The Evolution of Comic Books On Teh Internets

October 29, 1969: Teh internets launched

October 30, 2007: Zuda.com launched*

October 30, 2009: Marvel for iPhone launched on Comixology

October 29, 2012: DC Entertainment "Neural Implant" launched

October 30, 2025: Marvelopolis's "Excelsior 2.0 Brain-Download" launched, option to virtually live in one of several fantasy settings: Asgard, Wakanda, Lemuria, Atlantis, Queens

October 26, 2050: Superman's robot doubles go crazy, enslave planet

October 27, 2099: Kenshiro "Zero" Cochrane, an under-achieving but lovable rogue, gets shot in Transverse City and subsequently becomes the robot Ghost Rider. Kenshiro battles the Superman robots, liberates teh internets, and becomes the avatar of the new age. Kenshiro's nickname "Zero" was ironic, because at heart...he was really a hero.

October 29, 2031: That long-awaited pole shift happens.

October 24, 4025: The printing press invented. The first book to be mass-produced? The Holy Gylrsfarbx, of course. Then a reprint of Detective Comics #27.

October 23, 5026: The beginning of the Direct Market.

October 25, 5089: The Diuoyygfyuf ComicCon starts becoming too commerical.

October 26, 6002: The 26th reincarnation of Stan Lee develops a webcomic, tells 17th reincarnation of Elvira to "get out of paper comics."

October 30, 6005: More damn Superman robots.

October 22, 6025: Dogs and cats become people, use iPhones, enslave humanity, pee in corners of house.

October 28, 7025: Motion-comics become the dominant form of all entertainment everywhere, saves humanity, reduces dogs and cats back to their previous servile state, cleans pee out of carpets, defeats Superman robots.

October 29, 7056: Damn pole-shift.

October 30, 9009: Printing-press invented.

*Please note: between the 38 years that the Internet was invented and Zuda.com launched, there were also a number of comics of various sorts released online: funny comics, sad comics, happy comics, angry comics. But did they have a werewolf western? Nooooooo...

Spam Now 90% Of All Email Penis Enlargement Hello Dear Friend sdkyK

According to CNET, spam makes up 90.4 % of all email:

"This means that 1 out of every 1.1 e-mails is junk. The report also notes that spam shot up 5.1 percent just from April to May."

My current fave spam email, received just a half-an-hour after clearing my spam filter:

This is Huge Rugby, one of over 250,000 members on GayRoughnecks.com"

That is the best name ever anywhere: Huge Rugby. I'm going to use that in a story.

Good Ol' Fashioned Internets Justice

So this kid Kenny Glenn (in a ski mask) punches and abuses a cat on-camera, posts it on YouTube, gets his identity found out by enterprising Internet users. Somebody starts a website with his name on it that posts all his personal contact information (including that of his family).

Here are the questions:

Are you cool with posting personal info like that on the web with the purpose of harassing someone who has committed a heinous act?

Are you normally not cool with doing such a thing (because of due process, etc), but the kid seemed like a creep anditwasadefenselesscatforgodssake, so just this one time you will look the other way on it?

Would you be less cool about posting the info if there was no video-tape in the Kenny Glenn case, but only testimony from an eyewitness, etc? Did the videotape "sell" this case to you?

Would you be ok about posting the identifying information of registered sex offenders --not just having a list of names, but having one web page for each person, completely "outing" them? And contact info on their families, if they were harboring the offender?

If somebody said something racist, sexist, or homophobic on YouTube, would you be ok with posting all their personal information on a website so people could harass them?

If you disagreed with somebody strongly on political issues, would you be ok with posting their contact information on the Internet, under the theory that it might embarrass them and cause them to rethink their position (or just be a lot more "underground about it")?

Do you think Kenny Glenn or a member of his family might get possibly physically hurt by the posting of this public information?

Do you think that what Kenny Glenn was so heinous that only "Internet Justice" could ever really punish him? Or do you feel that there is never a call to post anybody's personal info online for the purpose of harassment?

Hey, that movie critic Glenn Kenny must be having a great week, huh? (I almost totally wrote his name instead of Kenny Glenn in this post).

My only opinions on this issue is that it was truly a horrific beating for the cat on the Kenny Glenn video, and also that the way the 14-year-old hit and yelled at the cat strongly resembled something he possibly observed an adult do -- and I hope, in the investigation, that angle will be explored (as I'm pretty sure it will be, with psych evaluations etc.).

Please Google the referenced site and video to find out more.

Bill Willingham: Comics Conservative?

Big Hollywood is a entertainment website with a decidedly more right-of-center spin. One of its initial "selling points" was that the site would be a sort of conservative Huffington Post, giving big-name entertainers a chance to "come out of the closet" about their political and ideological preferences.

Enter Bill "Fables" Willingham.

In a post entitled "Superheroes: Still Plenty of Super, But Losing Some of the Hero," Willingham cites Superman as not being proud of his country, Captain America as an apologist for terrorists, and even quotes Rush Limbaugh. He closes with a pledge:

"No more superhero decadence for me. Period. From now on, when I write within the superhero genre I intend to do it right. And if I am ever again privileged to be allowed to write Superman, you can bet your sweet bootie that he’ll find the opportunity to bring back “and the American way,” to his famous credo.

For now, I invite others in my business to follow suit, as their own consciences dictate. We’ll talk more about this later."

The question is -- will Willingham face fallout by going out on a limb and making this post?

He later answers such a question in the comments section:

"...it reflects no courage on my part that I happen to be in a situation, through dumb luck mostly, where I can speak openly about my politics, without too much fear of reprisals and career sabotage. You and I both know that isn’t the case with everyone in our business, which perfectly mimics in that respect the situation in Hollywood (though on a more intimate scale)."

Later in the comments, Chuck Dixon makes an appearance:

"You and I both know that there are plenty of comic creators who feel the way we do but are fearful of speaking up as it will adversely affect their career."

I brought up similar questions a month ago, and was told there was no fear of reprisals for such views in the industry -- that my concerns were nothing more than baseless paranoia.

Well, which is it?

Postscript: I ultimately place the blame for the difficulty of moderate conservatives within the industry like Willingham & Dixon to express their views with the two or three extreme radical-psycho-bipolar conservatives who ruined it for everyone by being insufferable racist and sexist dicks. Not all "conservatives" (label) are the same, just not like all "liberals" (label) are the same; both have the right to express their views without the torch-and-pitchfork brigade. Not that this has stopped that brigade from dogging on Willingham, though the discussion on Robot 6 is so relatively orderly and without the usual Alien-grade acid slime that either teh internets have grew up a bit, or they just have really good mods.

That Certain Something

Doing a quick survey of my blog content over the past two years, I've discovered that every 2-3 months, like clockwork, I will post something and it will start a massive flame war. Not a regular flame war, but the nuclear type of thing where I have person after person email me and comment in horror and apology at how vicious the reaction has been from certain circles.

Looking at these posts, I noted that some contained very little of what would be considered "controversy." Yet those posts produced as much of a rage as the ones with highly controversial content. For example, I'm sure it is obvious that child porn is a controversial topic. But nearly the same amount of controversy and rage erupted when I dared make an interpretation about a movie, or made a post on a topic that someone else had touched upon months previous. It's unpredictable. In fact, the only way to avoid it is to stop posting entirely.

Indeed, had I made a post defending Simpsons child porn, I have no doubt in my mind that the handful of haters would have made posts expressing their outrage. They would say: "She can't be the head of a woman's organization. She supports child porn!" I know this like I know the sun comes up in the morning.

Which is why I'm convinced that it really isn't the topic or my exact opinions that is really at issue.

I seem to have developed, over the past two years, a strange sort of charisma.* Through my written word, but also in person. This is baffling to me, especially the in-person part, because I take little-to-no-care in making myself sexy or appealing at all. I stopped wearing contact lenses and now wear glasses. I let my hair grow out. I wear comfortable pants, comfortable shoes. I have a little roll of fat around my middle. But I have more charisma now than I did when I was a size 2, blond, with my boobies hanging out.

I don't understand the charisma of this blog or myself -- but there is one thing I do now understand. As much as there is a positive charisma, there is also its opposite. As much as people seem to like what I write and want to speak to me in person, there are also people who have a deep and abiding hatred for me. And the more people like me, and the more high-profile I get, the more there will be these online hate-fests at my expense.

This charisma energy works both ways -- bad and good. And rather than try to come up with some pop-psychology explanation for it all, I'll come up with a pop-New Age one: it's just the natural flow of energy. Positive polarity, negative polarity. And it certainly won't get any better when my comic book is published, so I ought to just get used to it.

Now I know how Will Ferrell feels.

*This is all written by a person that had -150 charisma points for most of her life, and knows the difference. The last time I went to a speaking engagement, I missed the entire buffet because I had a continual line of about 25 people come up to me after my speech. All that was left was the cold snow peas. And I have gotten stopped in washrooms, in comic shops, in the middle of Manhattan, by people who recognize me on sight for this blog. Personally, I think I have the charisma of a leek. But this is the situation. Life is patently bizarre, and God apparently has a ginormous sense of humor.

"DC Comics 1"

The statistics program embedded in my blog template tells me many interesting bits of information. For example, IP addresses, how many return visits they make, and what they search for.

For a very long time now -- not quite as long as the blog has been up, but for a good long time -- one IP address has been of interest to me. Originating from AOL/Time Warner in New York City, this IP -- which my statistics software has allowed me to name "DC Comics 1" (see 2nd postscript) -- has visited my site many times -- as of today, 169 times:

"magnify this user *IP censored* *Browser censored* Unknown 169"

Now, I have had similar IPs with similar patterns of search and the same browser also return visit on my blog hundreds of times. I'm not a computer expert, but I guess in theory it might be the same user, on different "streams" (see, not a computer expert).

After nearly two years of reading my statistical info, "DC Comics 1" has become an old friend, a familiar presence on my data lists. This user will very often access my blog from "When Fangirls Attack," as a way (perhaps) of covering his (or her, but probably his) tracks. It would probably look less suspicious to have that site bookmarked. But once accessing "Occasional Superheroine" from that link, "DC Comics 1" will proceed to browse the site for some time.

Often there will be searches on the site done on certain phrases or names. "Dan DiDio" was a very popular search, as well as variations of the name plus other words like "clusterfuck." Sometimes the search terms will be phrases like "Val Goodbye Comics" or "Occasional Superhero Val." Today it's "Nachie Castro Disney":

"http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22nachie castro%22 disney&start=40&sa=N"

And lo and behold, if you Google that phrase, my blog entry on the subject comes up second. After this post, it will probably come up first. My "Two Mutilated Chicks" post, referencing violence to women in "Teen Titans" (and the source of one of my death threats) was also of particular interest today.

I used to write posts guessing what new move DC was going to make based on what "DC Comics 1" would search for. For example, my guess about JM Straczynski doing work for DC was based on intense searches on my site from "DC Comics 1" on him.

"(*host deleted*) (IP deleted) [Label IP Address]
occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/search/label/J.M.%20Straczynski"

I could also gauge what scandal DC might be embroiled in at any given time based on the search topics. And so "DC Comics 1" became not only a friend but a research tool. An uncannily accurate research tool.

In the past I've saved some of the IP/search data, especially some from earlier this year corresponding to a certain repeat patron of my blog. Nowadays, especially with the occasional death threats, I keep far better records.

Today the activity is rather interesting. As of now -- lunchtime -- two corporate Time Warner-related IPs are looking at my blog within roughly the same narrow time frame, two referencing the same post -- "Two Mutilated Chicks."

"1st October 2008 12:14:06 occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/
occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/2008/09/teen-titans-63-two-mutilated-chicks.html"

Hm. Must be a really popular post.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank "DC Comics 1" for the continued interest in my blog. I hope I have been able to provide you with some useful information over the many many months. And if sneaking around my blog doesn't provide you with the info you are looking for, always feel free to let me know.

Best,
"Occasional Superhero Val"

Postscript: As of 1:17, "DC Comics 1" is still on the "Two Mutilated Chicks" post.

"1st October 200813:09:40 occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/2008/09/teen-titans-63-two-mutilated-chicks.html"

Must have touched a nerve with somebody.

Postscript Postscript: The only way we could really know who "DC Comics 1" is, is for DC themselves to run a check on the IP. So really, it is only a guess on my part. It could be that it's just from some random place with an AOL/Time Warner internal server in New York City with an intense interest in the comic book business and the minutia regarding past and present DC employees. In which case, I've totally jumped the gun, my apologies.

Postscript Postscript Postscript: It wouldn't be a crime if a DC employee was so intensely browsing and searching through my site. It would just be pretty goddamn funny.

After Going Through 20 Pages Of Spam:

My favorite headline: "Paris Hilton Violated By Gypsies"

That took some thought.

Oh wait..."Paris Hilton Crowned Miss Vagina 2008" was pretty good, too.

And no, I didn't find any useful email that might have been accidentally filtered.

Facebook Tells Me I'm Fat

ad on my Facebook profile page with the tagline,
"34 Yr Old Female Overweight?"
(I'm 34)

Okay, I've just seen my third different "are you in your mid-thirties and overweight" ad on the sidebar of my Facebook profile. This is really starting to piss me off. What sort of "cookies" do they have to target me for these ads?

I'm serious -- three totally different ads with variations of the "in your thirties and need to lose weight" pitch, plus pictures of flabby stomachs:


So how are they targeting these ads? Telepathy? Are they hiring the people from those top-secret Russian psychic experiments as ad targeters for Facebook? Is that it?

Of course, these ads are rotated with "order all the food you want from the comfort of your home" ads:
/going to the gym after work, doesn't need this shit.