Post #1001 – Chapter Six: "Sorry, No More Fan-Fic"
I was…otherwise occupied yesterday, so I neglected to mention that the latest installment of my “Behind the Counter” column (in which I discuss the eBay at annoying length) is up over at the new Comic Book Galaxy. L@@K! H@T SEXY RARE VARIANT!
Found via…um, well, I found it somewhere on the internet, I just don’t know where: SF Weekly interviews the heavy metal musician Thor, and asks him how he would fare in battle not just with other rock and roll legends, but with Marvel Comics’ The Mighty Thor as well! (URL may not be safe for work, though the page itself is…well, aside from the title.)
Now all good comic-weblog-reading humans should already be reading the essential Neilalien. But I’m gonna link to him anyway, as one of my favorite things that Neilalien does is his occasional in-depth technical explanations about the way his site works, and how other people can improve their own sites. (For example, I faithfully use the “cite” HTML tag when appropriate, solely due to this post of Mr. Alien’s.) The latest example can be found here, where Neilalien discusses the problems of trying to search his site for discussions of the comic book Top Ten as opposed to “top 10 lists,” as well as his solution to said problem. Interesting stuff, particularly if you hand-tool your own page.
I stumbled across this the other day, as I was doing some Googling around: an informational document from 2002 on Archie Comics’ company and demographics. For a second I thought “wow, I found secret stuff!” — but no, it’s accessible from the main page, though a few menus deep. There are a couple neat things to learn, like that it could cost up to about 12 grand to advertise inside an Archie, or on one of the covers for up to $18,000.
Here are a few choice quotes from that document, describing the Archie brand of comics:
“Major television shows such as Beverly Hills 90210 and Happy Days were modeled on ARCHIE and his pals out of recognition of the success of this property”“…Interest has been expressed by several organizations to revive the ARCHIES [musical] group”
“The ARCHIE property is hot because of the current resurgence of family values and the desire of parents to find good, wholesome and safe entertainment for their kids”
“An NBC prime-time live action movie of the week showcased ARCHIE and his pals and the movie has been released on video”
“ARCHIE and his pals are a multimedia force which continue to receive untold exposure”
The rest of the document is devoted to brief descriptions of the Archie cast, a history of the company, and a trivia quiz. (No explanation as to what happened to Jughead’s cousin Souphead, however.)
So long, Bob.
