The changing face of Comicbookmovie.com
I remember roughly two years ago first stumbling on CBM when they ran that April Fools Day story about Wolverine appearing in the Incredible Hulk. Later when I found out that this news as false I did not return to CBM for several months. When I returned I was stunned to see how much it had grown. There were people in the comments sections, not many, but there were a few. It was people like Shaman, TheMyth, Joslezio, Souleater, RorMachine( then going by Rorschach01), IonParalax, and several others who are no longer with us. This was a time when we never saw the editors, we would occasionally receive comments by the only editors at the time, Jim, JMan, and Nate Best.
A lot of the users I consider CBM staples were nonexistent, we didn’t have LEEE, Joshw, Multi, IntsigatorGirl would occasionally show up, but the only other female presence on the site was THEPHOENIX when she would log in under my name. I look at the number of users and feel glad that our community has grown so. We even had a target for our pent up frustrations in the form of Supermike, our own little troll. But as annoying as he was, he was still part of the community.
Articles then were almost exclusively posted by Jman, with Ror or myself occasionally contributing, but over the months, the site grew to the point where we had dozens of users posting articles a day, it was wonderful, we were receiving news from so many diverse sources.
At this point the little Editorial section was thriving, this was before the fan fic tab and all of the fan fics contributed were placed in Editorials. I admit I feel a sense of pride when I think about the progression of the fan fic section. When I first arrived on the site, TheMyth was the first to post a fan fic that I can recall, it was his X-Men stories. After reading them I became interested in Shaman’s work, eventually Shaman did his now nonexistent cast of the Justice League and his outline that pitted them against the New Gods of Apokalips. I did my first cast as a follow up to his; I cast the New Gods of Apokalips on February 12th 2009. From then on, it was an addiction. There were only a few of us and our articles would stay up front in editorial for days if not weeks before being replaced by more. I did my first story, Joslezio cast the Teen Titans, SoulEater wrote his Weapon X story. It was all well thought out and high quality work, no one person casts or casts without pictures, we put our hearts into our work.
It is because of users like us that more people began submitting fan material, and the almighty Galaktus in his infinite wisdom opened up a fan fic tab. And thus began what I think of as the Golden Age of CBM. People came from all over and began doing Fan Casts, News articles and Editorials, at that point it was still manageable, you could still post something and expect it to still be read.
We were doing it for fun, something to do while we wait for more news about comics, I remember my joy when my first story made the front page. “Batman 5 Shadow of The Bat part 2” Probably my most riveting story, shortly after that my 108 Character fan cast made the front, and at that point the fan casts on CBM exploded. Soon then new user LEEE777 posted the entire cast of the Avengers, and that made the front as well. Then another newer user, Joshw24 posted his 200 character Marvel cast, it was the last casting to make the front, the novelty had worn off and fan fics stopped making it to the front. We were all disappointed, especially me, I had just completed a 330 character X-Men cast that never saw the front. But we understood, it was after all a news site. I remember seeing links to my Justice League fan casts in other sites, there the articles were about how great a site like CBM was for fostering such creativity in its users. People joined CBM to read the rare fan fic casting or sketch by Shaman that made front, they joined to comment on the fan work.
After this we had the quite humorous “Supermike wars”. Some of the users had grown tired of Supermike and decided to make fake log ins. We had “Supermikesdad” “SupermikesMom” “Supermikesnonexistantgirlfriend”, “Supermikestherapist” and my personal favorite, “Supermikesdog” among others. This went on for a month, and grew old. It ended in a climatic battle one late night when THEPHOENIX who was posing as “Supermikesnonexistantgirlfriend” had it out with all of the other Supermikes, until the real one himself stepped in and apologized for everything. After that we never saw him again, some say he is still among us, posing as another user. Some say that people just aren’t looking in the right shallow graves, no one knows the truth, and if they do they are not talking.
About this time more editors started to pop up on the site, first there was Ed Gross, then Multi. Rorschach01 became and editor. We got more news and fan fic, about this time I stopped submitting news, what was the point the articles the editors do usually made the front, even if they were not the first one to be submitted. I focused on fan fic and began churning out better quality work to compete with the new users who began submitting amazing material, users like AnilRickly, and BatmanKnight.
We had a fun costume contest for Halloween, and got to see what everyone else on here looked like.
Then we had the User awards and things started to get weird.
There is no relation between the awards and that it is just things were changing, its hard to see something you love change, friends come and go. Rorschach01 became RorMachine, LEEE threatened to leave the site, I got my own stalker/hater. This is when the fan fic started growing out of control, I posted a story I spent months writing, only for it to be knocked to the second page in fan fic in a day.
Then tragedy struck, one of our long time users wife sent me a message saying that TheMyth was dying. I wrote a tribute to him, which made it to CBM’s front page. Luckily his wife exaggerated his condition and he is on the long road to recovery.
Shortly after this, my own life took a turn for the worse. A person I knew sent a virus to my computers, crashing them, he then went on to cancel my Deviantart.com and Writing.com accounts as well as my Youtube and others. He even wrote an article on here saying I was dead, hacked my e-mail and change mine and THEPHOENIX’s passwords. I lost everything on my computer, including dozens of partially completed stories and castings. I can rewrite those, but what loss really hurt was the fact that I lost my credibility among my friends on CBM.
When I was able to get a working computer I tried to set things right, I almost wished I never came back on as THEHAWK I still get angry e-mails from users about what happened. I try everyday to rebuild what I had.
After my personal drama boiled down, I tried resubmitting fan work, but it was a madhouse, it was impossible to submit anything without it getting buried, us old timers grew frustrated with it. Shaman stopped sketching. Several of us contacted CBM about it. Then CBM announced that users can’t repost fan material anymore. I may as well stop writing, that was the only way I could ensure that my work gets noticed, my last story got buried by two articles about a goldfish for Captain America, a dozen one person casts for Cap and a Mr. Bean for Cap article.
Now Galaktus plans to make a separate site for fan fic, they call it a solution, but it feels like exile. We who submitted fan fic helped this site grow, now it feels like we are being cast aside. He then made Joselzio and editor and fan fic has improved, but I’m not sure it can be helped.
Well there you go, this is a history of CBM from my point of view. I know it is biased, but I gave my honest views on everything. I love CBM, it is one of the few constants in my turbulent life. I will be active in it for as long as I am allowed, if my account is shut down tomorrow, then so be it. It’s been a good ride, I look forward to what the new decade will bring. I will keep writing and reading the work of others.
Once again,
HAWK out