1977	19	Creepy Sleepy Tale	Mike Brown			2	F,P

or an episode may cover just half a page or even less.

Whoopee and Wow!'s Quick Strips page  contained episodes of 4 different features each week.

MERGED_TITLE	CCD_DATE	PAGE_START	FEATURE_NAME	ARTIST	REPRINT_ORIGIN	ORIGIN_DATE	ELEMENTS	ELEMENT_CONFIG
Whoopee and Wow!	02-Jul-1983	23	Paddywack	Jack Clayton			1	P
Whoopee and Wow!	02-Jul-1983	23	Bleep	Jim Barker			1	P
Whoopee and Wow!	02-Jul-1983	23	Cheeky (Quick Strip)	Frank McDiarmid			1	P
Whoopee and Wow!	02-Jul-1983	23	Here Is The News	Ed McHenry			1	P

I refer to every item occupying a page as an element, so the Quick Strip page referred to above of course contain 4 elements, each of which is also an episode.

I don't record in my comics database the percentage page coverage of each element, but when analysing the content of pages I can determine programmatically, for each element, whether that element shares its page with another element or elements. Thus I can assign each element a configuration status of, if there are no other elements on the page, F = Full Page, otherwise it must be P = Part Page. Thus the page-and-a-half Creepy Sleepy Tale above is shown as having a 2 element configuration of F,P.

Episodes are more relevant to Specials and Annuals, where it was common for the same feature to appear several times. For example, Mustapha Million enjoyed 4 episodes (one new 3-page adventure, and 3 double-page reprints) across the pages of the Cheeky Annual cover-dated 1985... 

MERGED_TITLE	CCD_DATE	PAGE_START	FEATURE	ART	REPRINT_FROM	ELEMENTS	EPISODE_CONFIG
Cheeky Annual 1985	01-Sep-1984	6	Mustapha Million	Joe McCaffrey		3	F,F,F
Cheeky Annual 1985	01-Sep-1984	48	Mustapha Million	Reg Parlett	Cheeky Weekly 03-Dec-1977	2	F,F
Cheeky Annual 1985	01-Sep-1984	72	Mustapha Million	Reg Parlett	Cheeky Weekly 05-Nov-1977	2	F,F
Cheeky Annual 1985	01-Sep-1984	102	Mustapha Million	Reg Parlett	Cheeky Weekly 26-Nov-1977	2	F,F

 

There are some occasions on which a feature appears in more than one episode on the same page (such as Meanie McGenie, whose 4 episodes appearing in the Cheeky Summer Special of 1982 were allocated to pages 21 and 50).  When analysing at episode level, those cases are reported in my database as 2 part-page episodes sharing the same page...

MERGED_TITLE	CCD_DATE	PAGE_START	FEATURE	ART	REPRINT_FROM	ELEMENTS	EPISODE_CONFIG
Cheeky Summer Special	01-Jul-1982	21	Meanie McGenie	Tom Williams	Monster Fun	1	P
Cheeky Summer Special	01-Jul-1982	21	Meanie McGenie	Mike Lacey	Monster Fun	1	P
Cheeky Summer Special	01-Jul-1982	50	Meanie McGenie	Mike Lacey	Monster Fun	1	P
Cheeky Summer Special	01-Jul-1982	50	Meanie McGenie	Mike Lacey	Monster Fun	1	P