Myth Adventures, Phil Foglio’s comic-book adaptation of Robert Asprin’s comedic fantasy novel, Another fine Myth, is now available online as a free webcomic. They’ve just started serializing it a page a day, three days a week.
For more frequent updates, follow me on Twitter at @SpeedForceOrg.
I’d like to make a suggestion to comics fans everywhere. Or at least on the internet. Actually, probably most fans on the internet (comics or otherwise) could benefit from this suggestion.
But first, some background.
I’ve been trying for a few weeks to register to comment at DC’s official blog, The Source. Or rather, I’ve registered, but the original message never arrived, so I’ve been trying to get it to send me a password. No luck — only about 1 in 4 password resets actually show up in my mailbox, and I have yet to receive an actual password after confirming one.
But clearly someone is able to register, as you can see from the high quality of commentary on this Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance preview. (Be warned: there’s some swearing if that sort of thing bothers you.)
The Commentary
is it just me or is DC beating a dead horse with release after release of Final Crisis Aftermath mini series??? Enough all friggin ready.
For the love god, ANOTHER spin-off from a failed mini-series? DC, when you host your retailer summits, do you even listen to the retailers? Do the retailers stand and say, “Hey, Dan, can you please flood the market with a lot of junk and we’ll ’see-what-sticks’? And while you’re at it, how about dismantling your core characters to the point where they are no longer recognizable using rotating creative teams who constantly mess up continuity?”
I’m done.
There’s actually a point in this one (dismantling core characters), but it’s buried inside the “how dare they publish something I don’t want!”
gay. really gay. fuck final crisis and fuck all 4 of its “after the shitty job we did” mini-series.
Gee, not only swearing, but using “gay” as an insult. Obviously someone with discerning taste here.
From the DC Comics Corporate Offices:
“Our target demography is picking up Manga over comics, so if we create a team of young Japanese superheroes. It’s really going to change to comic industry!”
“And hey, let’s introduce them in Grant’s FANTASTIC summer event, he’s such a great writer! By the way, has he killed Batman the second time yet?”
FAIL.
Red Kitty Rage Alert!
I do agree with mambazo, who says:
The ridiculous fan entitlement in this comment section only serves to show that the average comic fan has the maturity level of about an eight year old.
The Suggestion
So I’d like to make a suggestion to comics readers everywhere:
If you aren’t interested in a comic, and have no stake in the characters, JUST DON’T BUY IT. Don’t waste everyone’s time whining about how DC/Marvel/YoMamaComics is putting out some product that you personally have no interest in.
I can understand if you actually read the book and didn’t like it.
I can understand if you’re a fan of SuperUltraGuy, and you don’t like the latest take on the character. (Trust me, I understand!)
But if a publisher decides to print a comic book that you have no interest in whatsoever? A book that features characters you don’t care about in a story you don’t care about, that doesn’t interfere with books you are reading? Why get angry? Why take it personally?
I don’t read Superman, but I’m not going to get on message boards saying that DC is stupid for publishing it.
DC publishes dozens of comics that I have no interest in. So do Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, etc. So what? I couldn’t afford to buy every comic published. And if I did, I wouldn’t have time to read them all. I don’t have time to read all the comics I am buying — I’m about five months behind on Buffy and two on House of Mystery and Farscape, and I still haven’t read anything from this week or last except for Flash: Rebirth #2.
As long as there are comics I do want to read, why should I care that there are comics that I don’t want? As long as someone wants to read it, and as long as it’s not screwing up (IMO) characters and stories that I do care about, what’s the problem?
Ain’t It Cool Newsinterviews Mark Waid about his work on Flash, Fantastic Four, Irredeemable and more (basically his entire career). He’s got some really interesting things to say about the Flash. Eventually I’ll find time to read the whole thing and pick out some good quotes to post here.
The best-condition copy of Showcase #4, first appearance of Barry Allen as the Silver-Age Flash, is “off to a fast start” at Heritage Auctions, already up to $100,000 with three weeks to go.
Comicbook Rockstar talks about lunch with Carmine Infantino, comics legend and co-creator of the Silver Age Flash, and the veteran artist’s advice for writers.
Pegasus News reviews a production of Based on a Totally True Story (by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa), a stage play about a playwright on the verge of making it big in Hollywood — who also happens to write the Flash comic book.
Update: The first installment of Q&A column Geoff Johns Prime is up at Comic Book Resources. He doesn’t say much about Flash: Rebirth beyond “wait and see.”
I can’t say I’ll miss GeoCities itself — but there are still a lot of sites connected to comics fandom hosted there. Some are kept current, some are old but still contain useful information, and some are snapshots of an earlier era of online fandom
It was a time before MySpace and Twitter and Facebook. Before Google and Wikipedia. Before “weblog” was shortened to “blog,” back when discussions took place not on forums but on IRC, newsgroups and mailing lists, and even having an email address meant you were kind of weird. Everyone with a website belonged to 2 or 3 webrings, fan sites handed out awards to each other regularly, and Jonah Weiland’s name always appeared in front of “Comic Book Resources.” It was still worth asking your local store for a copy of Comic Shop News, because it wasn’t just a digest of last month’s Newsarama articles.
At the time I started Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning (on a server provided by my college) in the mid-1990s, a lot of comics fan sites were on Geocities, including several that I helped out with. The first profiles I made of Flash villains were written for the long-gone Scarlet Speedster website, and I remember contributing bios to an Impulse site at one point as well.
Of course fan sites appear and disappear all the time. I watched a lot of fan sites die out during the late 1990s as people graduated from schools, started jobs, went into the military or just stopped posting. As various Flash sites fell by the wayside, I expanded the scope on my own site to fill the gaps they left. (Evidently I had too much time on my hands.) After a while it was kind of a last-site-standing situation, until Dixon relaunched Crimson Lightning (originally a review site) as a blog a few years ago. It’s nice to see a resurgence of Flash fan sites lately.
As for the sites still on Geocities today: some, especially the ones that are still active, will no doubt move over the next few months. Others will simply vanish, taking with them a piece of fandom history.
Mo sent me a link to this music video by keeptheheat. It’s an original rap song about “The life of Wally West (a.k.a. The Flash) and the many little perils he encounters on a daily basis.”
He’s outraced Death…blotted out Rorschach…clobbered the Thing…and raced past Superman himself! The Flash (Wally West) has made it to the Final Four in Comics Should Be Good’s DC/Marvel Character Tourney.
With just two rounds to go, Flash is up against Batman. The winner will go on to the final round, against either Spider-Man or Captain America.
Dark Knight or Scarlet Speedster? Your vote will decide!
Flash has made it to Round 4 of Comics Should Be Good’s Marvel/DC Character Tourney, and the Elite Eight! But he’ll need your help to make it to the Final Four!
The tournament started with both Barry Allen and Wally West. Barry lost to the Thing in Round 1, but Wally defeated first Death and then Rorschach — then went on to defeat the Thing in a surrogate rematch.
Now the Flash is up against the Man of Steel himself: Superman!
Update: The Flash has defeated Superman with a 53% to 47% victory (592 votes to 516). He’ll go on to the Final Four, facing the Region 1 winner, most likely Batman (currently leading with 68% to Doctor Doom’s 32%).
Welcome to SpeedForce.org, a blog focusing on DC Comics' super-hero, The Flash. It's a companion site to Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning, a fan reference site for the Fastest Man Alive.
