So, hey, look at that. New website – and it’s our birthday! I suppose that warrants a bit of commentary to go with it, no? Alright, here goes:
In 2009, I saw “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” with some friends and I didn’t hate it. The reaction that I saw on the internet and with other comic-reading people I knew was overwhelmingly negative, but for the most part everyone seemed to be focusing on rather trite elements that had simple explanations for why they were as they were. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a great movie or anything, but some people just couldn’t get over that one silly Deadpool factor, and it was beginning to grate my own inner fanboy. So me, being the bigheaded guy that I am, decided that since I clearly knew more about all of this, I had to start a blog to write out all my thoughts and tell everyone about why I felt it was silly to have such passionate hate for “Wolverine” — especially when that reason was “they got Deadpool so wrong, man!” (Of course they did. It wasn’t Deadpool.)
That, however, is possibly the lamest origin story ever. Most origin stories are cool and have some sense of validity to them. There are sites that began because they wanted to provide a better comic community, and others because the writers behind it wanted to make a difference or say something that had never been said before. Somewhere out there is the Spider-Man of comic bloggers, who is trying to use his or her great power with great responsibility. Not Multiversity, though; I was just a Grant Morrison readin’ comic book kid who was tired of all the kids at my shop complaining about one dumb thing, and I started a blog to exorcise my thoughts rather than have the same conversations over and over and over again with the same vehemently negative comic reading fans hanging out at the store where I picked up my weekly pull.
Yet, as time went on, validity came to the site. The sites evolution was slow and arguably wasn’t on purpose, but when we got that ball rolling it never stopped. As time went by relationships with independent comic companies strengthened, friendships with creators began to blossom, our names started appearing on the fronts and backs of comics and trades and our thoughts and opinions are taken seriously every now and then (one might even call us mildly influential!). I don’t want to sound excessively egotistical or anything, but I think we’ve done a pretty good job in our corner of the comic internet as a collective whole.
So to everyone that has been reading our articles, passing on our links to friends and forums, subscribing to our RSS feed, following us on Twitter, e-mailing us, commenting on articles and/or supporting us in some form or fashion: thank you. The site would not have continued on beyond its first year (it might not have even made it that long) if there wasn’t an audience interested in what we collectively have to say. That people out there who have never even met us trust our opinions is quite an honor, honestly and truly. I only hope we’re not steering you in the wrong direction.
And hey, to those of you that have derided us and said negative things in comments, Twitter or on your sites, thanks for at least mentioning us! I’m not one to get too upset over stuff like that, and hey, to each their own. Maybe you’ll give us a second chance now that we have this sweet new banner at the top of the page, perhaps?
Oh, and to new readers: Hi! How are you?
So as we turn 3, Multiversity is taking a pretty big change. As you can see, we have this brand new site at a brand new host (same name, though!) and we hope you like all the hard work put into it by our main man Sergei Shiryayev. Sergei has worked tirelessly to get the site functional and up and running for you (and me), and I’m incredibly proud of the final product. You’ll notice the obvious changes, but there are so many little ones that are going to help us do a better job of providing content for you on a daily basis that really make all the difference. We did lose all of our comments from the old site and some links might be broken, so we apologize in advance to those of you who left comments and can no longer find them, but it’s all worth it to me to finally see the new Multiversity banner at the top of the page.
Continued belowMoving forward, my only hope is to do a better job at reflecting the wider world of comics than we have been doing. Multiversity has generally prided itself on being a proponent of creator-owned (with a healthy helping of company-owned in there as well, mainly because), but there is more that I would like us to do. There are people out there (you know who you are) who have asked us to do reviews of their comics on the site, and while I would’ve loved to read and give critiques to every one personally there’s only so much time I have to get things done, let alone the other folks on this site. However, I am proud to announce that Multiversity is opening its doors to that once again for a new upcoming column that you should be seeing soon, so if you have a book that you’d like to see critiqued on the site be sure to get in contact with us personally or via our Contact form.
Not only that, but we plan to expand our coverage in general with a wider range of news as well as several new columns we are currently coordinating into bringing to life, as well as a few new additions to the site staff. There’s one column I’ve been itching to do but placed on the back burner for a while, and you should be seeing that within the month. It’s all very exciting!
Our second year was pretty big for us, all things considered, but I can only assume that our third year will be huge – and we are doing it simply for “the love of the game”, so to say. No more, no less; there really is no grand ulterior motive here. We just want to talk about good comics. (Well, and the bad ones too on occasion, but mainly the good.)
So before we go, I of course want to extend thanks from myself to the current MC staff and all those that worked with me on the site at one time or another in the past. Everybody who has come to MC to contribute has been really great, and the wide variety of content they’ve provided here has a sense of personality I haven’t seen anywhere else. (Then again, I’m 100% biased.)
I’d like to extend a big thanks to Image (and Shadowline and Top Cow), Dark Horse, IDW, BOOM!, Valiant, Top Shelf, Archaia, Oni, Aspen, Fantagraphics, Red 5, Drawn and Quarterly, First Second, Archie, Houghton Mifflin, Harper Collins, Telltale and Marvel (and anyone whom I’m forgetting at the moment) for all the support they’ve given us and continue to give us, as well as all the creators who have sent us gifts for the upcoming birthday/relaunch celebration and those who have taken the time to stand with us at shows and talk excessively about our favorite picture books.
I’d also like to personally thank Tim Daniel for helping us out with graphics and design all over the site. Tim is a saint and an excessively nice guy, and you should all pre-order his book “Enormous” from Image in July.
Finally, if you guys have any feedback on the new site or notice anything awry, please comment on this article or send me an e-mail directly at matthew@multiversitycomics.com, and I’ll try to address it directly and quickly.
I’m sure everyone on this site could say something differently at this point, but I will at least say on behalf of everyone that we very much appreciate the support that we’ve gotten in the three years we have existed. I never expected in 2009 that I would be working on this site as hard or as long as I have (truthfully, I figured I’d get bored of blogging like most kids with blogs), and now that blog is a site and that site is revamped and on a new home just in time for us to turn 3 years old. To borrow a catchphrase, “Cool. Cool cool cool.”
In closing, here is a picture of me and my cat hard at work on the site, which I believe is a perfect summation of how this website has always worked behind the scenes:
-Matthew Meylikhov
Boston, MA 2012
