Comixfan: Wikis

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Comixfan.com

Comixfan is a website which publishes news, reviews, interviews, previews and opinion pieces about the American comic book industry. The site also hosts a moderated message board with numerous forums encompassing all facets of the industry, including the official discussion forum for the writers of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series of comics. The board also includes numerous forums for comic book professionals to correspond directly with their fans. Such professionals include Chris Claremont, Tom Brevoort, Mike Deodato, Jr., Peter David, and many more.

Among the site's other features are a comic book cover gallery, creator dossiers, character bios, issue summaries, crossover checklists, an online store, and more.

History

The Comixfan website began in 1996 as X-Fan, a fansite dedicated to Marvel Comics' X-Men property. Created by life-long Australian X-Men fan Eric J. Moreels, the site was originally hosted on his free University account. As the site's popularity grew, it was moved to a new host in Cyberalink, a Queensland-based ISP, in an effort to increase the speed and functionality for its visitors. After Cyberalink closed down, X-Fan moved to a temporary home at Xoom.com until the Comic Sites Alliance offered to host the site at comicsites.com. X-Fan later briefly relocated back to Xoom.com before finding a new home with Chariot Internet. The site remained there until invited to join Fandom in late 1999 alongside other pre-eminent genre websites such as The Superman Homepage and, later, Newsarama. After a complete overhaul opf the site's look and functionality, X-Fan remained with Fandom as its official X-Men domain until the company's demise in early 2001.

Reborn from the ashes of Fandom, Cinescape Online invited X-Fan onboard cinescape.com to join its Fanspeak section of genre sites. X-Fan received another overhaul and remained with Cinescape for just over six months, contributing to both its online and print magazine presences. X-Fan then partnered up with online comics e-tailer X-World Comics who became the site's official sponsor in exchange for hosting services. The site ultimately grew enough to warrant a shift in coverage to encompass the entire comic book industry, resulting in a site name change to first ComiX-Fan, then Comixfan.

Recently, Moreels stepped down from his position as the site's Editor-in-Chief after taking up a freelance writing contract with Marvel. Long-time contributor Raul Grau now serves as the site's Editor-in-Chief, though Moreels continues as the site's owner/operator.

Content

News

Though the site has dabbled with rumours in the past, Comixfan's "bread and butter" has long been news and reviews. As X-Fan, the site maintained a good working relationship with Marvel's X-Men editors to the point where the two collaborated on an opinion poll published in the Wolverine comic series.

During Moreels' tenure as Editor-in-Chief, the site often reported news first-hand. With his recent departure from the position, the site has scaled back its news content to focus more on reviews and opinion pieces, though news is still reported in the form of press releases or second-hand from other trusted sources.

Columns

Throughout its history, the site has hosted columns by comics professionals including Robert Weinberg ("Eternity Waits" and "No Prisoners"), Buddy Scalera ("Behind the Curtain" and "Hey, Buddy!"), Douglass Barre ("Chimerical Comics"), Ryan McLelland ("Ripped Batman Shirt"), Marc Campbell ("Under the Hood"), and Tom Brevoort ("Life in a Four-Color World").