What do you do while you wait for the monster slayer twins in issue #4 of The Few or are just recovering from the reverb of the exotic and unnerving first volume of Monstress(Image Comics)?
I have a strategy for getting around that restless limbo that comes when I’ve just finished a comic issue and life has become empty again. I dip into the latest popular web comics. You know, to keep myself distracted and maybe stumble upon something new to take my mind off that cliffhanger. (There’s a lot of talent and gems in web comics. But usually I prefer the texture of paper and sniffing a new book before I begin reading it is a part of my comic reading ritual. Don’t judge me.)Or I stalk comic news portals, hungry for news, reviews, and previews.
There are plenty of websites you can get your comic book behind-the-scenes fix.
I go to Bleeding Cool when I’ve got nothing better to do, it’s the Gossip of the comic and pop culture world. If you want to read more about the gritty whitewashing rumors of Hollywood’s live-action Ghost in the Shell adaptation or how Jeff Bezos of Amazon was caricatured as Doctor Octopus by the Economist, you’ll like Bleeding Cool.
The best place to go for all other comic news is probably Newsarama. What I really like about this slick, simple and uncluttered news portal is the sheer volume of information you’ll find here. It has all the latest press releases, covers, teasers and all kinds of bells and whistles. That’s how a modern media savvy news site should be.
Newsarama began in the summer of 1995 as a series of Internet forum postings on the Prodigy comic book message boards by fan Mike Doran
Here’s some of what you’ll find on the site:
- Variant cover releases and art from your favorite comic books
- Reviews and first looks of new releases and covers
- News from the space where film, TV and comics collide
- Comic-related game news, trailers. That build-a-figure from the Spiderverse you’ve been waiting for? Newsarama will rate the figures for you and tell you which ones are worth spending your dollars on.
- The latest solicitations by comic publishing houses, ranging from the behemoths Marvel and DC, to smaller, newer independent publishers like Black Mask Comics, Aftershock Comics and other smaller but no less ignorable fry.
- No, these are not countdowns to the next comic issue. If you, like the rest of us, find yourself increasingly dependent on the Top 10 style of lists for your daily comic activities, the countdowns are for you. These countdowns are like hitting Surprise Me on Google search. You never know what you’ll find a countdown on.
- Interviews from Comic Cons, news about comic con events and lots more.
I’ve also got Newsarama on my Twitter. If ever, in the middle of a particularly boring class, you find me hunched and sniggering over my phone, I’m probably trying to keep up with the Newsarama news updates for the day.
If you find Newsarama is not chatty or meaty enough for you, check out Scans Daily for chunks of uploaded comicsand some pretty nasty fan wars, which are always fun to watch for a while.
