Hello. My name is Robert Smithers and I am a contributing editor at Suite 101 in the subject of comic books.
I plan on covering major developments at comic book publishers. This includes upcoming projects, hot comics, web sites, and business and marketing. I will also try to cover interesting information on writers and artists, both their business and artistic endeavors.
Comic Books have two sides. The first side is the artistic and technical side of creating a comic book. The artistry is writing stories and drawing pictures to illustrate the stories. The technical side is primarily the publishing of the comic magazines. This includes the quality of the paper or printed material, the finish of the paper, and numerous covers that can be produced. Recently, the technical side may also include coloring comics during publication using computer controlled color process.
The second side of comics is the business side. This includes marketing, promotion, personnel decisions, and distribution of comics to your local retail store. It is incredible to me that comics are not available at most major drug stores and discount retail outlets (e.g. "...-marts"), as well as convenience stores and comic specialty stores.
There is a wide range of comic book related information on the internet. Generally, comic Internet sites fall into four major categories.
First are the corporate sites. Yeah, they are promoting themselves and perhaps giving you a few glimpse of upcoming information so you will be sure to go out and "buy". There is nothing wrong with these sites. As long as you understand that the corporation is on-line to make money by promoting themselves. Most corporate sites hire full time programmers and are slick and well done.
The second type of web site is the Comic Specialty Store. They are on-line for the same reason as the big corporations - self promotion and sales. These sites run the gamut from "excellent" to "what's the point". The top ones give you tons of information, while the bottom dwellers nearly say "Come visit our store on Main Street "
The third type of web site is one made by individuals. Individuals make up the vast majority of comic related web sites, however, In My Humble Opinion (IMHO), only a minority of these sites are actually worth your time and effort to visit. Individual's sites can be dedicated to the hobby of comic books (buy, sell, trade, and general information) or they can be dedicated to the history of a specific comic book character or characters.
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