Comic Book Crossroads

(This opening artwork was the cover to the first issue. It was done by Dave Thometz, an early contributor to the fanzine and a mainstay of our online comics community back in the late 80's. Though originally presented in black and white, I've taken the liberty of adding color to it and giving the Princess a perhaps too-golden tan. Strangely, Wonder Woman was not only CBC's most frequent cover subject - with three covers - but also happened to grace the first and last issues.)

Comic Book Crossroads was a comics fanzine I founded back in October of 1989, which followed a long and twisting path. It grew out of dissatisfaction with the Sysops over on the long-defunct QuantumLink network, where I had become the host of their comics area, Comic Book Corner.

     Originally called Funnybook City, the area had been established by professional comics writer & journalist Robert J. Sodaro; the author of Kiddie Meal Collectibles, Bob also writes reviews (in a column called Funnybook City) over at intermixx.com and can generally be found out about on his website. After he moved on, the mantle was taken on by Jeff D'Amato, known to us all as Thor9. Eventually, in a path not worth retracing just now, I came to be the host.

     Though matters were fun for a time, we soon began to run into problems. Materials uploaded to the review and library areas of our little club vanished into what we came to feel was the same warehouse holding the Ark of the Covenant. As QuantumLink had been established as a forum solely for users of Commodore computers by 1989 it was obviously a dying venture. Promises to expand the base to admit Amiga users floundered given that that model's architecture was utterly different from Commodore's own designs and the fact that the Amiga itself was failing to thrive in the marketplace. The systems and operations people were being increasingly put to work on some proposed venture called AppleLink, according to some sources, leaving us to our own devices. So it was that we in our little comics club became a forgotten outpost of a moribund system.

     Wanting to come up with a forum more completely in my control I began laying the groundwork for a fanzine. Its working title was ComiQuest, but I scrapped this following a (looking back on it, vague) report that this was the name of a comics shop chain somewhere out west. Shifting it to Comic Book Crossroads, I accepted materials (art & stories) from a variety of online members and presented it.

    (This sketch of DC's Swamp Thing was by Tim Carr, and appeared in CBC's 5th issue. Tim was the artistic workhorse during the first couple years of CBC, as he provided a volume of pin-up style illos - sometimes five or more appearing in an issue!)

     Anyone familiar with fanzines knows that delays are almost de rigeur, with a majority never getting beyond a first issue. So, despite the extreme stretches of time between issues, I'm proud of the fact that CBC managed 20 issues before I officially cancelled it in 1997.
 
     I fear that the online environment has made a paper fanzine less necessary than it ever was. This is in some ways an ironic thing, as the easy transfer and manipulation of files makes putting together a fanzine easier than it was through most of CBC's history. As I was accepting material from avowed amateurs, for the most part, not only did everything arrive in snailmail, but text was - at best - typed. More often it was either handwritten or printed out on low-density dot matrix printers. And guess who lacked both a scanner and any OCR software? Let it suffice to say that putting an issue together was generally a laborious, even arduous process; the mechanics served to kill off almost all interest in doing it, making it easy to put off... and off...

     Each issue of was eclectic, as there was never a broad enough base of contributors to really be able to stick to a theme. There were attempts, but by and large such events never quite meshed.

     Thinking back, the sanest thing would have been to shift the emphasis to producing a more professional fanzine, and to demand a higher level of work, presented in a more ready-for-publication format. Certainly, some people did send in their work that way; Pat Augustine (see the Links for passage to his site, which includes his Plane Adventure and Rebelaires material, which were serialized in CBC), for instance, went to some pains to provide me with material that was ready to go. Darren Madigan (also check the Links page) and Steve Miller's story contributions were also of professional calibre and ready for print. The many storytelling efforts of Jeremy Bottroff were similarly ready to go, but were by necessity of circumstance often copied from dot matrix printouts. (Ah, the bleak, low-tech world of the day...) His many stories, including the entertaining and often satyric "Late Show" series, I'm afraid, suffered in the presentation.

     In general, though, I was pushing people with only marginal professional aspirations for material by making it as easy as possible for them.  I wanted to provide a forum for comics fans who otherwise might never get a byline, while otherwise just hoping for more professional material to follow. Happily, some real talent found its way to CBC, but as I look back over the issues I wonder if my relaxed approach really did anyone a service?

     In the above outline I've neglected a wide array of contributors, for which I apologize. I still have hopes of compiling an issue-by-issue breakdown to link to this page, which should remedy such oversights.

I'll end this section with what I'd written for issue No.21's Wrap Up, which never saw print:

     Having already eulogized CBC extensively, and speculated on where it might go, I'd like to take this final opportunity to thank some of the many people who have been with me on this publishing journey.

     Jeremy "DougRamsey" Bottroff, Tim "Nightmask" Carr, Dave "Halfer" Thometz, Joel "COMALite J" Ellis, Ben Butler, Sigma7, Chris "Warlokk" White, Kim "Silvrdancr" Apodaca, and Andy "Crazy" Hime, who were there from the start way back on QuantumLink.

    Pat Augustine, for taking us on Brad's Plane Adventures, and for introducing us to the Rebelaires.

     Mark Lester, for letting CBC be the launching pad for Knight Wolf . See what Mark's been up to over at his Five Star Comics site.

     Pat Maley, for his many technical assists, and longstanding interest in CBC.

     Darren Madigan, for his solid contributions of story and cartoon, and for the probably sound advice I didn't take.

     Relative CBC newcomer Rob Running Water, for sharing his enthusiasm for superherodom.

     Steve Miller for his excellent tales, solid professionalism and for giving me the best experience I've had playing editor.

     A special thanks to Mark Silverstein, who never failed to come through with comments.

     And, finally, a general thanks to the other readers, however silent, for sticking with me for seven years.

    CBC may continue in some form via this web site, even if in no other way than it being linked to those of its former contributors. Check the links section for any of the CBC folk I've found or been provided with links to.

                                                                              Mike Norton - January 2001

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