Kicking Off My New Column
Well friends, my name is Chuck. Who am I? I'm a podcaster, the principal owner of Comic Related and I just happen to be the guy who organizes and edits content here at CR. Honestly, it's been far too long since I penned a regular column for the site. I've had the burning desire to get back into the recurring feature game and felt inspired by all the great content flowing onto the site each day thanks to our outstanding columnists. That led to this, the kickoff for my new column... The Read Less Traveled.
How did the column start? If you were to check with my family, they would tell you that I pretty much live and breathe comics. Most hours of any given day, I'm thinking about series I'm reading, determining who to talk to next or contemplating ways to expand Comic Related to help more creators. The wonderful side effect of those sequentially-focused hours... I get exposed to a wide variety of titles and creative individuals. That's what led me to start this column.
What will I cover? It's a pretty simple. This column will be a soundboard where I chat up a mix of small and independent press titles that are being solicited. The ground rules are simple... No Marvel or DC here. They get plenty of press elsewhere and don't need me to shine a spotlight on what they're creating. Likewise, Image and Dark Horse will only be mentioned when their series is utterly, jaw dropping surprising. Yes, the stars of this column are all those companies and creators that fall just outside the big four. From individual creations to mid-level comic companies, I plan to chart a course through what's out there and offer up recommendations.
So get to the plan already! Each month, I will sit down with the current issue of Previews, read it cover to cover and share titles I'm excited to see released. I'll toss in a few covers and add a breakdown of why each issue made my list. My goal is to get this information into your hands just in time to add the titles, if they sound interesting, to your local comic book store pull list before Diamond closes orders for that month. Over time, I plan to expand the column beyond Previews to include series that aren't quite up to that level of distribution and even reach out to titles that are going out through alternate distributors. All good things in time, right?
Okay, okay... Get Started! For this first column (which will hit the site tomorrow), I'm going to break one of my rules. This first column, focusing on the January 2009 Previews (for titles arriving in stores March 2009) is already past the order cutoff date. For this round, you're going to have to reorder anything you find interesting, but next month we'll get the recommendations to you well in advance.
Excited yet? Check back tomorrow for the first monthly rundown!
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