From: esti@quads.uchicago.edu (Paul A. Estin)
Subject: WELCOME TO REC.ARTS.COMICS (parts 1-3 of 6)
Summary: monthly informational posting, newly revised
Reply-To: esti@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: U. Michigan Cognitive Psychology
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 06:07:04 GMT

WELCOME TO REC.ARTS.COMICS (parts 1-3 of 6)
written by lots of different people
edited by Paul A. Estin
Special thanks this time around to Tom Galloway

[last update: 8/26/92]

This monthly posting, provided to help out new readers of the
rec.arts.comics newsgroups, contains the following parts:

1. where to read/post: the rec.arts.comics hierarchy and related newsgroups
2. glossary of some common terms
3. the "FAQ": answers to frequently-asked questions
4. guidelines for posting articles
5. e-mail/ftp addresses to ask for various types of comics-related files
6. e-mail addresses of comics-related mailing lists.

	For more general information about Usenet, please examine the
newsgroups news.announce.newusers and news.newusers.questions; there
is lots of useful information in them.  Feel free to e-mail me if you
have any suggestions as to what should be included in this "Welcome to
Rec.arts.comics" post.

1.	the rec.arts.comics hierarchy and related newsgroups

	The r.a.c set of newsgroups, in general, is devoted to the
discussion of comic books, graphic novels, and sequential art.

	During summer 1992, due to high volume and disparate interests
among its readers, r.a.c. (which had been a single newsgroup plus
associated splinter groups) was reorganized into several, more
specific groups.  Rec.arts.comics itself (without a suffix) is
scheduled to be rmgrouped on September 30th and will then be
unaccessible to most, if not all, Usenet sites. If for some reason
your site isn't carrying the new groups, you should contact your
netnews administrator as soon as possible and ask them what's up.

	The current r.a.c.* groups are:

	rec.arts.comics.info: A moderated group, r.a.c.i. is intended
for factual and informational postings and reasonably detailed reviews
(i.e. a review on the level/complexity of "I really liked/hated
Suicide Squid #666" isn't going to cut it). Relatively low volume, the
idea is to have a very high signal to noise ratio in its postings.
Posting to this group will result in your post being emailed to the
moderator, who'll decide whether to post it to the group at large. In
general, turnaround time is within 24 hours, and the moderator
announces on the group if he'll not be posting for any longer period.
Followup discussion of posts here take place in the appropriate r.a.c.
group.

	rec.arts.comics.strips: For the discussion of comic strips and
editorial cartoons, their creators, and any spinoffs such as tv,
movies, collections, or merchandise.

	rec.arts.comics.xbooks: For discussion of Marvel mutant books
(defined as X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor, Excalibur,
Wolverine, and any mini-series or stories in anthology titles about
characters from those books).

	rec.arts.comics.marketplace: For the posting of For Sale and
Wanted posts dealing with any aspect of comics or related merchandise.
	It might be a good idea to post a general summary *only*, such
as "mostly mid-80s DC titles, including all Batman titles, most in NM
condition".  Ask that any interested people e-mail you for the entire
list, but *don't* post your list to the net.

	rec.arts.comics.misc: If it's about comics and doesn't fit in
the above groups, this is where to post it.

	In general, there should be almost no crossposting between the
above groups.  R.a.c. has taken the approach of developing a hierarchy
based on carving off well defined subtopics with their own
semi-defined readerships, off from the overall topic.  In particular,
all "for sale" posts should go in rec.arts.comics.marketplace, and
crossposting them elsewhere is *highly* discouraged.  (A number of
r.a.c.ers have stated that they will ignore For Sale posts made in
other groups, and it'll undoubtedly result in your getting some
flaming email.)  One other special note: material solely about xbooks
should be posted into r.a.c.xbooks and should not be crossposted into
r.a.c.misc.

	Note that posts which have nothing to do with comics, such as
non-comics-related Star Trek, political/religious rants or personal
attacks, have no place in r.a.c.. In particular, regarding the Usenet
Floating Homosexuality Flamewar, it is appropriate for the appearance
of gays in comics to be discussed, but rants either against or in
favor of homosexuality in the general sense are not appropriate.

	There are several groups which are tangentially related to
comics, and which may be more appropriate for a particular post.  It
*may* be appropriate, in limited contexts, to cross-post between one
of these groups and one of the rec.arts.comics groups, but be *very*
careful that your post is actually relevant to both groups!

	rec.arts.manga: Though not technically part of the
rec.arts.comics hierarchy (there was already one religious war on the
subject; let's not repeat it), this newsgroup is devoted to the
discussion of Japanese manga (which look a lot like comics to me, but
then I'm just an ethnocentric Westerner :).

	rec.arts.animation: a newsgroup devoted to the discussion of
animated films, TV shows, shorts, etc.  There are also innumerable
related newsgroups to this, such as rec.arts.disney and
alt.tv.tiny-toons, but in particular there is:

	rec.arts.anime: for discussion of Japanese animation.

	alt.fan.bugtown: for fans of Matt Howarth comics, including
_Savage Henry_ and _Those Annoying Post Brothers_.


2.	The USENET/ Rec.arts.comics lingo glossary:

bandwidth = analogous to a radio bandwidth (frequency), referring to
	the resources needed to propagate posts.  Usually used in the
	phrase "stop wasting bandwidth", which means simply "don't post
	if you don't have anything relevant to say."
btw = by the way
CBG = Comic Buyers' Guide, a weekly newspaper
Crisis = the Crisis on Infinite Earths (usually).  (See the "Frequently-
	Asked Questions" section below.)
CSN = Comic Shop News, a free weekly hype sheet
dangling plotline = an unresolved plotline or mystery which an author
	has apparently forgotten about, since it hasn't been mentioned
	in a long time.  Sometimes abbreviated "dangler".
flame = an inflammatory, insulting post
flame war = a flame response to a flame responding to a flame...
"the fourth wall" = originally used with reference to stage sets, this
	term refers to the imaginary wall between the characters and
	the audience.  "Breaking the fourth wall" refers to comics
	in which the characters are aware that they exist in a comic
	book, sometimes for the purpose of humor.
furry = anthropomorphic animal
FYI = for your information
IMHO = in my humble (or honest) opinion
IMPO = in my personal (or pompous) opinion
IOW = in other words
ito = in terms of
JLA, JLE, JLI, JLUTB = the popular DC super-hero groups "Justice League
	America", "Justice League Europe", "Justice League International",
	and for those tired of them, the hypothetical "Justice League
	Up-the-Butt"
kill file = a file usable in the "rn" and "nn" news programs that one can
	keep to "filter out" disliked topics, keywords, or posters
LSH = Legion of Super-heroes (a DC comic book)
OHOTMUDE = Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Deluxe Edition
patch = (see retcon)
pod person (or just 'pod') = a character who has been taken over by a
	new writer and/or editor and immediately acts very inconsistently with
	previous characterization, with no explanation given for the change.
	The term is from the mid-50s movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
	where aliens grew duplicates of people in giant pods. In r.a.c., the
	term is meant to indicate that the character is being so poorly
	handled relative to past characterization that the previous character
	seems to no longer exist and might as well have been replaced between
	issues by a physical duplicate grown in a pod somewhere...though no
	other character seems to notice the change. First use of 'pod' was in
	reference to the changeover after Keith Giffen left the JLI titles,
	concerning the characters Fire, Ice, Max, and Oberon.
post-Crisis = events/history/characters in the DC Universe as they existed
	*after* the Crisis on Infinite Earths.  (See the "Frequently-Asked
	Questions" section below.)
pre-Crisis = events/history/characters in the DC Universe as they existed
	*prior* to the Crisis on Infinite Earths.  (See the "Frequently-
	Asked Questions" section below.)
retcon = to retroactively change the continuity of a character or title.
	(This term, a r.a.c favorite, was coined by Damian Cugley).
		Originally, the term "retcon" was used only in cases where the
	interpretation of "facts" from earlier stories is changed, but the
	facts themselves are preserved.  For example, Alan Moore took took the
	character Swamp Thing, previously considered to be a man transformed
	into a plant creature, and with minimal changes to facts presented in
	previous stories, wrote Swamp Thing to be a "plant elemental", one of
	a long line of such beings.  Other standard examples would be Alan
	Moore's Miracleman, and the various retcons of Phoenix/Jean Grey in
	X-Men.
		A "patch" was the term used (taken from programmer's jargon)
	to mean an actual change, rather than merely filling in details.
		These days, however, "retcon" is used increasingly to mean
	changes to history as well as to retroactive continuity.  So, to
	"retcon" is to change history, so that something that had existed in
	the continuity of the fictional universe, not ONLY doesn't exist now,
	but in the fictional history, NEVER HAS existed.  This can be true of
	an event, of a character, or whatever.  For example, if Hawkman
	appears in the Justice League, and then	years later a writer decides
	that "No, Hawkman just came to Earth, he was *never* in the Justice
	League," that's a retcon.
                Retcon is also listed in the New Hacker's Dictionary, with
        credit given to r.a.c.
signal-to-noise ratio = in a newsgroup, the proportion of useful articles
	to useless ones (such as flames).  We like to keep the signal
	relatively high and the noise very low.
SOL = s--t out of luck
spoilers = information about a comic which could spoil the surprise for
	those who haven't read it yet
Squiddy = what some people call the annual r.a.c. Awards. See the next section
        for why this is the case.
TMNT = Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
wrt = with respect to
WSD = willing suspension of disbelief
:-) = a "smiley", used to indicate humor or sarcasm


3.	Frequently-Asked Questions

* What was the Crisis on Infinite Earths?
	The _Crisis on Infinite Earths_ was a 12-issue series
published by DC in 1985-6.  The "Crisis" effectively revamped the
entire DC Universe by merging several universes (containing the
various DC characters) into a single universe (whose history is still
somewhat unclear in parts).  The Crisis was used as an opportunity to
change DC history retroactively (see "retcon" in the list of
definitions), including the remaking of several popular (and some
not-so-popular) DC characters.  Thus people refer to the "post-Crisis"
Superman, Wonder Woman, etc., as distinct from the "pre-Crisis"
versions who existed on "Earth 1" or "Earth 2".
	The confusion *really* begins because the revamping and
"retconning" didn't all take place in the Crisis limited series
itself, nor in the comics immediately after then.  If DC had simply
started all their series over from scratch, that might have kept
things pretty straightforward.  Instead, they declared the Pre-Crisis
history to be implicitly intact, until and unless they could
explicitly create the new, post-Crisis versions of characters and
histories.
	Thus, new changes are still being made in titles today, more
than half a decade later.  So, for example, the "old" Hawkman appeared
in the "new" Justice League.  But then Timothy Truman began writing
_Hawkworld_, which retconned Hawkman's character; among other changes,
Hawkman "now" arrived on Earth much later.  *So*, the Hawkman who
appeared in the new Justice League comic (call him the Silver Age
Hawkman, or the pre-Crisis Hawkman) "now" (in real world time) "no
longer exists, and never has" (within current DC continuity).
	Confused yet?  Suffice it to say, the way DC handled the
Crisis and its aftermath confuses *lots* of readers and provides a
perennial topic of discussion on r.a.c.

* Where can I find "Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex"?
	In the late 1960s, Larry Niven wrote a hysterically funny
essay in which he speculated, tongue in cheek, about possible problems
that Superman (pre-Crisis version, of course) would have in attempting
to reproduce.  The essay appears in Niven's collections _All the
Myriad Ways_ and _N-Space_, and in the recent anthology _Alien Sex_.

* How do you spell/pronounce the last name of artist Bill Sienkiewicz?
	It's spelled as above, and pronounced "sin-KEV-itch".

* Wasn't there a Marvel mutant who was gay?
	Most likely you're thinking of the character Northstar
(Jean-Paul Beaubier) from _Alpha Flight_.  When John Byrne was writing
the series (issues #1-26), he made the point that Jean-Paul was gay,
using innuendo-- mostly tiny hints that are very obvious if you're
looking for them.  Here are the main references, paraphrased from
memory.
	In issues #7-8, Northstar and Aurora are visiting an old
friend of his, Raymonde Belmonde, in Montreal. Meeting him, Aurora
says, "Jean-Paul has told me all about you." She then goes off to
change clothes (having just switched personalities). As she comes
back, Belmonde is saying, "So you didn't tell her *all* about me -- I
thought that would have been odd."  After Belmonde has been killed by
the villain, a narration box describes the relationship between him
and Northstar: "Much more than a friend, he taught Jean-Paul Beaubier
not to fear his mutant power -- or any other thing." And at the end,
when Aurora blows up at him, she says "YOU, of all people -- *dare* to
judge *my* love life?"
	Finally, in #11's back-up story giving the origin of Northstar,
James Hudson comments that after Northstar's powers emerged he had 
everything -- fame, money, women; he notes that Northstar didn't seem
to be too interested in the women, and puts it down to the athlete's 
obsession with success at competition.
	The hints were subtle enough that you might not get the idea
independently. But if you read the stories with the possibility in mind,
it was quite clear. (Aurora's outburst particularly makes full sense
only if you realize that Northstar is gay and she knows it. Otherwise
why would *his* judging her be worse than anyone else?)
	There were other tiny hints as well-- nothing that really made
sense unless you knew what to look for.  And then, later in the
series, there were strong hints that Jean-Paul had contracted AIDS.
	Oh, eventually the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel, Jim Shooter
(some debate on this-- it may have been Tom Defalco), declaring "There
are no homosexuals in the Marvel Universe," decided to "fix things."
By that time, Bill Mantlo was writing Alpha Flight, and he retconned
both Northstar and Aurora into being half-human and half-elf (thus
their pointed ears), and decided that Northstar's sickness was due to
being outside of the realm of faerie.  Ecch.
	[RD Francis <francis@cis.ohio-state.edu> points out:
Actually, it should be noted that nothing in the faerie storyline
indicated that Jean-Paul was *not* gay, just that he didn't
necessarily have AIDS.  Also, Mantlo should be given *some* credit.
He dropped several "hints" as well, including an exchange between
Jean-Paul and Jeanne-Marie when they thought Walter was dead, and
another comment when he came back as a women.  J-M saw J-P crying, and
realized that J-P also loved Walter (#28).  And J-P told "Wanda" that
he liked "her" much better as a man (#40-something, 45 or 46 I
believe).  Mantlo's scripting ability being what it is, his "hints"
were pretty damned ham-handed.]
	The "faerie" change was later de-retconned, though I am
unfamiliar with the details.  In any case, much later, in issue #106,
Northstar held a press conference is which he came out of the closet.
(He does *not* have AIDS.)  He was convinced to publically acknowledge
tion his gayness after (1) rescuing and adopting a baby girl with
AIDS, who dies despite a "media circus" of support and (2) getting
into a fight with a WW II-era Canadian superhero "Major Mapleleaf",
who was angry because while the baby girl was perceived as an
innocent, sympathetic victim, the AIDS-related death of his own son
was ignored because of the son's sexual orientation.
	A Marvel editor explained that (paraphrasing), "Many of our
readers suspected the truth all along, but now we decided to make the
issue clear."  Yeah.  Right.
			-Thanks on this one to, among others,
			David Goldfarb    goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu
			R David Francis   francis@cis.ohio-state.edu
			Kate Schwartz     katie@eris.berkeley.edu

* What are some of the gay characters in comics?
	A short list for DC includes Mindy Meyer's brother (Wonder
Woman), Maggie Sawyer (Superman), Toby Gaines, Extrano, Ray Monde,
Pied Piper (Flash), perhaps Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet 
(Legion of Superheroes). It has also been suggested that the Amazons 
in WW are gay to some extent.
	Marvel has Northstar, perhaps Mystique and Destiny.  (Note
from Sasha, sasha.bbs@cybernet.cse.fau.edu: "In Wolverine #51, it's
made subtly obvious that Mystique, to use a Simpsonian euphamism,
'snuggled' with Wolvie.  This would suggest that she is, at the least,
bisexual.")
	Others include the women warriors in Epic's _Sisterhood of
Steel_, Barney (?) the unusually short person from Eclipse's _The
Masked Man_, the woman from _Detectives, Inc._, Robbie and Frank from
_Omaha_, and Terry, Pam, and George from _Zot!_.  Several characters 
are either gay or bi in _Love and Rockets_. _Desert Peach_ has a gay
main character, Erwin Rommel's (fictitious) younger brother.
	Many of the above are gays-written-by-straights and are of
questionable merit.  (If anyone wants to provide a list of gay comics,
on the other hand...)
			-Thanks on this one to, among others,
			Ian Lance Taylor  ian@airs.UUCP
			James Nicoll  jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca
			Jonathan Burns  burns@latcs1.oz.au
			RD Francis  francis@cis.ohio-state.edu
			Elf Sternberg  halcyon!elf@sumax.seattleu.edu
			Damian Cugley  Damian.Cugley@prg.ox.ac.uk
			Corey Liss  cpl1@midway.uchicago.edu
			Rick Jones  albert@bcm.tmc.edu

* How old is Kitty Pryde (of Excalibur)?
	The short answer: Kitty was 13 1/2 when she joined the X-Men.
She had her 15th birthday in Excalibur #24.  Soren F. Peterson reports
that Claremont spoke at the Great Salt Lake Comics Convention during
the weekend of July 27-28, 1991 and stated without a shadow of a doubt
that Kitty Pryde is only 15.  Now, there's no *way* that only 18
months passed in the interim (too many events have occurred, and Kitty
has matured far more than 1.5 years-- email me for the complete
chronology).  But forget trying to make sense of it.  If Chris
Claremont can't keep track of Kitty's age, why should you?  Until the
writers retcon it, 15 it is.

* Who is the missing member of the Endless, in _Sandman_?

	Well.  There used to be huge debate/speculation on the subject
in rec.arts.comics, which had been summarized briefly in this space,
but the Sandman Special #1 finally revealed the name of the seventh
member of the Endless, thus ending (no pun intended) the suspense.
(The other six, by the way, are Destiny, Death, Dream, Desire,
Despair, and Delirium (formerly Delight).)
	His name is "Olethros".
	Or, for those not up to speed on their Greek, "Destruction".
	(And in current issues, there is a quest to find him...)

* Where are the "real" locations of Metropolis, Gotham City, Hub City,
etc., in the DC Universe?

	Metropolis and Gotham City have been equated to *many*
different real-world cities over the years; there is no one correct
answer.  (Even if there were, the current writers are under no duress
to use it.)  Hub City, from _The Question_, is a bit different; it is
based on a combination of two cities in Illinois, one of which is
definitely East St. Louis.  (Email me for the expanded discussion.)
	Metropolis, as originally developed by Siegel and Schuster,
was probably Cleveland, the "big city" with which they were most
familiar.  Later, Superman's home was moved to the east coast (where
it's been located variously around Boston, in Rhode Island, in
Connecticut, as New York, and so on down to Washington).  _Who's Who
in the Legion of Superheroes_ showed a 30th century Metropolis, which
stretched slightly beyond New York and Boston in either direction, and
used those names explicitly in the description of Metropolis.  John Byrne
seemed to think it was back in the midwest.
	Gotham is definitely a port city, probably on the east coast;
too much plot has depended on that fact.  Again, various sources from
different comics (and the DC role-playing game) have placed Gotham
City all along the east coast, often near Metropolis.  I won't bother
with the details now.
	Frank Miller once claimed that, metaphorically, "Metropolis is
New York in the daytime, while Gotham is New York at night."  It's not
a bad way to think of the situation.
        Mayfair Games has published an Atlas of the DC Universe,
written by DC staffer Paul Kupperberg.  While not completely official,
it does jibe with locations that DC used when its house fanzine of the
mid-70s discussed this same question.  The locations given for the
main DC fictional cities are:
  Metropolis: Delaware
  Gotham City: New Jersey
  Star City: far nothern California
  Coast City: on 101 near Sausalito between San Francisco and Oakland
  Middleton (where J'onn J'Onzz first operated): suburb of Denver
  Littleville (Robby Reed): Wyoming
  Blue Valley (Kid Flash): northwest Nebraska, near South Dakota
  Central City/Keystone City: a bit north of Kansas City, Central is in
    Missouri while Keystone is in Kansas on the other side of the Mississippi
  Calvin City/Ivy Town (Atoms): both in Connecticut near New Haven
  Dos Rios (El Diablo): 65 miles south of San Antonio
  Fairfax (2nd Dial H for Hero): suburb of Bangor, Maine
  Midway City (Doom Patrol, Hawkman): Michigan, just east of Sault Ste. Marie
  Smallville: Kansas, 50 miles west of the I-70/I-35 interchange on I-70.
    The population is given as 90,000 btw.
	[Many people have noted errors in the geographical
plausibility of the above entries.  For example, the state borders
near the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers are obviously different in
the DC Universe than in our world, and Coast City can only be "between
San Franciso and Oakland" if one intends to drive from one city to the
other without bothering to use the bridge that directly connects the
two.  Those errors are repeated here from the Mayfair Games book, which
was obviously not edited as scrupulously as is the r.a.c Welcome
posting. :) ]
	One final note: There's a small town in southern Illinois
named Metropolis, located about twenty miles north of where the
Mississippi and Ohio Rivers meet.  On their "Welcome to Metropolis"
sign they do claim "Home of Superman" and every year they have a
Superman festival.  The town even has a small statue of Superman which
they proudly display.

* What happened to Doonesbury?
	Garry Trudeau is taking a vacation from June until August 1992.

* Who is Suicide Squid?
	For the best, most complete, and most fun answer, get the
archived discussion from theory.lcs.mit.edu.  It's in
pub/wald/suicide-squid.  Warning, the file is quite large.  If you
want the short version, email tyg@eddie.mit.edu

* How can I get a Suicide Squid t-shirt?
	Plans for a second run of Suicide Squid shirts, with r.a.c's
favorite cephalopod redered by professional artist Ty Templeton, are
currently being finalized.. If you are interested in getting info on
how to order, send mail to tyg@hq.ileaf.com
	(Actually, I think the deadline on the second run passed quite
a while ago, and those who ordered should be getting their shirts
soon.  Tom?  Eddie?)

*What's up with the titles formerly published by First Comics?
	Dark Horse has bought Nexus (for a *lot* of money by
independent comic company standards, according to Steve Rude, so don't
expect them to do this for very many other titles), and has given/sold
ownership of the character back to Baron & Rude. Current plans call
for a four issue Nexus miniseries by Baron & Rude each year.  [Update:
a Nexus Origin special arrived in comics shops in August 1992.]
	[I recall some information coming out of the San Diego Comic
Con on DC possibly picking up the rights to Badger and Grimjack.
Anyone have more details?]
		Thanks to:
		csg194@cch.coventry.ac.uk (Morpheus)

* What's up with Grendel and Mage?
	The story behind Grendel's hiatus is that Comico went Chapter
11 and got bought out by some people who apparently have less than
sterling reputations among several creative types, including
creator/writer Matt Wagner.  Wagner believed that the transfer of
ownership nullified his contract with Comico; Comico claimed it
didn't. Having not seen the contract, it could go either way.  Anyway,
it was tied up in legal stuff for a while (and some related projects,
like the Batman/Grendel crossover, are *still* tied up for now).
	Fortunately, Dark Horse ("my heroes!-- *sigh*" :-) obtained
the rights to both Grendel and Mage.  [As of August 1992, one issue of
"Grendel: War Child", a ten or twelve issue series, had already
arrived in stores.  The back of the issue also details the legal
troubles undergone.]  No new Mage for at least a year though.
(Apparently, Wagner wanted to concentrate on Grendel for a while.)
	The Dark Horse representatives at a London convention at the
end of February 1992 announced three new Grendel projects: Warchild,
Grendel Tales, and The Hunter Rose Saga.
		Thanks to:
		tyg@hq.ileaf.com (Tom Galloway)
		csg194@cch.coventry.ac.uk (Morpheus)
		wsm26@cas.org (Wayne Mills)

[end of parts 1-3]

-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Feel free to send additions, corrections, suggestions, comments to:

Paul Andrew Estin
esti@midway.uchicago.edu  (best address to use)
Office: 330 Packard Rd.  Ann Arbor, MI 48104

and remember:
"There are no net.gods, just some people with bigger mouths than others."
	- Dan'l DanehyOakes, net.roach
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc