From: [R J Johnston] at [newcastle.ac.uk] (Rich Johnston)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: For the approval of racm: Caught in the Net
Date: 9 Oct 1994 07:33:15 -0500

I am working on a monthly column for the British Magazine, Comics 
International, dealing with Usenet and related comics discussion. 
Here is the first proposed column. Please nit pick it to death, find 
my errors, my innacuracies and my misunderstandings....


CAUGHT IN THE NET: a proposal for a regular comics-on-the-internet
column. The first column details in depth the availability of comics 
discussion on the internet, mentions a few prominent names 
and takes a selected extracts from a couple of interesting 
discussions. For the last six months, the information highway, 
cyberspace, the internet has remained a steady source 
of news stories and news articles in newspapers, on radio 
and on the television. Whether it be stories of 
child pornography or mass commerce finding new ways to advertise, 
or our national security being compromised, in the comic press, its 
influence has been increasing. Many publishers now have a "net 
presence" and many small press comics such as Bone, Hepcats, 
Dirtbag and Bizarre Heroes have found the net a useful way to 
garner direct reaction and comment on their comics, and new ways 
to publicise their publications. There are many discussion networks 
across the Internet, Compuserve, Genie, Prodigy and American 
Online, but the big daddy of them all is the Internet's Usenet area, where 
newsgroups covering thousands of topics of discussion cluster. In 
amongst the discussion on archery, fetishism, douglas adams and 
british media, sits the rec.arts.comics hierarchy and its spinoff 
hierarchy, alt.comics. 

Divided into certain zones, the news appears here first, before a 
magazine can get to a printing press. Comic book creators pop aboard, 
and while Usenet has less "celebrities" than American Online and 
Compuserve, choice pickings get redistributed. When Defiant went 
down, rec.arts.comics.misc knew first, when the new "retcon" X-Men 
crossover was announced, the user "zombie" had already posted it on 
rec.arts.comics.xbooks. And discussions get going, with people in 
violent disagreement with each other, "flaming" across the newsgroups 
and causing major battles to start. Just how innocent is Jim Shooter? 
Is Garth Ennis just regurgitating his pub sessions into Hellblazer? 
Imagine every discussion in the Comics International Comment Forum 
multiplied by a hundred, every day. Whatever your tastes in 
comics, there is likley to be a "thread" of discussion covering
it, and if there isn't start one up yourself! 

Discussions can continue for months, the possibilities of Dream's 
ex-lover in Sandman have reached ludicrous extremes, with John Candy 
and OJ Simpson's wife being viable candidates. A recent example is
when Pater David's "But I Digress" column criticised a Marvel Press 
release, Fabian Niceza jumped into reply stating that David knew 
nothing about the crossover, that the Marvel press release was flawed 
and all David had to do was ring him up and ask. Niceza was then 
criticised by a user called Carlo for being hypocritical, condemning 
David's lack of research when Niceza's stories show a similar lack of 
research. Peter David then replied, stating that he didn't phone Niceza 
or anyone at the X-offices, because the press release directed further 
enquiries to Gary Guzzo, Marvel's PR liason, who wouldn't give out any 
more information. By then it was too late, as the discussion thread left 
the X-crossover behind and moved onto Fabian Niceza's writing prowess 
and then onto fans of his work on Psi-Force which inevitably led to 
discussion on another New Universe title, DP7, and everybody ended 
up sitting around saying how DP7 was one of Marvel's best ever titles.

The Usenet newsgroups are a fun place to hang out, to appreciate Jar of Fools or Thieves and Kings, or 
to argue who would win in a battle between Thor and Juggernaut. More next month.


------


Okay people? Thoughts? Time to tear it apart before I sent it across 
to Dez Skinn.
.................................
Rich Johnston,[r j johnston] at [ncl.ac.uk]   Dirtbag #1 has now shipped
from Brenners. Dirtbag #2 will be shipping sometime. Hopefully this month.
Dirtbag #4 can now be ordered under Twist and Shout Comics.