About ComicBloc
GeoffJohns.com was created in 1999 when a young writer from Michigan got his start in comics out in California. At the time, it was a simple forum meant to allow Geoff to connect with new-found fans of his work (Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E.). Geoff managed to slowly acclimate himself more into the comics industry, leading to more writing opportunities and higher-profile books. In the meantime, readers began to be attracted to his writing because of a confluence of respect for the past, innovative stories, and his general attitude toward fandom.
His work with other professionals began to attract them to the site – and this in turn caused the site to grow. More and more professionals wanted to be associated with the site – and this in turn with Geoff signing his first exclusive with DC prompted Josh, Geoff and myself to analyze spinning his site off into a stand-alone new platform. And thus, ComicBloc was formed.
The other important factor was a long-term belief that I’ve had that online communities CAN be successful, and more than hate-filled bile magnets. Josh and I have worked our whole career in interactive production and advertising, which has helped us use this as a platform to bring design, and play with growing technology. This led us to also begin giving artists blog platforms that to this point didn’t have digital presences: Scott Kolins, Leonard Kirk, Ethan VanSciver (and one for his wife, because Sharis is awesome).
A lot has happened over the last 10 years: Wizard has turned from the apex of the industry into something far lower; Newsarama got bought out; SilverBulletComicBooks turned into ComicsBulletin; mySpace rose and then fell, defeated by Facebook, which is loathed as much as it’s used; most blogs have been outstripped by the role Facebook provides. We are still here.
The site is, and always has been, about a love of comics, and a celebration of the community. Because of the internal growth of the site, it’s also had a unique community that has always been its lifeblood. Geoff got bigger, and in turn, so did we. Author Greg Rucka asked to use us for his official forums and we were happy to oblige. Ron Marz and J. Torres came shortly after. We’re happy to be a home for these people, and hope to be able to do more for them.
In 2006, by some obscene head-wound, we decided to turn the fanboyishness into more than a forum, and started creating content. Over the course of 3 years we created over 1,000 pieces of content for the news site, further ingraining us to the industry. At its peak, we had two editors and ten writers. In 2009, we began the process of overhauling the site in preparation for the fourth phase of our lives. We did our best to compete for scoops with the big dogs: ComicBookResources, Newsarama, etc – and ran ourselves ragged doing so.
The site was hacked unfortunately later that year, and in the process of restoring it, the server crashed, eliminating a great deal of work, and corrupting months of post information. This had the practical effect of setting us back for years while we re-focused on other things, and the site slowly languished back to our core community.
However, Josh and I sat down and decided to do it again – and you are looking at the first steps in that new endeavor. This is just getting started, and we hope to have much bigger content contributions in the future. Our new goal: create content for our members, and continue to foster a respect for the medium as a whole.
