Cheetor of Two Worlds, originally uploaded by Gizmo_Tracer.
I found this photo while searching for more “Flash of Two Worlds” homages. There’s a whole series of comic book cover homages using Transformers toys.
Gizmo_Tracer describes the composition like this:
Cheetor as The Flash just seems obvious, and the ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ cover has always struck me as a real classic, thus, here we are.
I was hoping to get more responses to this one, but only 25 people responded — of whom 9 had never been to a con.
Today, as quietly announced six months ago, Yahoo is shutting down Geocities.
Geocities was one of the icons of the Internet in the 1990s. It was emo before LiveJournal, boasted legendarily awful layouts before MySpace (be sure to check XKCD today), and spurred user revolts over terms-of-service changes before Facebook. As one of the major free web providers, it attracted everything from teenage poetry to fan sites to do-it-yourself social networking.
Over the last decade, people have mostly moved on. A lot of old sites have been shut down or abandoned. Spammers and phishers set up shop, using the free service to hawk pills or bootleg software, or host malware, in the hours it took for Yahoo to catch them and shut them down. No doubt it’s become more trouble to maintain than it’s worth.
To be honest, I won’t miss most of it. But there are fan websites that have never moved. Book annotations, timelines, analysis, fanfic — a huge chunk of fandom history will simply vanish today. (As of noon Pacific time, all my links still work.) Some of it will survive in public archives by the OTW and Internet Archive, or in personal archives. I contacted a few site owners, or tried to, but most of my emails bounced.
One advantage for fanzines: ink on paper doesn’t require anyone to keep a central service going.
It’s funny: the things we expect to disappear from the web often don’t, but the things we expect to be permanent often do drop out of existence. GeoCities appeared 14 years ago. Will today’s blogs, Facebook pages, forums, and wikis still be around 14 years from now?
Update: GeoCities lingered for a day, but has shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.
Last week at the Baltimore Comic-Con, this eight-year-old Impulse fan was among the attendees:
Caleb’s father wrote in to say that he’s been a big fan of the Flash ever since seeing him on the Justice League cartoon, and that they’ve read all of The Flash and Impulse together. They met several writers and artists who have worked on the series, including Mark Waid (pictured), Todd Dezago, Craig Rousseau, and Pop Mhan. Caleb/Impulse also made an appearance on Todd Dezago’s Perhapablog last week in his con write-up.
Update: Caleb returns to Baltimore Comic-Con in 2010…as Kid Flash.
Comic Book Resources and The Beat both noticed something interesting in the program for this weekend’s Big Apple Comic Con: the dates for next year’s event. It’s going to be October 7-10, 2010 — the same weekend as the larger, well-regarded New York Comic Con.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
It’s only been 3 months since Wizard World[1] announced Anaheim Comic Con (in California) would launch on the same day as C2E2. Okay, they’re halfway across the country from each other, and that can happen with a crowded convention season. This year’s WonderCon (San Francisco) and MegaCon (Orlando, Florida) seemed to manage just fine on the same weekend. On the other hand, Anaheim and C2E2 are both new shows. More importantly, C2E2 is run by Reed Exhibitions, who run NYCC, and is setting up in Chicago, the same city as Wizard/Shamus’ flagship Chicago Comic Con. There’s already bad blood there.[2]
Of course, Big Apple Comic Con and New York Comic Con aren’t across the country from each other. They seem to be just down the street, about a mile apart. That’s closer than my hotel was to the San Diego Convention Center during Comic-Con International this year — and I walked that distance. Twice.[3]
You don’t accidentally schedule your con for the same weekend, in the same city, within walking distance of the #2 show in your market. Especially when you’ve already scheduled another show to conflict with the same organization’s only other event in your industry. (Reed is big in general, but NYCC and C2E2 are the only shows that overlap with Wizard’s field.) Obviously they deliberately chose to compete with NYCC.
What I can’t figure out is: What do they hope to accomplish?
Given all the good will NYCC has picked up over the last few years, and all the good will Wizard has lost over the same period of time, I can’t imagine that if forced to choose one over the other, the comic book industry would side with Big Apple at this point. Publishers will probably split delegations[4], and I can imagine some guests setting up at both cons if contracts allow it, and I’m sure Big Apple will be able to get some exclusive guests…
…but it really reminds me of the attempt a few years ago (2006?) to launch Wizard World Atlanta on the same weekend as the well-regarded Heroes Con. The industry came down solidly on the side of Heroes Con, and Wizard World Atlanta was canceled. If anything, Wizard’s reputation is worse now than it was then.
Given their relative size, reputation and location, I can’t imagine that Big Apple expects to beat New York Comic Con by going head to head with it. So what are they tying to do? Ride on the other con’s coat-tails? Interfere with NYCC’s guests and exhibitors? Interfere with NYCC’s attendance? It just doesn’t make sense.
Update: It gets better! Big Apple kicked out 3 NYCC staffers today — just like they kicked out an LBCC staffer from Philadelphia a few months ago. (via Robot6)
Mr. Shamus, Wizard, whoever: you’re really making it hard for me to justify going to Anaheim Comic-Con next year. And considering it’ll take me longer to find a parking space than to drive to the convention center, that should take some doing.
Update 2: Reed Exhibitions has responded to the scheduling announcement, saying, “We confidently welcome any competition, whomever they may be.”
1. Or whoever actually runs the conventions that Gareb Shamus owns, since they seem to be downplaying the Wizard brand.
2. Robot 6 goes into more detail on Wizard/Shamus’ history dealing with other conventions.
3. Okay, the second time was a mix of walking, running and a pedicab ride, but still, it was walkable.
4. DC Comics will often hold DC Nation panels at two cons on the same weekend, sending Dan Didio to one and Ian Sattler to the other.
Black Flash, originally uploaded by JD Hancock.
I found this incredible custom action figure of the Black Flash on Flickr. Photographer JD Hancock describes it like this:
This custom action figure stands about five inches high and was created by my wife many years ago based on the artwork of Pop Mhan. She modified an existing figure (the Tarantula), wrapped it like a mummy, and then painted and decorated it. My contribution was its teeth, made out of tiny bits of white paper clips.