Our friend Nick over at Audioshocker is running another round of Project Basement and I jumped in yet again. This season’s theme is “Good guys doing bad things” and “Bad guys doing good things.” I took a little bit of a different direction than what Nick had in mind. So go on over there and check it out.
Spidey and Mary Jane
If you’re a comic fan and you live in the Columbus, Ohio area or anywhere close to that, then you should certainly come out to Mid-Ohio Comic Con (by Wizard World) this weekend. Max and I will be there set up, selling and signing books. We certainly hope to see you there.
A few weeks ago when we attended Baltimore Comicon, Max, Sarah and I were interviewed by Sorgotron Media‘s podcast. I didn’t see it was online til today. But check it out!
Starfire from the DC New 52 title: Red Hood and the Outlaws
(fair warning, herein be SPOILERS for the last month of DC Comics. You have been warned).
So, back in June, I talked about my feelings on the (then) impending reboot of the DC Universe. Now, as of last week, the entire line has debuted as we’re beginning the second month of the storylines, so I’ve had some time to read and reflect on what’s been going on there and so i figured I, like every other comic book geek out there with access to a blog, might as well share some of my thoughts.
Given the fact that I was pretty vocally against the entire revamp, it might be surprising for some to know that I actually went into this with as much of an open mind as I could muster. As a general rule I am against the very concept of retconning. One of my favorite things about serialized storytelling is that each storyline builds upon the previously established continuity. In fact, the thing I love best about the big two (Marvel and DC Comics) is the collaborative nature in which this occurs. While I find a greatly appreciate in an ongoing serial written by one person or team (in fact I write one), it’s always fascinating to see how a new writer builds upon the previously established mythos of the sum total of their predecessors.
My biggest problem with the whole New 52 thing was really that it removes that concept. While DC publicly announced that this was a “soft reboot” and that some of the old stories would remain in continuity, that essentially removed my favorite thing about collaborative storytelling. One of the most fundamental rules about stage improv performances is that anything goes. No matter what one performer says, other performers aren’t allowed to contradict it. They can build upon it, but everything that happens is canon. Retcons ignore this, and as such I hate them. I consider them lazy storytelling.
Death of Supergirl from Crisis on Infinitie Earths
The fascinating thing about Crisis on Infinite Earths is that it wasn’t really a retcon. It was a reboot, yes, but Crisis firmly establishes that everything that had happened up until that point “still happened.” No one could remember it, but there were ramifications of the story that affected the ongoing Universe. Honestly, I could still have done without it, but what made it mostly acceptable was that the stories that came after it were GOOD! And the story of Crisis itself was GOOD. Eventually, we as readers were able to accept the Crisis because if nothing else, good storytelling came out of it.
So anyway, because of this, I decided that I’d give the New 52 a fair chance. I’d read everything with an open mind. Maybe it would surprise me. So starting with Flashpoint, the story that launched the line (much like Crisis before it)… well, it didn’t leave me very optimistic. Honestly, I didn’t even read the entire thing. Everytime I picked it up, I just found that I really didn’t care. And I didn’t care about the crossovers. Oh well, they can’t all be winners. Crisis was one of the greatest miniseries ever. That doesn’t mean the new line can’t be good.
And that’s what I get for getting my hopes up.
Image via Wikipedia
So have you noticed anything different about the site today?
Welcome to the new cosmichellcats.com. We’ve been having a couple problems with the old site lately, and there were some things that we’d been wanting to add anyway, so I spent this week rebuilding it.
The site now runs under WordPress (the former version was under MovableType) which means that we can use ComicPress (a set of WordPress plugins and themes, very common in the wordless community) to manage everything. This has allowed us all kinds of new goodies.
Every comic, comment and blog post from the old site has been moved over here. The one thing I couldn’t maintain was the password database. If you had an account on the old site, you should have received email from us telling you a new password that will allow you to login. Once you’re logged in, you can change your password and set up things like links to your website or a user icon. The site now also supports gravatars, so if you have one associated with your email address, we’ll default to that if you don’t want to upload a new picture.
And most importantly, you can now subscribe to comments, so you know when someone responds to you
The ability to simply comment via a Facebook account is gone, however, in it’s place we have something a little cooler. Now you can register an account, and associate it with a Facebook or Twitter account. Once you do, you can simply connect without your password if you’re already logged in to Facebook or twitter. To set that up, just press the associated buttons on your profile page when you’re logged in with your password. While you’re at it, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @cosmichellcats and Like our Facebook Page.
You can now search for comics and blog posts with the search box in the menubar, and on any given comic, you can see all other appearances by the charters in the comic, by clicking the “Character Reference” icon below it. Not every character has an icon yet, we’re working on it. Hopefully we’ll have that done soon.
Finally, since people were always asking us to make the comics bigger, we have. They now display at a much larger size inline, which means that they sometimes clip off the bottom of the screen, but if you want to see what the entire page looks like just click the comic and you’ll get a Lightbox overlay showing you.
There’s a few other assorted odds and ends, but that’s the major stuff. Let us know what you think, if you like it, or you hate it or if you have any other suggestions by either commenting here, or sending mail to us at feedback@cosmichellcats.com.
Ok, I’ve been at this all night and I haven’t even started Monday’s comic, so time for me to get some sleep. But please enjoy, and once again, let us know what you think.
-Mav
∑8X)
