It's no secret that I've cultivated an affinity for a web presence in the comics over the last several years. The world hasn't been the same since the advent of the electronic age and it's clear that a great deal of wonder still awaits us through this medium.
The world of comics hasn't remained on the sidelines through it all either, as perhaps might have been expected from the afficionados of a primarily print oriented medium. The complete opposite is what's actually happened as the comics community is graced with internet ventures the likes of Newsarama, Comic Book Resources, Silver Bullet Comic Books and The Pulse, amongst many other news and forum enterprises. Comics creators have also stepped forth with their own sites and forums. Mark Millar, Joe Quesada, and John Byrne are just a few of the ones active on a healthy daily basis. Warren Ellis continues to push the electronic envelope with the exploration of real-time posting from anywhere his whims compel as he employs the newer technologies and webtools. The likes of Clifford Meth, Steven Grant and Donna Barr pound away with insightful and activist commetary - while Neal Adams puts forth a politico-scientific model for the universe from his web home. The result has been a notable surge of creative thought and exposition coming from a vast array of sources and creators - and touching on almost every facet of our collective experience in and out of the comics.
In recent times, the blog has come to the forefront of this mix, almost overshadowing the traditional website format which preceeded it. One of the pioneers of this form in the comics community is Graeme McMillan and his Fanboy Rampage blogsite, from where he continues to gather pertinent snippets of the goings on in the comics world and pepper them with a concise commentary making for one of the more informative sources of its kind in the industry. Tom Spurgeon recently chimed in with The Comic Reporter to put forth a synthesis of the journal, news and commentary webzine which is adding a touch of grace and intellectual integrity to the community, perhaps not yet seen to this degree. The articulate comics blog rages on today with the likes of Heidi McDonald'a The Beat, Mark Evanier's News from ME, Neil Gaiman's Journal, Marv Wolfman's Today's Views, Peter David's Journal, Elayne Riggs Pen-Elayne, among many others.
The age of the blogposters is on the rise and in this spirit I'll attempt to widen the scope of my own rantings in presenting the next stage of the Michael Netzer Online revolution: Rise Of The Comics. The Headquarters and Blogpost presented here are perhaps a fitting format under which to launch the activity around the formation of The Comic Book Creator's Guild. The blog now comes to the forefront, the more traditional website format is pushed back to the recesses of the server directories - all however, always linked to and accessible from the daily blogpost.
There's a considerable amount of new material to see here and I'll make use of this debut to give a little taste of it in the few posts below. Thanks for coming by, enjoy the show - and if you're compelled to do so, your comments will more than likely contribute heartily to the party atmosphere we hope to nourish here
Michael Netzer, Jerusalem
