About

About

   Contrary to popular belief, The Comic Book Bin is not a new Web site that was started two years ago. The Comic Book Bin was created on August 8, 2002 and since then has being publishing articles, reviews, news and interviews about the comic book industry and action figures. We added video games, movies, books and fan films later. Welcome to the Bin!   

Comic book news Websites like ComicBookBin did not mysteriously pop up one day out of nowhere to serve the comic book reader. While sites such as The Comic Book Bin are moving into new areas to provide mobile editions of their contents as well as iPhone apps to better serve their readers, professional comic book industry news reporting has its origin in comic book fandom.

The secret origin of comic book fandom actually matches the period of history called the Silver Age in American comics, which occurred throughout the 1960s. Comics published from the 1930s to the mid- 1950s were meant as disposable goods read a few times and thrown away. In the Silver Age of the medium, the revival of the comic book world was led by a new generation of superheroes such as Marvel Comics’ Spider-man and the Fantastic Four as well as revamped versions of DC Comics characters such as the Flash and Green Lantern. This launched a new generation of comic books for fans and readers.

Unlike the Golden Age comics of the past, these new Silver Age comics featured continuity within the storyline, strengthening the unofficial link comic books had with comic book consumers. They winked at the readers who knew what had gone before and demanded more logic in the stories. If Daredevil had fought a villain the previous month and that villain had fallen to his death, he could no longer return from the dead the next issue to trouble the intrepid hero without a solid explanation for his miraculous resurrection. In the Golden Age, such discrepancies were common and ignored. In the Silver Age, such ploys led the comic book readers to disbelief.

Fandom magazines were created at the same time to help the budding comic book-collecting community locate hard to find comic books and discuss the dynamic changes occurring in the medium. Pioneers such as Dr. Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas published various articles about the medium in fanzines such as Alter Ego in the 1960s. Dr. Bail would become an important comic book historian decades later, and Thomas at one point was the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics after being a writer at the publisher for several years.

Gary Groth, the publisher and founder of the comic book publisher Fantagraphics, published similar fanzines in the late 1970s that focused on the comic book industry and collecting. However, he and partner Michael Catron published their comic book magazine as a full-fledged publication backed by a registered company. Interviewing comic book creators and beginning serious investigation in both the business and creative aspects of comic books, Groth re-launched The New Nostalgia Journal as The Comic Journal for its 32nd issue in January 1977. The distribution of the fanzine grew and it became a comprehensive magazine on comic books. The Comics Journal has since become one of the most influential and respected comic book magazines noted for its journalism and tendency to ask tough questions, eliciting blind hatred or unrepentant adulation from readers and members of the comic book industry.

The distribution of fanzines such as The Comics Journal and The Comics Buyers’ Guide was improved by the direct market. This was a channel developed by early comic book industry middlemen who bought comic books from comic book publishers and re-sold them directly to a new breed of emerging comic book stores who were dedicated to serving comic book collectors and related industries, including collector's trading cards, action figures, role playing games and fantasy and science fiction books.

In the 1990s, a new breed of comic book magazines arrived with higher production values and much buzz. Magazines like Comic Scene and Wizard Magazines were published in full four-color, unlike the black-and-white newsprint-based comic book magazines of the past. They were more populist in their approach, featuring contests, artwork from comic book fans and were much more deferential to comic book publishers who provided the bulk of their access to exclusive contents for print. Some sales numbers from these magazines competed in the market with popular comic books by large publishers.

In the mid-1990s, a new generation of fandom grew from the first online newsgroups in cyberspace. Just like the previous generation of fandom, comic book fans went online to write frequent reviews and post information on comic books and the industry. One of the first fully functional comic book fandom sites was Comic Book Resources, founded by Jonah Weiland.
 
Online fandom was disorganized but provided many opportunities for anyone with a voice and the willingness to write frequently about comic books. Other popular columns and supplements to message boards and other newsgroups also became full-fledged comic book Websites, attracting the attention of the comic book industry and offering a competing place for news to spread to users faster than printed comic book media. The new sites like Newsarama competed with established magazines like Wizard for exclusive news from the comic book industry, but the competition would not last. By the time a printed monthly comic book magazine released a news item, it had already been covered weeks ago by a comic book Website.

Several of the new Websites were backed by large comic book retailing chains like Mile High Comics or industry professionals like filmmaker Kevin Smith. The focus of these sites was on the quick diffusion of information nearly 365 days a year.

In 2002, Animation Studio Director Hervé St-Louis founded The Comic Book Bin as an outlet to sell his excess comic book collection. To entice visitors, he would add articles to the site. Unintentionally, The Comic Book Bin became a comic book news site within a year. However, unlike other sites, St-Louis wanted to push for professionalism as soon as he realized the real mandate of “The Bin.” Gone was the store featuring comic books and action figures, to be replaced by an extensive, 30-page standard writing guide-unique in the comic book industry.

Writers and reporters covering the comic book industry have always played both side of the coin, as media and pundits are often recruited by comic book publishers to become staffers, writers, editors and even artists. This revolving door has been a mainstay of the comic book industry and probably explains the lower journalism standards in the industry. St-Louis comments on this by saying, “When a job is a phone call away at the publisher one idolized as a child, it can be difficult to be critical of a potential employer.” Critical voices such as Gary Groth have had to pay the price for asking the type of tough questions about the comic book industry that would be standard in any other business venture. Feuds in the comic book industry are famous and last decades, if not entire careers.
 
St-Louis took a stand quickly where gossip, rumors, industry chit chat and other unsubstantiated news items would not be welcomed. He also maintained an arm's length relationship with the rest of the comic book industry, instead promoting the independence of writers and contents. Unlike Gary Groth’s Comic Journal, The Comic Book Bin has no formal ties with the creative aspect of the comic book industry. This perseverance and steady independence is unique in comic books. The majority of established news reporters and pundits working in comic book news media have had one foot in the creative or editorial side of comic books at one point or another. Even obscure comic book bloggers will avoid writing anything that could haunt them one day.

St-Louis has always given a lot of credit to the readers and the fact that they can appreciate honesty and respect people who declare their opinions. The focus on the reader has always dominated St-Louis, and it is in that vein that he introduced the first comic book Website visible to mobile users several months ago, also recently developing an iPhone app designed to fit the lifestyle of the comic book reader.

The comic book industry is undergoing its greatest challenge right now because of the addition of digital contents. Comic books have become an important source of inspiration for other media like films and video games. Now more than ever the public is curious to find out about the four-color characters that easily generate interest and create successful blockbusters. Never before has independent and accessible reporting on comic books been as needed by professional comic book news sites like The Comic Book Bin.

Last Updated: March 12, 2024 - 09:07