Various European Spidermen, a user’s perspective on the newsarama overhaul, yet more reportage on the Captain Britain media storm the UK is weathering, a quick look at an interesting new “beginners guide to comics” and the usual Den of Geek links! All in today’s (just scraping in on) Sunday Pages!
 

I was fairly amused to see this little story about “the French Spiderman” on the BBC site - not least because of how much Spider-Man material the video report seems to actually reference - though it’s worth noting that they forgot the hyphen (or did they leave it out for copyright reasons?)

Of course, the name just reminds me of Italian Spiderman! (JH)

It’s not always the done thing to comment publicly on one site about the quality of another, but since it seems like a big deal, we can’t really let the Newsarama relaunch pass without remark. The site has been acquired by a company called Imaginova, and completely redesigned and overhauled. While there have been grumbles about the fact that the main site now covers film and TV as well as comics - thus apparently diluting the amount of comics content - these can be countered by pointing out that a slightly different URL makes the site comics-only. The bigger problems, really, lie with the changes made to the site’s forum - not only have users been confronted with an entirely new layout and function set (with many features they’d previously taken for granted missing entirely), but they’ve found that the forum has essentially “started over” - no old posts (and that’s a hell of a lot of message board history right there) were migrated, and there’s also even been trouble moving user accounts that has resulted in people having to register slightly altered usernames. The old archives, meanwhile, can still be accessed by going here, but it’s anyone’s guess how long they’ll remain up there. Many other of the obvious criticisms are outlined here, and the whole thing seems like a complete fiasco. Newsarama, along with Comic Book Resources, is one of the two biggest and oldest comics communities on the net - and in one fell swoop, that’s all been completely eradicated. And what seems particularly strange is for a site to still be in “Beta”, without leaving the option open to still use the old version until all bugs and problems are sorted out. It all rather leaves the field clear for CBR to swoop in and become the dominant site, and that surely can’t have been Imaginova’s intention when they bought the place. Can the ‘Rama recover, or is this the beginning of the end for a site that I, like many others, found to be my first port of call for comics news and discussion for so many years? (SP)

This week, you might’ve seen Captain Britain popping up all over the shop, occasionally misreported as the idea that Gordon Brown has become a superhero, just because he was featured in the first issue. It’s odd to see comics getting this much press, though according to comic shop workers (in London, at least) it has actually had a noticeable effect, making people enquite about this new issue. Good job that it’s actually pretty damn good, too! Cornell himself comments a little on the situation on his blog. (JH)

It’s probably not hugely relevant to our regular readership (since we imagine most of you to be long-standing comics readers of discerning taste, naturally), but over at FreakyTrigger, Martin Skidmore is currently going through a “beginner’s guide” to comics, rattling through various genres, publishers and luminaries, and it’s worth a glance. The pieces are perhaps a little short and lacking in detail, but then that’s from the perspective of someone who knows that detail and would like to see it written about - this is clearly aimed at FT readers who know next to nothing, and serves as a decent if lightweight introduction. Certainly, it’s pleasing to see that he’s not just going for the simple, obvious route (”Alan Moore wrote Watchmen and is the bestest comics writer ever”), although I can’t say I agree with his almost complete brushing-off of Stan Lee’s story contributions (but hey, that’s a debate that will always rage). Of course, those with a bit more general comics knowledge who want to find out more about specific topics will find themselves better-served by Scott Tipton’s excellent Comics 101, a site that takes a similar structural approach (of alighting each time on something the author wants to discuss, rather than a rigid alphabetical list) and which I’ve often found to be a good read. (SP)

Finally, this week’s Alternate Cover column over at Den of Geek - Why Ang Lee’s Hulk Doesn’t Rule (a companion, though not a direct response to the article “Why Ang Lee’s Hulk Rules“)! (JH)

Tags: Captain Britain, Hulk, Italian Spiderman, Paul Cornell
Publisher: The Sunday Pages