Monitor Duty by Randy Lander We're Not Moving Again, Are We? Those of you who have been following the careers of Don and myself for the past couple of years may be shocked to learn this, but as of today, The Fourth Rail is officially one year old... and we have no plans of moving to a new site. All jokes aside, while I've been reviewing for something like six years at this point, I haven't stayed in the same place for most of those years, and while The Fourth Rail isn't the longest-running place my reviews have been (that would be Usenet, actually) I don't see anything that will prevent it from eventually becoming just that. We like our independence, we like our site design (thank you again James!), we like our webhosting company and we're enjoying the writing routine we've developed. Honestly, I'm a little surprised to still be writing at all. I really planned on giving up the reviewing thing after Fandom died. I'd been getting paid to do this for about two years at that point (almost a year at Psycomic, a year exactly at Fandom) and I was getting burnt out anyway. How could I go back to doing this for free, especially when I'd have to be doing a full-time job on top of it? Funny thing happened, though... I found that I couldn't stop writing. Marvel was releasing all these new books, and I had so much to say about them, plus there were a bunch of other books I really wanted to review... and I couldn't stop writing the reviews. And so, when we launched in August of last year, I already had some reviews written to go in the archives. That's why the archives go back to July, in case you were wondering. Because Don and I have been doing this for so long, I think we had a relatively easy time figuring out the identity of the site. And so the routine of First Looks, weekly reviews and once or twice weekly Two in Ones became an easy one to maintain, kept interesting by the occasional special feature. If you're new to the site, you may have missed out on some of our early reviews or early features, and I'd encourage you to check out the archives and see what you've missed. Some of my favorite features lurk in those archives. In addition to the occasional Fightin' Words from Psycomic-alumni Patrick Keller, we had some great guest columns sprinkled throughout our first year. Ed Brubaker provided us with a column for our first week, with some well-considered thoughts on the nature of comic-book criticism. Jeff Lester (of San Francisco's Comix Experience) served up a hilarious "tale from the comic shop." Alex Robinson gave us a view into the world of mini-comics. Mark Millar took a turn reviewing comics that he thought readers should know about. And Jess Nevins agreed to share his terrific League of Extraordinary Gentlemen annotations with us. Don and I also got to stretch our wings a bit, each of us tackling columns and writing of interest to us. I began doing my monthly Previews Reviews, which I've come to enjoy writing every bit as much as my regular reviews. Don stayed faithful to his first love of reporting with the occasional Headlines, and also created a new and fun feature in Letter Bugs, looking at letters from the pros back when they were fans. We tried our hand at recommending websites with Webslinging. And we served up plenty of our back-and-forth reviews in Two in One format. Those features, plus the occasional Monitor Duty (my column name from IGN) and Thought Balloons (Don's column name from Psycomic), will of course continue on the site. Perhaps my favorite feature, though, is one that we'll be doing again in about four months time: Our Best of the Year feature. Don and I got to take a look back at 2001 and pick out what we thought was the cream of the crop. The first part dealt with notable series and issues, the second with creators, and they were both a blast to write. Don and I put a lot of work into the site in this first year, but we couldn't have done it without the help and support of a lot of folks. So I'd like to end this column with a few thank yous. I know full well that I'll leave somebody out if I get too specific, so y'all will have to forgive me if I don't give a list of names. But I'd like to thank every one of our guest contributors for taking time out of their busy schedules to write us something. I'd like to thank all the companies and creators who send us comics for review, knowing full well that the reviews may not all be positive. I'd like to thank all the pros for their email, posts on message boards and kind words in San Diego. It's gratifying to know that you get what we're all about, and that being critics doesn't mean we hate comics... quite the opposite, in fact. And I'd like to especially thank all of our readers, whether you just found us today or whether you've been following us around since our Usenet days. Finally, I have to slip a few "by name" thank yous in here. I have to thank the owner and management of Dragon's Lair, who have let me nab the First Look packs every week so that I could have them to review. I have to thank my wife Suzanne, who has watched me spend endless Sundays and Wednesday nights in my office, typing away on my keyboard instead of spending time with her. I have to thank James Lucas Jones for giving us the single best design that Don and I have ever had on a website. I also want to welcome aboard Geoff Johns, and hope that he will enjoy writing his new weekly recommendations column as much as I expect you will all enjoy reading it. And I have to thank Don, without whom I wouldn't have this enormous ulcer. Kidding! I'm only kidding! Actually, the best thing to come out of working on Psycomic was getting to spend time with and become closer friends with Don. It's not everyone who can say that one of their best friends lives hundreds of miles away, and yet they still talk daily. Email Randy Lander comments about this column, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.