An end ... and a beginning!

It's an exciting day for The Great Curve, folks ... as of today, we're leaving our former name and URL behind to launch something new: Blog@Newsarama, which you can find at http://blog.newsarama.com/. Please bear with me as I reflect back a little on where we came from and how this all happened (and how I ended up in the middle of it all!) ...

I owe my friend Craig McKenney a big thank you. Back in high school, college and when we were in Phoenix APA together, we always talked about one day getting into the comics industry. His dream was writing comics. Mine? Well, as a journalism guy, I would have been satisfied just writing about them.

Craig went on to fulfill his dream, moving to Seattle to work for Fantagraphics, then forming his own small press company. Me? I hung out in Dallas, doing corporate communications work. Which was fun; I worked for some good companies, one of which was a very fun place to work, that did promotional tie-ins with the Spider-Man films, NASCAR, Nintendo … yet in the back of my mind, the whole “writing about comic books” thing wouldn’t leave me alone.

So last year Craig goes off and gets himself a Xeric Foundation award for a book he was doing – The Brontes: Infernal Angria. Craig, ever the English major and lit junkie, had wanted to do this book for years. So I asked him what he thought about me interviewing him, and then maybe trying to pitch the interview to a couple of news sites. I figured it would at least give him something he could use as a promo piece, if nothing else. The first one to bite was The Great Curve.

I’d been following the site since it was founded way back in 2004 by Alex Segura, Jr., who you might remember as a contributor to the main Newsarama site. I think he wrote articles or washed Matt’s car or something like that. Basically the concept was to put together a team of bloggers/fans and come up with the best content they could. Since then the site has seen many contributors come and go, offering their unique take on the world of comic books and pop culture.

Anyway, Alex ran the story, and about a week later he followed up with an email, asking me if I’d be willing to start contributing. I certainly didn’t expect him to ask me to join his team. And I was surprised when, a few months later, he asked me to help him with the day-to-day stuff on the blog. It was a lot of fun, getting to write about something fun and that I was passionate about, as well as to interact with Alex, Chris Hunter, Tim O’Shea and the rest of the team.

So late last year, right after Christmas, Alex came to us with an interesting piece of news. Seems Alex had just gotten hired by DC Comics, so he was turning the blog over to me. Holy crap!

It wasn’t long after that I started getting emails from a guy named Matt Brady. Seems that Matt, the head cheese over at Newsarama, wanted for us to become the blogging arm of Newsarama.

Now I’ve been reading Newsarama for almost a decade; I can still remember checking usenet every week to see if Michael Doran had posted “CBI Newsarama” yet. I watched it move to AnotherUniverse.com, then on to Fandom.com, Comicon.com, View Askew … I’ve spent many hours reading not only the comic news, but also the posts of the many fine folks who hang out in the Talk@ section. To hear that The Great Curve might be a part of that was pretty damn exciting.

So here we are, not even a year after I sent that first story to Alex, asking him if he wanted to run it. For me personally, it’s been a fun ride these last few months, chatting with my fellow fans, other bloggers, even some pros. So it’s a little bittersweet that I announce that our journey with The Great Curve has come to an end. Y’see, those conversations with Matt have, after months of hard work on many people’s parts, resulted in the next step for us – Blog@Newsarama. So as of today, Kevin, Shane, Tom, Chris, Michael, Stephanie and I will take our orchestra to a much larger stage … with at least one new addition, but I’ll let you check out the new site to find out who that is.

I’m not even sure where to begin with the thanks. A lot of people have helped us out along the way, whether it was to contribute, pass on content, send us a press release or piece of art, subject themselves to an interview or just send us words of encouragement -- people like Larry Young, Tim Leong, Clifford Meth, ADD, Scipio at the Absorbacon, Bob Sodaro, Lea “DivaLea” Hernandez, Mel Smith, Becky Cloonan, Jason Asala, Brian Wood, James Sime, Sean McKeever, Hisham Zubi, Brian Cronin, Brian Warmoth, Shahed Ahmed, Jason Burns, Dean Trippe, Rick Sullivan, Joe Gordon, Lucas Siegel, Joshua Hale Fialkov, Heidi McDonald, Gina Gagliano, Logan Kaufman, C Hill, Jim Taylor, Michelle Nash, Chris Arrant, Drew Melbourne, Ted Mathot and Jason Brice (and I apologize if I've left anyone out). Extra special thanks to two guys who helped get us where we are today and who I'm really happy to have as friends, Tim O’Shea and our founder, Alex Segura. And yeah, thanks to my friend Craig, too.

And thanks especially to all of our readers, those of you who check us out on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis. We hope you will continue to check us out, as we plan to continue doing what we love to do as we make the move to Blog@Newsarama. We’ll see you there. (I guess this is the part where I should tell you to change your bookmarks ...)

Sometimes the world has a load of questions
Seems like the world knows nothing at all
The world is near but its out of reach
Some people touch it...but they can’t hold on.

She is moving to describe the world
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She has messages for everyone
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She is moving by remote control
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
Hands that move her are invisible
Night must fall now-darker, darker.

The world has a way of looking at people
Sometimes it seems that the world is wrong
She loves the world, and all the people in it
She shakes em up when she start to walk.

She is only party human being
Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so
She defines the possibilities
Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so
Holding on for an eternity
Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so
Gone...ending without finishing
Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so

The world moves on a womans hips
The world moves and it swivels and bops
The world moves on a womans hips
The world moves and it bounces and hops
A world of light...she’s gonna open our eyes up
A world of light...she’s gonna open our eyes up
Shes gonna hold/it move/it hold it/move it hold/it move it hold/
It move it
A world of light...shes gonna open out eyes up

She is moving to describe the world
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She has messages for everyone
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She is moving by remote control
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
Hands that move her are invisible
Night must fall now-darker, darker.

Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She...has got to move the world...to move the world...to move
The world

A world of light...she’s gonna open our eyes up
A world of light...she’s gonna open our eyes up
She’s gonna hold/it move/it hold it/move it hold/it move it hold/
It move it
A world of light...she’s gonna open our eyes up

Wanna define...so say so, so say so
Divine to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She...has got to move the world...to move the world...to move
The world

The Great Curve by the Talking Heads