Advanced Query allows field specific queries. It is a somewhat experimental query builder and has known oddities and limitations, see below for more information.
Advanced Query is somewhat experimental and has known oddities and limitations
All searches match exact substrings. Punctuation is not
ignored. "Jack Kirby; Joe Simon" and "Joe Simon; Jack Kirby" are
two different searches. This is fundamentally different to how our
regular search behaves, which ignores word
order, but looks for exact word occurrences (unless a * is given).
The default ordering of the query results sorts according to series
name and issue date.
This ordering is not very useful if you search for publishers, you might
want to change it under "Ordering".
There is no way to search for multiple values in a field. For instance,
while you can search for stories written or penciled by someone,
you cannot search for stories penciled by either Jack Kirby or
Joe Simon in the text credit fields.
Using only linked credits one can search for stories penciled by either
Jack Kirby or Joe Simon, or both of them together, no matter in which
order they are credited.
Searching by date is somewhat tricky. Supported formats include
"year.month.day", "year-month-day", "month/day/year",
"month-name day, year", "day month-name, year" and just plain year.
Date searching for series and stories uses a hidden field that is
not always filled out. This is the same field used for sorting by
date, which is why sometimes several out-of-sequence results will
appear at the beginning of the list. It is also possible to search
an issue's cover date as a text field without any conversion to an
actual date.
Many older indexes do not list the feature characters under characters
as well. Therefore the standard search for characters (using the search
box on top of the pages) returns matches in either the feature or the
characters field. This search behaviour is not supported by the
advanced search for technical reasons. You can somewhat simulate it
by using the "OR some fields" option.
Note that since there is no direct relation between publisher brands and
indicia publishers, you cannot use the brand fields while searching for
indicia publishers, and you cannot use the indicia publisher fields while
searching for publisher brands.