What Do You Mean They're Not Superheroes?: Article 101

I can be a pessimist about certain things.

When I originally convinced Darren to go in on this endeavor over a year ago I didn't have much faith that it would last longer than a month or two. I figured that we would get 10 listeners and that we'd lose our passion for it and that I'd get tired of doing all of this extra work outside of my regular duties as a manager of a comic book store in addition to all the other things I had decided to put on my plate. And I think that if we hadn't added Rob to the show that we would have run out of things to say pretty quick. But once we became a three man show we started to find a whole new way to click together and things just sort of started falling into place.

All of a sudden we were doing everything we could to try to get a new article out every day of the week (and though we still have problems with that I think we do a pretty good job). And we were talking about doing all kinds of other stuff. We started getting more listeners too. These days we average over 40 downloads of each individual episode but we've also started seeing more and more people dipping back into the backlog and catching up on a months worth of episodes or so ... so it might actually be closer to 50. And while that's nothing, minuscule in comparison to the kinds of listener base that other comics podcasts have I can say that we're only just beginning. We're proud of each and every article we post, each and every show we upload and each and every one of our listeners we manage to touch (and that's not nearly as creepy coming from me as it might have been from Rob allow me to assure you).

This show has served as an extension of so many of the things that I love about working in the retail end of the comics industry. It has given me a much wider audience to the recommendations that I make from week to week and it's done so in such an enjoyable and interactive way that I can't imagine the future without it. Thanks to this site I have been able to tell people about the comics that I love that don't get the kind of attention that I think they deserve, books like: The Elephantmen, Scalped, Criminal, Lone Ranger, Jonah Hex, Noble Causes, Dynamo 5, Guerrilas, Wonder Woman, Secret Six, The Alcoholic, House of Mystery, The Wildstorm Universe ... the list goes on and on. I've had the chance to tell people about my love for the comics industry and the artform in all kinds of ways and it's been nothing but a true and complete joy.

And all of this love came before we started getting e-mails from the people who actually make these comics that I love so much started getting in contact with us saying how much they enjoyed reading the reviews that we wrote and hearing our comments about their books. We've heard from Brahm Revel, Gail Simone, Rick Remender, Sean McKeever, Dean Haspiel, Peter Tomasi, and developed deeper connections with creators like Cullen Bunn, Brian Hurtt, Jeremy Haun, & Chris Samnee. The future of comics are in the hands of these amazing creators and to know that they have their ears and eyes on the voices and words of their fans makes me think that the future is in capable and worthy hands.

I can't thank the people who have made this possible for me enough, it's been a real joy to work with Darren & Rob and the guys at The Fantasy Shop for providing us with webspace to store our shows over the last year and most of all the people who talk on the message boards, listen to the shows, comment on the blog, and send us e-mail.

If you want to show your thanks for all the hard work we put into the show we don't ask much, just turn your friends onto the show, get them to download and listen to the podcast, to read our articles, to check out the message boards ... to know that the work we produce is being enjoyed is really all the thanks we need.

But if we saw some ComicDorksCast t-shirts out there it would certainly put a smile out our faces as well.

Thanks to you all and here's to another year of The ComicDorksCast and another 100 What Do You Mean They're Not Superheroes?

-Scott