The History of CBR Project (need contributors from all eras of CBR history)

[Shade]

My association with CBR began in 1998, when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease and had to leave school. I was literally living in my parents' basement, getting chemotherapy treatments and generally isolated from all of my friends-- my parents had moved to Michigan while I was in college, and I didn't really know anybody who wasn't a cancer patient, a nurse, or a family member. In hindsight, it was a very dark time. Well, it seemed dark then too, of course. Having cancer sucked. But what I mean is, it was a lonely time. But it was nice to be able to talk comics with people I didn't "really" know, and by the end of that year-- when I went into the hospital for a bone marrow transplant-- it was nice to know that these people knew my situation and were concerned about me. And then, welcomed me back when I got out of the hospital about a month later.

Things are going really well for me now, but it meant a lot to find such a friendly and supportive group of people. And many of them shared my love of Curt Swan and the Justice League International, so that was a big plus.

I remember how rational, reasoned and positive you were back on the old GL board. It made you stand out like a sore thumb. . Seriously it's good to hear you are doing well.

[Jonah Weiland]

And gosh, it can be such an awfully nice place.

That was AWESOME! Thank you for that.

[Jonah Weiland]

Not bloody likely.

T'Ommmmmmmmmmm! So nice to see you! Tell us everything! How are you?

[Jonah Weiland]

My association with CBR began in 1998, when I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease and had to leave school. I was literally living in my parents' basement, getting chemotherapy treatments and generally isolated from all of my friends-- my parents had moved to Michigan while I was in college, and I didn't really know anybody who wasn't a cancer patient, a nurse, or a family member. In hindsight, it was a very dark time. Well, it seemed dark then too, of course. Having cancer sucked. But what I mean is, it was a lonely time. But it was nice to be able to talk comics with people I didn't "really" know, and by the end of that year-- when I went into the hospital for a bone marrow transplant-- it was nice to know that these people knew my situation and were concerned about me. And then, welcomed me back when I got out of the hospital about a month later.

Things are going really well for me now, but it meant a lot to find such a friendly and supportive group of people. And many of them shared my love of Curt Swan and the Justice League International, so that was a big plus.

Wow - that's huge, Bradley. I didn't know much of this. Thank you for sharing!

[OzBat!]

Like effdot, I was here really early on. I worked in a small Australian government agency, and one bright monday morning the head of the agency advised that they had rolled out browsers and initiated internet access for all staff over the weekend. So, I followed instructions for accessing Yahoo Search, and did the first most obvious search any responsible government employee should do, and looked for "comic books". One of the first results back up was for a "Kingdom Come" fan site. I'd seen the ads in the comics and was intrigued, and went. This guy Jonah put a lot of work into this! And heyyy... forums? What are...

Holeeeeeee. Crap! Weirdness! The message boards had apparently only been up for a week and dozens of people were already mucking the place up. It was AWESOME.

Jonah released a new message board with each new Kingdom Come book release, so by the time we got to Message Board: Book 3, the place was jumping. Every day I'd come in to work, and there would be hundreds of posts left overnight by all these weirdos on the other side of the planet. Being Australian with all the differences in time zones that entailed, worked entirely in my favour for establishing a presence on the boards. All the americans/canadians/mexicans etc would post during their day, and I would come in overnight and respond to virtually everything, and then when they logged in on their next morning, there was this hit'n'run posting barrage from the mad aussie. To which they'd reply, and I would walk into this wall of responses the next day and be thrilled. It was a great new toy. I got very little work done, and got in trouble with a succession of supervisors over quite a few years.

One thing to understand is that you didn't need to actually register or log in back in the early days. The message board system used allowed us to put a different name in on every post. The thread display system was a tree system, so that you saw responses to an initial post, indented below it. Posters got exceptionally creative in using both the post title link, AND their name link, to create stories or witty rejoinders in the post links themselves, so you could laugh hysterically just looking at the thread display before ever opening a post to see the contents. The monster pun machine known as Fenris was unleashed in those early days. Hatman and The Mighty Hank! were the comedy duo we all aspired to. The Wet Willie and the Jester turned up only a couple weeks after I did and ran rampant. Innuendo reined supreme. Misdirection was a true tactical weapon. So, it was a multi-level immersive experience with some exceptionally witty people exploring what essentially was a new art form.

My poster name "OzBat!" was a gift from that initial group of posters. When the next issue of Kingdom Come came out we'd spend about a week hashing through theories and conspiracies and easter eggs, and then spend the next three weeks goofing off with pastiches of those and other comics. One of the classic easter eggs in Kingdom Come was the smiling image of Batmite, smiling through the monitors of the batcave computer system. I labelled myself BatMite! The imp wot imps at midnight! But as our pastiches grew into longer free-form collaborative stories set in the imaginary universes we created/mutilated, most of us left our borrowed heroic personas or slapped a different shade of paint on them and created more individual names for ourselves. I couldn't quite find one that fit, so one quiet night a bunch of late nite owls made a competition out of it until J'onn came up with the composite name in a fit of hilarious brilliance.

I've used this moniker everywhere I've gone on the internet ever since. That's 18 years of a single identifier on the wwweb, and while I definitely have an infinitely small web footprint, OzBat! has become me on the web, not merely a mask or a handle. In a lot of ways its more real to me than my real name, because this group of lunatics I got mixed up with so long ago have been there for me through decades of dealing with spousal depression, our eventual breakup, dealing with kids as a single father for a few years, issues with work... they've been my support group in more ways than one.

I can't emphasise how important this was to me. I live in Canberra. It's the capital of Australia (no, not Sydney! Sheeesh!) and the seat of federal goverment. Not many people actually build a permanent life here; they come for work, there's a change of government, they leave. Sure there's private companies and schools, shops, universities etc but as a government employee, most of my friends have never stuck around, but moved on after a few years. The one constant I've had is my internet associates, my lunatic mates. And while I've never met any of them in person* I still appreciate the hell out of them.

* I once worked in a 24 hour operations center monitoring the public broadcaster transmission network. It was deathly boring staring at automated alarms for transmission strength and power levels. Paul W. and Doug Strange both internationally phoned the operations center hotline at 4am in the morning once because they could. I had a smile on my face for days after hearing these mad americans on the phone!

[Cotton]

Do y'all remember Comic Book Universe Battles? CBUB electric ferret? Any of that?

[Alistair]

What about the old chat room? I was in there long before I was on the boards.

I have fond memories of me, you, Jayna, ThatJonoGuy, Trusty Mutsi, Conn and others hanging out there for hours at a time (though back then I was able to just post as "Al", before the minimum character limit for names came in.

[Kees_L]

What I am gonna remember is the good stuff.

Like Morna & Gary Bolt, Coke & Comics, Bipolar Danger Girl, Paul McEnery, Mr Super E, Paradox, Captain Clarkie, Australians, Puma, Pip, some cowbell-dude, mot asber Canadian artists, some mouthy hairy teacher, Winslow always on about Kierkegaard, Greg Hatcher or Cei-U and so on telling me about cool old stuff, a noir-fiction writing ex-Marine cool guy, Dupont, Kid Omega, somethingMob (big Moore fan), Norm Breyfogle just posting one time and all the other coots or weirdo's I forget.

I can feel thankful for fun. Seriously.

[Jonah Weiland]

Like effdot, I was here really early on. I worked in a small Australian government agency, and one bright monday morning the head of the agency advised that they had rolled out browsers and initiated internet access for all staff over the weekend. So, I followed instructions for accessing Yahoo Search, and did the first most obvious search any responsible government employee should do, and looked for "comic books". One of the first results back up was for a "Kingdom Come" fan site. I'd seen the ads in the comics and was intrigued, and went. This guy Jonah put a lot of work into this! And heyyy... forums? What are...

Holeeeeeee. Crap! Weirdness! The message boards had apparently only been up for a week and dozens of people were already mucking the place up. It was AWESOME.

Jonah released a new message board with each new Kingdom Come book release, so by the time we got to Message Board: Book 3, the place was jumping. Every day I'd come in to work, and there would be hundreds of posts left overnight by all these weirdos on the other side of the planet. Being Australian with all the differences in time zones that entailed, worked entirely in my favour for establishing a presence on the boards. All the americans/canadians/mexicans etc would post during their day, and I would come in overnight and respond to virtually everything, and then when they logged in on their next morning, there was this hit'n'run posting barrage from the mad aussie. To which they'd reply, and I would walk into this wall of responses the next day and be thrilled. It was a great new toy. I got very little work done, and got in trouble with a succession of supervisors over quite a few years.

One thing to understand is that you didn't need to actually register or log in back in the early days. The message board system used allowed us to put a different name in on every post. The thread display system was a tree system, so that you saw responses to an initial post, indented below it. Posters got exceptionally creative in using both the post title link, AND their name link, to create stories or witty rejoinders in the post links themselves, so you could laugh hysterically just looking at the thread display before ever opening a post to see the contents. The monster pun machine known as Fenris was unleashed in those early days. Hatman and The Mighty Hank! were the comedy duo we all aspired to. The Wet Willie and the Jester turned up only a couple weeks after I did and ran rampant. Innuendo reined supreme. Misdirection was a true tactical weapon. So, it was a multi-level immersive experience with some exceptionally witty people exploring what essentially was a new art form.

My poster name "OzBat!" was a gift from that initial group of posters. When the next issue of Kingdom Come came out we'd spend about a week hashing through theories and conspiracies and easter eggs, and then spend the next three weeks goofing off with pastiches of those and other comics. One of the classic easter eggs in Kingdom Come was the smiling image of Batmite, smiling through the monitors of the batcave computer system. I labelled myself BatMite! The imp wot imps at midnight! But as our pastiches grew into longer free-form collaborative stories set in the imaginary universes we created/mutilated, most of us left our borrowed heroic personas or slapped a different shade of paint on them and created more individual names for ourselves. I couldn't quite find one that fit, so one quiet night a bunch of late nite owls made a competition out of it until J'onn came up with the composite name in a fit of hilarious brilliance.

I've used this moniker everywhere I've gone on the internet ever since. That's 18 years of a single identifier on the wwweb, and while I definitely have an infinitely small web footprint, OzBat! has become me on the web, not merely a mask or a handle. In a lot of ways its more real to me than my real name, because this group of lunatics I got mixed up with so long ago have been there for me through decades of dealing with spousal depression, our eventual breakup, dealing with kids as a single father for a few years, issues with work... they've been my support group in more ways than one.

I can't emphasise how important this was to me. I live in Canberra. It's the capital of Australia (no, not Sydney! Sheeesh!) and the seat of federal goverment. Not many people actually build a permanent life here; they come for work, there's a change of government, they leave. Sure there's private companies and schools, shops, universities etc but as a government employee, most of my friends have never stuck around, but moved on after a few years. The one constant I've had is my internet associates, my lunatic mates. And while I've never met any of them in person* I still appreciate the hell out of them.

* I once worked in a 24 hour operations center monitoring the public broadcaster transmission network. It was deathly boring staring at automated alarms for transmission strength and power levels. Paul W. and Doug Strange both internationally phoned the operations center hotline at 4am in the morning once because they could. I had a smile on my face for days after hearing these mad americans on the phone!

That was amazing - thanks for sharing!

[Jonah Weiland]

Do y'all remember Comic Book Universe Battles? CBUB electric ferret? Any of that?

I absolutely do -- I didn't participate, but they were a might community in the early days.

[Hod]

I remember laughing like a drain for ten years solid.

[Doug Strange]

* I once worked in a 24 hour operations center monitoring the public broadcaster transmission network. It was deathly boring staring at automated alarms for transmission strength and power levels. Paul W. and Doug Strange both internationally phoned the operations center hotline at 4am in the morning once because they could. I had a smile on my face for days after hearing these mad americans on the phone!

I worked in a call center, too...was it me that called you, or you that called me? I was an AWFUL conversationalist. Sorry about that, old buddy.

[Eli.C]

Do y'all remember Comic Book Universe Battles? CBUB electric ferret? Any of that?

Without that site (and a racist moderator), I wouldn't be here.

[effdot]

That was AWESOME! Thank you for that.

You are welcome sir!

[thespianphryne]

effdot! I received a weird spammy, mail-wormy email from (ostensibly) your gmail address. You should check your machine or whatever.