In mid-2008, I was lucky enough to be asked to join the staff at the comic book discussion site iFanboy. Since then, I have been sullying their good name with weekly columns on a variety of tangentially related topics, and very occasionally I even get to sit in on one of their podcasts. Our story so far:

Late Comics: Jim vs. Jim (9/29/08) - One the biggest tempests in the comics teapot is lateness. Most books are scheduled to come out monthly… but then they don’t. Writers take side jobs, artists get in over their heads, and excuses come out with a regularity that the books can’t match. With all that in mind, given that this is the most complained-about thing in the biz, I wondered: how hard is it to draw a stupid comic, anyway?

To Beat Cobra, We Must Think Like Cobra (9/22/08) - They told Harlan that G.I. Joe was a highly trained special mission force. He never asked them to define “special.”

Same $#*^, Brand New Day (9/15/08) - In 1987, for reasons that science may never understand, they decided to abruptly marry Spider-Man off. Marvel Comics’ current Editor in Chief has been complaining about this move for years, and in late 2007 he actually did something about it. Reading the web, you would think this decision resulted in riots throughout our major cities, but in fact it was a brilliant move. Saying so gave me the chance to psychoanalyze some readers, and also to invite the haters out of the woodwork.

The Bulletproof Writer, and Other Tales to Appall (9/01/08) - Can people really believe that some writers can do no wrong? Is that possible?

My City, My Hero (9/01/08) - in which a video game brings childhood characters to life, and I go from creator to hero to failure in the span of six months.

The Geek Closet (8/25/08) - in which I ruminate on some questionable parenting, let my freak flag fly, and reminisce about the first bookstore I ever loved.

Comic Sales: Nobody Knows Anything (8/18/08) - a comic book writer named Robert Kirkman had just announced that he was no longer working for anyone but himself, and in the video he posted about it he repeated the canard that Comics As We Know Them Are Dying. I am awfully sick of hearing this, so I blew off some steam by getting some facts.

PODCAST: Pick of the Week– “Secret Invasion #5″ (8/17/08) - Josh Flanagan’s vacation is my gain and the listeners’ loss as we discuss the week’s new releases. This is a particularly partisan summer; read the comments to see grown people lose their minds because one company’s products are discussed more than another’s.

Comics and the Future (What There is of It) (8/11/08) - My most halfhearted effort to date! A rumination of the end of the world as they wrote it, and why the future in a writer’s eyes is always post-apocalyptic.

This One Time, at Hand Camp…. (8/04/08) - Friends don’t let friends go all ninja.

I Demand The Future! (7/28/08) - a series of inconveniences reminds me how unnecessary and ridiculous it is that comics are still printed instead of being e-mailed to me. Piracy, shmiracy.

Sour Capes (7/21/08) - in honor of the upcoming San Diego Comic-Con, I wrote about never getting to go to the San Diego Comic-Con.

PODCAST: Batman: Gotham Knight (7/17/08) - Fun! I got to review the new Batman cartoon with Conor Kilpatrick and Paul Montgomery on my very first podcast. The real fun turned out to be reading listeners’ comments after I said I didn’t like it.

Ode to the Beyonder (7/14/08) - and sometimes it’s a poem!

So… Why Aren’t We Reading Resurrection? (7/07/08) - It’s strange to me that comics fans are fundamentally reading but don’t seem to follow the writers when they write something other than superhero fiction. So why not stand on the soapbox as long as it’s sitting there?

When “Small Press” is Your Laser Printer (6/30/08) - Bummed out by the previous week, I took a look at some books that were locally produced, which is to say “copied at Kinko’s by the authors.”

Crisis Crisis: Don’t Blame Didio (6/23/08) - From an early age, I developed a brand loyalty: I liked Marvel comics and thought DC comics were bewildering. This piece was supposed to be about DC books so good even I like ‘em– sort of an olive branch– but then I mentioned some DC gossip that was in the news at the time and ended up spending a lot more words on my problems with DC books… and then came the reader comments.

Stack Week, Part One: The Shaming (6/16/08) - Like far too many people I know, I have a habit of buying new books before reading my previous purchases. Comic fans are especially bad about this, so we devoted a week on the site to our Stacks.

Requiem for Nu Marvel (6/09/08) - The comic book landscape has changed quite a bit since I returned to it in my adulthood, leading me to wax nostalgic for the year 2000 already.

Are Comic Book Movies Ruining Summer? (6/06/08) - A “special edition” point/counterpoint about some idiotic article in Entertainment Weekly.

The Handoff (6/02/08) - In my first article, I pondered the challenges you face when you take over a series from another talented writer, making it your own without derailing everything that came before.