must confess, I'm a relative latecomer to the glorious art of Alex Ross. I became familiar with his stupendously vast and exciting body of work only with the publication of Uncle Sam in January 1999, a knockout examination of American's down-and-out Daddy written by Steve Darnall. But since then I've sought to remedy my ignorance by plowing joyously through as much of Ross' stuff as I could amass. From his work with writer Kurt Busiek on both Astro City and Marvels through his interpretations of Superman, Wonder Woman and Madman, among others, Ross just continues to get better and better. His photorealist painted art stands out among the humdrum efforts of many lesser comics artists like a man in a red cape and blue tights at an accountants' convention.
Luckily, no other interested newcomer has to piece Ross' career together as laboriously as I did, since they can now simply visit The Official Alex Ross Web Site. Here they'll find enough goodies to keep them happily reading and drooling for hours. News of Ross's appearances at various shops; interviews with the creator; accounts of his various projects, both finished and ongoing; hundreds of thumbnails of his paintings; submissions of fan art done in homage to Ross—it's all there. Books and original pieces are for sale, and by joining his email list, surfers will enroll themselves in various contests. Finally, a handful of links opens up the wider world of comics. Plainly, there's only one exclamation powerful enough to do justice to this wealth of visionary canvases: "Shazam!"
— Paul Di Filippo
Site of the Week—February 11, 2002
acky Genre TV started out as an e-mail discussion list and has mushroomed into a site which promotes, examines and celebrates any program that, as its creators put it, "operates within the realm of the fantastic." Pitting itself against the conventional idea that good TV cannot contain SF or fantasy elements, WGTV heaps a good dose of literary criticism into its ongoing conversation about its favorite shows. (Where else on the Web can you see Buffy characterized as a Byronic hero?) This is not, however, some kind of hypertext popular culture textbook. The people behind WGTV are fans, and they know plenty about having lots of irreverent fun.
The programs covered on the site are arranged more by flavor than anything else. There is a listing of WGTV favorites, a Wayback Machine that talks about canceled programs from The Night Stalker and Wild Wild West to American Gothic, and a section devoted to Battling
Babes. Visitors can find Brimstone in the Recently Deceased section and rants about Star Trek's ubiquitous "funny-headed aliens" in the Funhouse.
What's more, great care has been taken with the look of each section of the site, making every essay and photo gallery a visual treat. There is no unified look to the sub-pages. Each has been designed to match the show under discussion. In some cases, this is carried off so well that browsers might think they have stumbled onto a program's official site!
Wacky Genre TV could use a good update—there is nothing in it on Smallville or Farscape, for example, but the high caliber of
its writing and its stellar attention to visual design make it a delight to visit.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—February 4, 2002
illing itself as the largest Blake's 7 site on the Web, this fan page is a terrific source of late-breaking news on B7 events, actors and fandom. With everything from television listings that help would-be viewers find the show to Lego renderings of scenes from the 1978 BBC program, this
page is well organized, comprehensive and extremely good-humored.
The site includes a "Sevencyclopaedia" filled with facts and figures on the show. It also has a large archive of fan fiction, statistics on which characters killed the most people and screen shots containing major kissing moments from the program. On a more serious note, convention listings, fan club contact information and mailing lists are all provided to help fans get together.
There's more: connections to B7-related merchandise, such as books, audio tapes and CDs (including a multi-part Doctor Who recording which features actor Gareth Thomas), make it easy to purchase collectibles. And for those seeking unofficial tie-ins, Blake's 7 is a gateway to a database containing an exhaustive number of 'zines.
Finally, for those who come away from this information-rich site without having sated their curiosity, Blake's 7 has an up-to-date and well-annotated list of links to other Web shrines to the program.
— A.M. Dellamonica
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