Friday, January 26th, 2007 Yesteday I found myself surfing the internet for my daily news pointers and ended up reading the Comic Fodder column titled "Checkmate: Best DC Comic You Aren't Reading" [link]. After that article I sat down and read all nine issues of Checkmate and I have to add my vote for the series right along with the author. It's smart, action packed, loaded with surprising characters you wouldn't expect, the story turns on a dime, keeps you guessing and it kept me on the edge of my seat (or in this case panel) for nine issues. Do not miss out, give it a try and support this title at all costs. It's too good to let die due to under perfomance. Comic Related is officially joining the Checkmate crusade!

Checkmate has another supporter in the form of Keith Giffen. In his most recent "As If I Care" column, the celebrated author and artist listed Checkmate amoung his best of 2006 [link]. Giffen called it the best ongoing comic book series of 2006 explaining, "I'm going with Checkmate since it’s the comic I most often find myself culling from the DC comp bundle to read. I know everyone’s waiting for a Rucka gag here ... but hell, it’s a good read. Credit where credit’s due ... if grudgingly." High praise from the ever humorous Giffen.

To celebrate the title (and let you know what you are looking for when visiting your local comic store), here's a mini-cover-gallery honoring the nine issues to date.

Checkmate 1	Checkmate 2	Checkmate 3
Checkmate 4	Checkmate 5	Checkmate 6
Checkmate 7	Checkmate 8	Checkmate 9

Thursday, January 18th, 2007 It's always nice to see sequential art and the American comic book celebrated as art. When you get right down to it, a comic is a good story but it's also often an impressive work of art that can stand alone an move the soul in ways a fan might never expect. The medium has proven both influential and trend setting since the days of the Golden and Silve Age. Today more than ever, the comics and graphic novel can be seen as rippling through our culture.

Recognizing this fact, The Newark Museum [link], located at 49 Washington Street, Newark, New Jersey, has had an exhibition running titled Masters of American Comics. Here are all the details...

Founded in 1909, The Newark Museum underwent an extensive four-year, $23 million renovation and expansion which was completed in 1989. The design by the world famous architect Michael Graves was awarded the American Institute of Architects' Honor award. 

The Museum complex, the largest in New Jersey, weaves together 80 galleries of art and science, a mini zoo, planetarium, gift shops, cafe, auditorium, sculpture garden, schoolhouse and the Ballantine House, the restored 1885 mansion that is a National Historic Landmark.

If you are vacationing or live in the New Jersey area, you still have time to enjoy the show. It closes on January 28th.

Thursday, January 11, 2007 - And there came a day unlike any other, when the fans of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes were united against a common threat! On that day the Edwin Awards were born . . .

As the Avengers Forever Website prepares to celebrate its eighth anniversary we are proud to share their announcement and point you toward the 2006 Edwin Awards! With over 30 categories, the Edwin Awards (named after Edwin Jarvis, butler and most trustworthy aid to the Avengers) were created to give recognition to those who help make the Avengers the mightiest heroes that they are.

Voting ends tomorrow, January 12, 2007.

The Edwin Awards winners winners will be announced on January 14, 2007.

Cast your vote by visiting...

www.avengersforever.org/edwin

Tuesday, January 9, 2007 - ComicSpace (found on the web at www.comicspace.com) joined the wild west world of comic websites in limited release on December 5th, 2006. It's hard to believe that the site is only a month old. In that short time it's built a community of comic fans that's quickly approaching the 10,000 mark. It's already filled with self decribed comic writers (2,409 as of today), artists (2143), publishers (315), web comics (360), self publishers (216) collectors (238) and fans (791). In it's infancy, it's already showing the kind of promise fans often hoped for, but just couldn't find on MySpace.

ComicSpace describes itself as "a social networking site for comic fans and creators". They point out that it's kind of like MySpace, but for comic enthusiasts. I would add that it's like MySpace only without all the baggage, painful adds, net freaks and occsionally troubling interface. ComicSpace is proving to be a comfortable place where comic fans can get together and share comic book information while dodging all the hastle and sometimes splintered attention span of other on-line social communities that don't cater to a specific hobby or interest.

As I got used to the site, I was pleased to see that it serves up a razor sharp, clean interface. It's filled with user flexibility, nice profile options, an innovative tag system and many of the traditional features we've come to expect from other on-line communities. If you look at the laundry list of items "in the works", this is going to be a heck of a site once fully featured.

The fact that the site has a pinpoint focus on the world of comics makes it a nice step forward in this fan's opinion. Much like a good magazine, I want my on-line experience to be focused on topics I care about. Personally, I wasn't much of a MySpace kind of guy until about September of last year. At that time, I jumped into the frey because so many of the people I was dealing with in the industry were already there writing blogs, sharing information and chatting each other up on-line. It was a convienent way to touch base and added a nice community feel for comic folks spread throughout the country. ComicSpace, for me, holds a lot of promise as it's focused topic matter and rapid growth within the comic community means I can shift some of my attention here where my time will be better served talking and communicating about the industry I love.

How is the site doing? Anyone watching would have to admit that the site is taking off like a rocket. Did you know that ComicSpace had over 700 registered members in the first nine hours it was available in limited release? They welcomed their 1,000th member the next day. Today, just 35 days later it's an active community of 9,804 members. No... wait... Make that 9,807. Three more people signed up while I was writing this Related Recap and I'm betting the number will be even higher by the time you read this post.

Comic Related set up it's ComicSpace shop at www.comicspace.com/comicrelated on December 21st (which was ComicSpace's 16th day on the web) and we've been stopping by the site every day since. We've already added 53 friends there without making a single friend request of our own. To say this site is a social community boom town would be an understatement. I can't image the size it's going to have on December 5th, 2007 but I promise we'll be watching (right along with Warren Ellis, Brian Michael Bendis, Dave Gibbons, Steve Rude, Ed Brubaker, Jim Salicrup, Brian Lynch and many other names you might know who are already lurking around the site). If you haven't signed up, please do so right away. You wounldn't want to miss out on the next big thing in comics now would you?

Saturday, January 6, 2007 - This evening we launched the retooled version of the Comic Related website. For the most part, it won't look a whole lot different from the site you've come to know over the last two and a half years. Some changes you will notice...

Links Page - We have so many links, we had to go from two to three columns just to keep the content easily accessable. We're up to 2,050 links and we're adding new sites all the time. Did you know we even track when links are added? Check out the validation and history page here.

Media Area - Our new media page is in the final stages of development, but wasn't quite ready for this relaunch. We're anticipating it being unveiled within the next week. It will house comic related audio, video and will serve as a news gathering area for comic telivision, animation and movie coverage allowing our main news page to focus exclusively on the printed comic.

Sales Area - Our new sales area is coming along. It will lauch a couple weeks after the media area goes live. We are pleased to say that we were close enough to completion that we chose to incorporate the "On Sale" button into the new design.

Site Coverage - We were very happy to add another article to our site coverage page.

About Us - We updated some of the content on the About Us page and added a new section to the page inviting you to "Learn more about ComicRelated.com".

Front Page - Our Quote of the Week page has scored a permanent link on the front page (within the news box) and our review area now has it's own highlight box (front page, right).

Behind the scenes, the mechanics of the site are quite different. Throughout our new design you will notice many subtle changes we hope will make the overall set-up of Comic Related even easier to navigate. This update will also make it a snap for us to post content to the site. This gives us more room to grow and the ability to do it even quicker. There is still some dust settling when you drill down into some of the older pages, but the remaining problems should iron themselves out within a few days. We sincerely hope you like the new features and we'll continue the rapid fire updates you've come to expect from Comicrelated.com.

Continue back to December, 2006 | Return to the latest Related Recap