Comic Geek Speak Redux

Apparently Peter Rios of Comic Geek Speak was offended by my negative initial reaction to their podcast on Aquaman which contained some bad research, in particular a whopper of a mistake in which they quoted Aquaman's origin from Wikipedia and included a Wikipedia vandal's contribution in whole, which meant they hadn't even suspected that it was false and checked on the information. As a professional researcher, that little bit of poor research hit me hard and led to my harsh initial review, which I followed up with a slightly mellower post after I'd finished listening and had time to think about it.

To my amusement, Peter says he's going to "omit" the reference to me in the podcast, a very childish reaction to a bad review that only serves to reinforce my initial reaction and give me a poorer opinion of Peter himself. (For the record, I was impressed that they pronounced my name correctly in the podcast, so if he removes it, I guess I don't have to be impressed anymore?)

What Peter apparently didn't do is look at my follow-up post, in which I said that the podcast had actually inspired me to clean up my act and get some much-needed work done on this website. In his comment he talks about the people that were inspired by the podcast... well, count me as one of them. I have gotten a lot done on this site since I first listened to that podcast on May 6th, and the initial impetus to get it done was provided by their podcast.

You can also check out their forum, in which a number of people contribute their stories of being inspired by the podcast.

But Peter unfortunately felt it was necessary to be overly defensive and upset at a negative review. That's made it very difficult for me to take him seriously. You'd think he's never had a harsh review before. So Peter, for what it's worth, you need to chill a bit. I'd hate to see your reaction to a truly nasty review. Would you delete the whole podcast and sulk in the corner?

Update

So, despite me being very harsh about the Comic Geek Speak Aquaman Podcast, it is worth a listen if you know very little about Aquaman. And hey, they actually managed to pronounce my name correctly at the end of the show, which is always a pleasant surprise. It's also inspired me to update some sections of this page, particularly the Previews and Shipping List, which were both very out of date.

In addition, I have a handful of minor front-page updates planned, including a more prominent link to The Aquaman Shrine, which is updated much more frequently than this site, and has extremely good information for any Aquaman fan. The Aquaman Shrine is a site I would be proud to have created.

Anyway, if you have any comments or questions about Aquaman and the current events, please use the comment form provided on this post.

Update: Hey, finished the updates. What do you think?

Ripples Through Time

I just updated the Ripples Through Time label link, and it should now show ALL of my Golden Age Aquaman reviews, from More Fun #73 up to Adventure Comics #268. Eventually I want to resume the project, but I'm waiting until I get into another Aquaman obsession time again.

In the meantime, Rob has been doing wonderful reviews with considerably more images than I would dare use over at The Aquaman Shrine.

News Feed Has Changed...

I didn't realize when I converted my site from FTP to a subdomain that I'd messed up the RSS feed, but I did. The new feed is http://aquablog.gjovaag.com/atom.xml, so change it in your reader and get updated Aquaman-y goodness when it happens.

While you're at it, make sure you also subscribe to The Aquaman Shrine's Feed so you can get Rob's excellent site.

Testing

This is a test. This blog is being moved from a fairly complicated FTP to a slightly less convoluted Google-hosted sub-domain. Let's see if this works at all.

Admin - Comments

The Haloscan commenting system appears to be going away, so the comments will vanish for awhile until we can get the more standard Blogger comments inserted. Sorry about that.

UPDATE: Blogger commenting is up, but the old comments have been lost. Well, I have them, but they are in a format that is difficult to read and cannot be uploaded. So everybody starts fresh with new comments now.

Administration and a Couple of Links

I've been setting up a framework to put all the facts and details of this page into an easier format to edit, namely a wiki format. The new section of the page is now ready to visit. The content is still very sparse, but it will build up. Editing on most pages is by invitation only, but you can leave notes on the Soapbox if you have something to say.

Some good Aquaman artwork.

I love Aquaman Shrine's Superhero Vitamin Ad.

Ripples Through Time - Update

I haven't done a Ripples Through Time post in a couple of months, mostly because I messed up some links and needed to fix them, and being a lazy sort of webmistress I put it off for entirely too long. I was also getting a bit burned out trying to do one a day. I know, I know... I don't have to do one every day. But I was trying.

I got through 135 stories so far, out of over 500 (Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #57 will be 514 by my count). I'm only counting Aquaman's solo adventures, not his guest appearances in other books or his role in the Justice League. Those adventures will come later, after I've finished my survey of the solo stories.

In the stories I've read I've learned that Aquaman is a friend to all honest sailors, that he doesn't much care about his reputation as long as he can do good, that he will always help the US Navy, that Aquaman fills many roles on the ocean including fire-fighter, doctor, jailer, banker, and movie consultant. Aquaman is a buddy to most sea life, but some sea life doesn't know him. Aquaman is actively involved in conservation efforts, but doesn't mind humans fishing or whaling as long as they do it responsibly. Aquaman doesn't have any limits to his out of water time, but he is weakened by intense heat and lack of moisture. Aquaman has extraordinary strength, but usually uses his brain to solve problems (which is why the Sea Sleuth didn't catch on, as Aquaman was already smart and didn't need him). Aquaman's first recurring partner was Ark the Sea Lion (or seal, depending on the story) and his first recurring villain was Black Jack the Modern Pirate.

One of the links I set up is the archive of Ripples Through Time. I have a link for the first 100 Ripples, and the second 100 Ripples will eventually have their space, too.

And so... tomorrow... Ripples Through Time will continue!

Bandwidth Theft

Now that I've moved to my own domain and I'm much more aware of the bandwidth I'm using, I've started to take an active interest in seeing who is sending me traffic. Today, while browsing through my referrers, I came across a place that had posted several images from my site without any links back. This is known as bandwidth theft or "hot-linking", and it's a no-no.

After consulting various methods of stopping the theft, I attempted to implement one. Unfortunately, I messed up the code just a little. About that time, my younger brother contacted me from Germany, and I was occupied for ... awhile. Unbeknownst to me, the code was blocking all images from showing up, including on my own site, and substituting a "Bandwidth Theft" warning banner.

Ooops.

After I finished my discussion with my brother (happy birthday, D!) I noticed the problem and fixed it. However, some of you folks may have logged in during the... um... outage. The page looked very odd. I apologize for the mistake. It probably won't happen again. And now I have a good method for blocking sites that hot-link to my images. I'll be using that method in the future.

In other administration news, I've removed most of the images from my old URL, and will be putting up redirect pages soon. If you notice any broken links on THIS site, leading back to a location on eskimo.com, please let me know. I'm less than half done updating the blog entries... but those should make up the bulk of the broken links at this point.

Domain Change

Some of you have no doubt noticed that the Aquaman website is in the process of moving. The new URL for the Aquaman website is aqua.gjovaag.com. At the new domain I have much more space, and therefore have started the long process of adding labels to posts. I'm hoping to add other bonuses in the future.

If you are using an RSS feed to read the Aquaman website update, this will be the last note you see on the old feed. From here on out I will only be using the feeds on the new site: atom feed and rss feed.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks I will stop updating this version of the site and put up a redirect page to the new site. Update your bookmarks now and you won't notice a thing. I hope.

NEW URL = aqua.gjovaag.com

New Blogger Test Post

I've converted my blogs to "New Blogger" from the old version. This is a test post to see how the FTP publishing works, and if tagging is added.

Update: What an incredibly stupid implementation of tags/labels. Not worth the extra space required on my website at the moment, so no tags for the Aquaman site, sorry. If someone wants to donate the money to upgrade my disk space, I could do it, but I can't afford the extra space at the moment.

Update Feb 8th 2007: Surprise events led to me getting my own domain and a lot more space for my website. If you want to donate money to support hosting on this site, go to gjovaag.com, the parent domain of this one, and use the link there.

Notice

Hi, Laura here. I run this website. Normally I try to post something new each day, since that keeps folks interested and coming back. However, I'm a little tired and stressed from the holidays, so you aren't going to see any updates until next year. Hey, don't be upset, that's only a few days away. I'll be restarting my Ripples Through Time posts, and maybe find some more Aqua-y links for you to enjoy. In the meantime, I hope everyone out there has a happy New Year.

*toast* To the Future!

Posting Will Resume...

I'll get back to normal posting tomorrow, I hope. In the meantime, enjoy this bizarre link to scans daily.

No News Today

Because of the storm that hit Seattle, I have no power at home. I'm suspending my Ripples Through Time until life has settled down a bit more. Thanks.

Snowed In

I'm snowed in and cannot get down to my comic shop to see if Aquaman #46 has arrived today as it was due to arrive. If you've got your copy, please feel free to post that you've received it in the comments. No spoilers though. I likely won't get my copy for a couple of days.

While I wait for the snow to melt in the inevitable Seattle rain, here's a couple of links for you to enjoy:

Look what I found amidst a lot of images of Peanuts meet Marvel.

Also, check out this eBay auction of Jim Aparo Aquaman artwork.

Alternate Ways To Read Aquaman News

I got an e-mail recently asking if I had a feed for the Aquaman News site. Yup, I've had one since I changed format to daily updates. The link is down on the sidebar, with the Blogger, Haloscan and Technorati links. Today I made the feed link larger and attached a standard feed image to it (that's the orange and white box), and also added a link to subscribe to the feed in Bloglines (the RSS reader I use). I apologize to anyone who looked and couldn't find it (it was just a text link before).

News Feed

Website Improvements

Over the next few days I'll be making some file name changes to, hopefully, get rid of the adblock problem. This may mean that some images won't show up properly for a few days. I'll be fixing it as quickly as possible. Please bear with me.

Links

The Comic Treadmill reads Adventure Comics from 1958.

You could almost ride it, a Giant Seahorse up for auction on eBay.

In other news, I've been updating the Cover Gallery section of the website, very slowly. I'm making a bit of progress. I still don't have all the covers/splash pages up, but I'm getting closer. I do a little bit, behind the scenes, almost every day.