Why am I starting to feel old?

Internet time is compressed and strange, and it is a whole lot of new all of the time, and so when things last it feels a little weird, doesn't it?  

It was ten years ago today that I started posting openly to the web using the Savage Critic name -- that was on comixexperience.com, and something broke that I hadn't noticed until a week ago, and I don't know how to fix it and anyway, that site will be revamped (and hopefully properly restored) sometime in June-ish, so sorry you can't go back and look at Public post #1 at this very second.

I had posts on Doug Pratt's long-gone Comics & Animation Forum on CompuServe (Wheeee, dial-up connections!) under the name maybe 4-5 years before that, but since that was only for CompuServe members, and, anyway there's no way to search those to day that I know about, I don't know if I can count any of that ? Either way, I'm one of the older (f not oldest) "named" internet comics commentators. Rich Johnston changed names 3 or 4 times since then; I believe I predate Johanna's Comics Worth Reading... who else am I missing?

Things were different then -- this whole name thing started from me doing one-sentence-or-less reviews for pretty much every single comic that shipped each week. It was on a bet. I'd lose that bet today (there's more new material than I have hours, in an average week of 2011). I had an awful lot of one-word reviews as time went on, I recall.

Now, The Savage Critics is  collection of voices -- you probably don't like how often any of us post, but since I think total donations to the site last year were like $20, maybe, so I'm not so sure that you really get to complain, hoss -- and I want to thank all of my co-voices over this last public decade. Most especially Jeff Lester without whom which there's probably no chance you'd be reading ANY of this (what did I know from setting up websites?), and who is something like 9 3/4 years of talking about comics on this site. Plus he's been leading weekly (!) podcasts for longer than I want to think about, and everyone should love Jeff....

...love him....all....night....long....

(Wow, I could hear him shudder, all the way from over here!)

I also want to super-thank Mr. Graeme McMillan and the lovely Kate McMillan (who keeps control of the site for me) -- I think it's actually Graeme's world of comics, and we just live in it... I mean, seriously, is there a website you don't see a post from G on at some point? I'm not wrong, am I? He's the only man who is on Robot 6 AND Blog @ Newsarama, right?

And I want to thank in no particular order the rest of my fellow Critics through the years: Jog and Abhay and Tucker and Douglas and Sean and David and Chris and Johanna and Diana and even the late and lamented Dick Hyacinth who made three lovely posts and then never said another word since, or even responded to email. We miss you, Dick! ET phone home!

And, I guess this is the place in the speech where I thank you, The Readers? I mean, clearly, I like the sound of my own voice, but if other people didn't say "Hey, I kinda like it, too", then I'd be a lot quieter, I think. So, thank you, the silent ones as well as the ones who take the time to comment, I wouldn't bother if I didn't  think I entertained you.

So yeah ten years, here's to another ten and whoo-freakin'-hoo to comics, right?

-B