I’ve been thinking about photos since the Work entity discussion. My current thinking is that these shouldn’t be considered BB works. We need to consider what BB is for. Everything we discussed so far are forms of text, or at least “things that are read”. Images are a big part of comics, but you read comics, as you read a poem, a recipe, or a biography. You don’t read a photo. If we allow photos, we need to allow other kinds of visual artwork. Given that most books have at least one (in the cover) and can have many (a novel is only one work, but can have dozens of illustrations, a biography — one work — can have dozens of photos), we may up with more visual artworks in BB than “things that are read”, it could end up primarily an ArtBrainz — not a bad idea, but not what we’re trying to do here.
So what do I think we should do with this kind of books? First of all, ed. groups and editions should be added like any other book, those definitely belong here, like any other book. Secondly, the artists should to added to the edition with the appropriate relationships — we already have those. Lastly, many of these books also include introductions, essays, or any other kind of textual works; these should be added — but not the visual artworks.