hysicsWeb is an on-line magazine for the hardest of hard sciences, a source of news on the latest research and controversies in the field. With recent articles on everything from a simulator for bobsled athletes to recent improvements in laser technology, this site is an obvious first stop for anyone interested in the workings of the universe.
A Web tie-in to PhysicsWorld magazine, PhysicsWeb serves as an archive of articles and diagrams. It also lists items of interest to career scientists, including jobs and conferences. It has an outstanding links page which connects to physics organizations, university departments and other related resources, from student clubs to museums and exhibitions. It also maintains a "Best Of" section which gathers articles by topic. Specifically looking to research condensed matter? Instead of having to pore through the site index or even mess with a text-based search, surfers are one click away from all the data they require.
There is a definite genre twist in PhysicsWeb's newest article, an analysis of the character relationships of the Marvel Comics universe and their similarity to human social networks. As a result, visitors who think this page sounds dry can take heart in knowing that—at least for the moment—this page has something to offer even those who are uninterested in the movement of quarks or potential jobs in computational engineering.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—February 19, 2002
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
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