Brian Sez: Welcome!

Right, so it's after midnight, so that makes it Monday, and, although I'm not sure all of the backstage technical stuff (and hurray for Kate McMillan, too right!)is going to let you see this the second I post this, at least I know I've written the introduction. So, this is the Savage Critic.

I've been writing reviews under this name for, basically, forever. It was back on CompuServe on Doug Pratt's Comics & Animation forum in the early 90s. I want to say '94, but heck my memory for dates is terrible, so maybe it was as late as dunno, '97. Either way, it's been more than 10 years, I'm sure of that.

A lot of things started there -- I seem to remember the first Newsarama posts launching from there, and Rich Johnston was doing a thing, too.

Anyway, one day I idly commented that I read pretty much every comic that came out each week, and someone (Lou Perez, maybe?) said "No way, prove it", so I started writing these super-short (sometimes one word short) little reviews of pretty much every comic that came out every week. It's kinda my job -- since I own a comic book store, people ask me a lot about what I think about specific books and storylines and characters. I need to have an informed opinion.

And there weren't as many titles released each week, back then, either!!

I did it, mostly weekly, for at least a year or two, then starting burning out (as I'm sure you could imagine), and when I migrated to the Real internet, away from CompuServe, I stopped writing it.

Flash forward a few years (2000? 2001?), and I started realizing that this internet thing was actually catching on, and I knew we had to do a basic "business card" web site for the store (Comix Experience, if you didn't know); but that it needs *some* measure of "content" to get people to pay attention to it. I thought, "oh, sure, I can do the Savage Critic again!" -- enough time had passed to make me forget how much work it actually is!

Those should all be archived here somewhere, though I don't know if there's a direct link (the site is down as I write this, prepping for the launch) any longer.

I did it for a while, then starting burning out again, and Jeff Lester thought we should switch to Blogger, so I didn't have to keep emailing him my weekly thing, so he could post it, and I convinced him that he should join in reviews with me -- harder to burn out when there are two of us.

And then we invited in Graeme McMillan, who makes writing funny snark look so easy, I could cry. And I thought we really were rolling along.

Then Jeff decided it was time for him to retire, quit the store from his one day a week gig, and just generally focus all the time he was giving me to write for his own career -- eminently the correct move, if you ask me.

Well, I wasn't sure if it could survive without Jeff's solid backbone, so I spent several weeks casting about for what to do, and, as usual, it was a stray comment by Jeff that proved to be the right thing after all.

"You should just invite, I don't know, Jog, or Spurgeon, or whoever, and make it like the Justice League of Reviewers."

Oh. Exactly! Duh!

So I did, and we are, and that's where we're at now.

Conceptually, there are 7 of us now, which means "daily posts" (will Graeme continue to be insane and write daily entries? We'll all find out!), since everyone is committed to doing one review a week here. In practice, they'll probably clump up, but let's see what happens. And if someone "misses" a week, that's fine too, because the rest of us will cover.

That's the plan, at least.

We're going to start at 7 (well, 8 really, because I think I put together too good of a group, and basically forced Jeff out of "retirement"), and there's a chance we'll expand it from there. There's at least another dozen people on my Dream List, but I didn't want to try to start it TOO wide because that's just a mess organizationally.

Anyway, I'll still be posting "retail intelligence" here, as well (I really don't want a second blog, darn it), when it comes up. Even though it kinda won't fit. But that's OK, I think.

Over the next day or two expect everyone to pop in, say hi, and then we'll get set reviewing. I'll be back later today (well, tomorrow for me, because I should go to sleep now, so I can get up and start writing Tilting tomorrow!) with a review as well myself.

Welcome to the New Savage Critic, hope you enjoy the ride!

-B