I know, I’m sad too. But imagine how sad you’d be if you entered a contest and no one voted. So, to that end, these contests are ending before FanLib does and still need your votes and reviews. Let’s make these the contests with the highest voter turn out ever. Do it for Johnny!

Oh Babs…you kill me.

So, you all know the Thursday drill by now. There’s lots of cool member contest to get involved with, entering, reviewing and voting. Find the one that sings to you or enter them all; what ever floats your boat.

These contests are open for entries until next Thursday (the 24th):

Read more »

It was a weird week, comics-wise. Lots of new books, nothing much for me. Sigh. This is the part I forgot about reading comic books weekly, that many of the books I like come out sporadically - Castle Waiting, the new Dave Simm, anything from Oni Press - and that there are weeks where, as much as I’m ready and willing to spend my hard earned cash, there’s nothing I want to read. Sigh.

I did pick up issue #7 of Trinity, which continues to hold my interest, but mostly because it’s weekly. I think if it were a monthly book I would forget what was going on and not particularly care to remember, but as it’s coming out weekly I remember the story line…which is a bit convoluted for my taste.

Also picked up book #3 of the new Tank Girl. The art’s good, but I’m not enjoying it as much as I did the original series - but I could be romanticizing my memory. It has been a while since the original books.

The only other thing I bought this week is the graphic novel reprint of Astro City: Dark Age, written by Kurk Busiek, who’s writing Trinity. The Astro City books are great, they’re set in a universe where people accept the heroes around them and expect them to come to their rescue, but the stories tend to focus on the heroes as regular people, their hopes and fears, human insecurities, etc. Astro City came out sporadically and I don’t know if Busiek plans to go back to it, but for now, there’s several books of graphic novel reprint that are out there. I highly recommend them. Also, if you enjoy Astro City, you’ll probably like Powers by Bendis.

Some interesting stuff next week: Glamourpuss #2, some Bat books, a book of comics by varied artists based on the music of Tori Amos…who knew. This weekend is Dark Knight, plus, next week I pack for Comicon!

Of my blog post! Here it is, this week’s list of recognition. Oh so many member contests and so many winners. Here’s a select bunch of pieces that won this week’s contests. There’s always more, so be sure to check out what contests are running, what’s open for voting and who’s been the big winners. And now, with no further ado…

Winners of contests during the week of July 7th are:
and

for Shireman5’s Independence Day contest.
won Brittany_9315′s The Best Day You’ve Ever Had contest.
won Nicolay-chan’s Cutest Naruto Drawing contest. Read more »

Hello from New York, comic fans!! I’m home on the East Coast, visiting the fam for the holiday. So - comics!

Picked up a few things this week that I’m already reading - Trinity, Echo - and there were some interesting new things as well. First, there’s Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam, an all ages book by Mike Kunkel. Kunkel wrote a charming book a few years ago, Hero Bear and the Kid, but like many self-published projects, it didn’t last. The good news is someone at Marvel was smart enough to hire the guy and we get this book. Also new this week, Neil Gaiman’s graphic novelization of Coraline with art by P. Craig Russel. And, for you Buffy/Joss fans, Whedon returns to this week with issue #16 of season 8.

As long as I’m in New York, I went over to the Met to see the “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy” exhibit, which I have to say was disappointing. Not so much from a fashion standpoint - I love Mugler and Galliano and McQueen, but it felt like Superheroes as a theme was an excuse to show rubberized clothes. What I found coolest was the stuff for sale in conjunction with the show: there was a pop up history of Marvel comics, a comic book guide to NYC and cool op pop t-shirts.

Finally, I need to ask how you all feel about your comic shops. I am so spoiled by Golden Apple and never even realized it. It’s light and bright and well organized, and the staff is friendly. If they’re out of something, which they rarely are, they’ll re-order or find it for you. I went to a store today in Manhattan on the Upper East Side - I don’t want to slam anyone by name, but they’re on the second floor of a pet shop - and had a really unpleasant experience that reminds me why many girls don’t read comics. The store is small and cramped - okay NY real estate is expensive - and the owner was smoking the whole time I was there. I went by at about 11.30am and they were closed while they stocked today’s books. Okay…So, I came back a couple hours later to find they had sold out of most of what I had planned to buy, once I could locate where the books would have been. They explained that they only ordered what they knew their loyal customers would buy, but that I should order from them in the future. Why would I do that? I live in LA and they made me feel very unwelcome. And there was a creepy guy kinda following me around. Yuk.

How’s your comic book store? Any weird experiences? Good ones? Bad? Purple?

Can you believe June is over already?  It’s the dog days of summer for many of us - a perfect time for lounging around doing nothing but reading fan fic! Did you know that you can format any story on FanLib for printing with the touch of a button? Look for the printer icon just under to the left of the page count drop down box. Click that and you’ll get a simple layout perfect for printing.

Want to save a tree or two? Use an ebook reader that can handle HTML pages for perfectly portable fic with no waste!

The end of June also means that July 4th is quickly approaching. This week’s carousel is themed for this most patriotic of all holidays. Look for Dr. Who, Hellboy, Equlibrium (that’s a new one for us) and National Treasure.

Before heading out into the world, take a look at the recent posts here at No Hiatus.  This past week purplepopple wrote about getting more readers for your fic, Evai gave us a rundown on what’s hot in anime, we got a short vid from FanLib Studios and I pondered fandoms that go overboard, just a tad. All of that was in addition to our usual columns about movies, TV, comics and, of course, FanLib fic.

Thanks for stopping by, now go forth and create.

Which is all of you…but while you’re all fabulous, some of you actually won contests this week…so let’s find out who!

(Disclaimer - not all winners are listed. There’s so many member contests - you busy little beavers - that if I listed all the winners we’d be here until next Monday. So I’m just highlightin’ a few.)

Congrats to whigworld for winning thedreamcontinued’s Anniversary celebration of KVP!

Thumbs up to cvalin who won diehardjavajunkie14’s Stars Hollow Townie challenge!

I’m loving the joy; go go maryilee! She won the Celebration contest hosted by missmissa85.

Read more »

Member purplepopple highlights ways to promote your stories, especially if you write in one of these fandoms:
Harry Potter
CSI
Naruto
Inuyasha
Star Wars

Looking for more readers for your fan fiction? Just waiting for readers to show up on an archive not getting you the attention you want? Be pro-active - promote yourself, find message boards, mailing lists, communities and social networking sites where you can mention yourself and your work. The lack of readers and reviewers doesn’t mean that you’re a bad writer - it probably means you’re not marketing yourself right.

First, organize your fan fiction in one central place, preferably at FanLib, so you don’t have to worry about keeping track of feedback and reviews from fifteen different sites. It also makes it easier for other people to link to your profile as it involves just one link, not links to a number of different archives that your readers have to check to see if you’ve updated. FanLib allows adult content, when properly rated. You don’t need to put the adult material on one site and the non-adult material on another. You don’t need to lock those posts to restrict readability to only a select audience for fear of getting ToSed. FanLib allows for quality, easy interaction between readers and writers so that once you have readers, you can respond to them in order to help maintain your audience.

After you’ve decided on a central archive, make sure you’ve told your friends and readers that you’re primarily archiving there. Explain why you’re archiving there and encourage them to do the same. If your friends and readers are there too, it makes it easier for them to get updates. It also means they might encourage their friends to go there and check it out. Your potential for casual drop-by readers will increase.
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FanLibber Evai gives us the down low on the girl from down below

“This world is called fate.
The binding thread coils itself around fragile helpless prejudice…
Hatred… Sadness…
It all ends in tears.
Beyond the Curtain, at midnight, any pending revenge will be taken.”
- the opening of Hell Girl

Enma Ai is the main character of this rather serious anime series. She appears to be a young girl with flowing black hair and brilliant red eyes who lives between worlds in a place that seems to be caught in eternal twilight. She resides there with her grandmother, whom you never see during the course of the series. Ai has been given a task as atonement for the brutal revenge that she took on her village. In effect, it is Ai’s job to take revenge for others and ferry those they chose to hell.

Ai does this by way of Hell’s Correspondence, which is a website that can only be accessed at midnight. You simply type in the name of the person you wish to take revenge on and click the send button. Yet, if it were that simple, wouldn’t we all be taking revenge. There is a catch, when you curse someone, “two holes will open” and you as well will fall into hell. It doesn’t happen right away, as it does with the person you’ve taken revenge on, it happens later when you die.
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Unfortunately, as we all know, comedy genius George Carlin passed away on Sunday.  Kevin Smith, who worked with him on three films, has written a truly moving piece about him.  You can read it here.

I can only imagine that if there is a heaven, Carlin’s up there giving them hell for what’s going on down here.  Rest in peace, George.

Have you ever watched one of those sensationalized “captured on film” shows where the family pet goes wild and attacks grandma? They show the clip over and over, in slow motion, with arrows pointing out the exact spot where the claws sunk in.  They interview little Tommy who was at his friend’s house and didn’t see it, but he’s upset anyway - and then there’s grandma’s shriek, which has been enhanced with electronics and analyzed by a vocal coach. They play the clip over and over. . . and over. . . and then one more time until you shout at the TV, “enough all ready! Seriously, cat, claws, flesh, pain.  I got it!”

Sometimes fandom is like that.

This week it was the Moonlight fans vs. Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter: Live Feed.  He penned a post about the final, final demise of Moonlight and he did it with what the fans deemed to be a condescending tone.  Some fans politely expressed their displeasure, but others were a bit more heavy handed in their remarks resorting to foul language and jabs at the author’s journalistic integrity. And I suspect the comments on the blog were only a small sampling of the tongue lashing the author got since he amended his post to clarify the fact that he was simply kidding with his tone.

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Because book one of Xanadu comes out today… What? Excuse me? It’s not Xanadu? Damn, I was really looking forward to illustrated versions of Olivia Newton John and Gene Kelly. Oh well. This is Madame Xanadu, a new series from Vertigo written by major talent, Matt Wagner. Wagner is the genius behind the Grendel and Mage books, both art and script (if you’ve never read Mage, run out and get the trade paperbacks - fanfreakingtastic stuff). Wagner’s only scripting this book, but the art, by Amy Hadley, is gorge. Madame Xanadu is an old DC character getting a revamp due to her role in the DC Crises. I’ll let you know what I think.

Okay, here’s the interactive, help a sister out portion of the post. What books are you guys reading? Who are your favorite writers and artists? Who’s your dream team? We want to hear from you.

Your favorite TV shows have a schedule and we do too!  Here at No Hiatus, we’ve got a dozen regular features designed with our fannish writers, readers and artists in mind.

Cynthiab (that’s me) starts the week with a round-up of news from FanLib.  I talk about the week’s carousel theme, keep you updated on contests and point out interesting threads in our forum.

On Monday afternoon, Schinders comes by to highlight some of the member contest winners of the past week.

On Tuesday it’s the FanLib 5 Q’s — a chance to get to know a little more about some of the people you see all around the site.  Sometimes they’re members who have been with us from day one, sometimes they’re newbies - but they’re always interesting.

On Wednesday, Schinders is back with her Comics Chick column, filling you in on what’s hot in the comic book world.

Read more »

Ladies and Gentelmen! Fanficcers of all ages! Step right up! Right this way! Look to your left, look to your right, but stay on the path. Beware the man eating polar bear! Look out for the bearded lady and the man with no bones. And in the center ring, a site to behold, a site to make women scream, old men cry, and the infirm to regain health…Member Contest. Oooh. Ahhh.

Who’s that riding in bareback, standing a top a white mare? The contests that are open for submission:

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Guest blogger Dee Doyle is back with this week’s 411.

The X-Men hold a very special part of my heart because they were the first comic book characters I fell in love with. I was eight and I started reading the comic after seeing that a young girl named Kitty Pryde was on the team. She was pretty, smart and had super powers. I wanted to be her. As time went on, I opened my eyes to the many themes and human struggles that the X-Men represented.

The X-Men are about evolution. They are about being renegades and outcasts in a world that will constantly try to knock them down. In the face of adversity and hatred, they only stand up taller and fight for the greater good. There are no super heroes that have been through more pain than the mutants of the Marvel universe and yet they are not treated as heroes, but as villains, by the very people they strive to defend and save. It is tragic to be a X-Man and, at the same time, endlessly noble, honorable, and human.

The X-Men were created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The original characters were Cyclops/Scott Summers, Hank McCoy/Beast, Bobby Drake/Iceman, Warren Worthington/Angel and Jean Grey/Marvel Girl. They were led by Professor Charles Xavier, the world’s most powerful telepath and the father figure for this team of misfits. They live in the Xavier Institute in New York and learn to use the powers bestowed upon them by evolution; their powers are a result from natural DNA mutation at puberty. In time, the team expanded to such favorite characters as Storm, Gambit, Rogue, Dazzler, Psylocke and, of course, Wolverine. The villains were usually fellow mutants that responded to human hatred with fury, like Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The overarching enemy, however, was humanity itself and its unyielding fear of mutants.
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