A few weeks ago, I discussed the usefulness of active, available archives for webcomics. Archives provide huge amounts of free content to draw in new readers; and they prevent continuity lockout by providing a way to easily go back and refresh your memory of previous events. With print comics, especially before the advent of everything getting collected in trade paperbacks, there really wasn’t a way to avoid that — which is a lot of why Silver Age stories needed to be as self-contained as they were.

Nowadays, people who are flush with cash can always go buy a TPB collection of stories they missed or forgot. Who the heck is this character in the latest issue of Ultimate Spider-Man? The editor’s note says he first appeared back in Ultimate X-Men #17. All it takes is one trip to Amazon.com, several days for delivery, and then reading time, and I’ll be caught up enough to understand what’s going on in the comic currently in my lap.

Of course, those of us with rent bills to pay have to make do with the lower-cost option: The internet. There are lots of choices to catch up on, say, DC Comics continuity: The DC Wikia, the Justice League Library, Heroes Wiki, and heck, even granddaddy Wikipedia itself.

But you know where you can’t go to figure out what happened in that recent issue of Batgirl you missed, or that Green Lantern plot point from 1988 that recently cropped up? DCComics.com.

Now, don’t get me wrong: If you want to see artwork previews, or check the list of everything that’s in print, or get a short graphic bio of most of the characters, DCComics.com is the place to go. But say you haven’t been following Trinity and want to catch up. If you go to the forum and ask for the best place to do so, they’ll point you to Wikipedia.

Of course, Marvel’s website already has their own version of the wiki and it’s pretty nifty, too.

So here’s my suggestion to DC: You need a wiki. You’ve got an army of fans just aching to show how much they know about the characters and storylines, as evidenced by the other wikis that crop up everywhere. You need accessible utilities that’ll help build a bigger audience, especially among younger people, who don’t have the continuity knowledge to get into most recent titles. You need to drive traffic to your website as effective advertising for your products, and keep people at your website, rather than shunting them off to an outside source. And you’ll want all of this to be under your nominal control.

Here’s how you do it: Acquire the Wikia content (I don’t know the legal channels, but I’m sure you could find them). Hire a few of your most OCD fans (and a couple of the ComicMix contributors come to mind) as moderators. Set a few ground rules (no spoilers for this month’s books, no speculation, no flaming), and let the fans go from there. Link in the original stories, history of the DC and other online content you currently have, and have the last line of the wiki entry for each ongoing book or characters be a link to a preview of the next issue. Heck, if you set up creator/author/artist pages right, you can have an “subtle” way of linking fans of one book to things that they would also want to buy.

Also, everything that currently in print? There should be a “Buy It Now!” icon. Not a tiny, blend-in-to-the-background “Subscribe to your favorite comics” down at the bottom of the page. That’ll also be really easy to transition to digital pamphlets when the time comes and the color ebook readers are ready.

Just because classic print comics and “webcomics” as I define them are different animals, doesn’t mean they can’t take lessons from each other about what works in terms of monetizing web content.

(On the odd chance someone official reads this and goes ahead with this idea, I’d also love to see a Showcase volume of my dad’s work from the 70s and 80s, particularly ‘Mazing Man. Also, a pony.)
 

The Hollywood Reporter named its top 40 showrunners with genre mastermind Joss Whedon heading the list. The role of showrunner has evolved through the years but is the producer charged with making the television series hum, from concept to airdate.  They tend to direct the creative process and are involved in every aspect such as the stories, casting, and post-production. Whereas the director has the final say on a movie set, the showrunner is the voice on a television production.

Whedon’s choice is interesting considering he has not produced a television series since the failed Firefly in 2003 and there’s been much controversy surrounding his next show, January’s Dollhouse.

Here’s what the trade says about the top ten showrunners.

Joss Whedon, Dollhouse (Fox)

Whedon believes in the power of the writers room so much that after filming three episodes of his forthcoming midseason drama Dollhouse, he shut down production because he hadn’t spent enough time there. "I use the room for (script structure) and then I send people off on their lonesomes to write," he says. Whedon prefers that approach for himself, too; he’ll head to a restaurant with his Pilot Razor Points and listen to movie soundtracks while composing scripts by hand. He is a showrunning vet (at one point he was in control of Angel, Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but Whedon says that doesn’t make him experienced. "The thing about showrunning is you never learn anything," he admits. "The biggest part is to surround yourself with smart people and then take credit for it." (more…)

Now that Quantum of Solace is open, all eyes are turning to next week’s release of Twilight.  Summit Entertainment has begun putting the pieces in motion to adapt the second of Stephenie Meyer’s novels, New Moon. No final decision will be made until the dollars hit the box office but the worldwide reaction is expected to be intense and profitable.

Melissa Rosenberg has been signed to return and adapt both New Moon and Eclipse as screenplays. That just leaves the final volume, Breaking Dawn, to be assigned.

Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson)’s tragic romance continues through the two books with the introduction of other vampires and a werewolf who tugs at the teen’s heartstrings.

Quantum of Solace director Marc Forster has signed to direct World War Z for Paramount Pictures. The movie will adapt Max Brooks’ novel about “a researcher for the U.N. Postwar Commission [who] interviews survivors from countries all over the world, 10 years after the [zombie] crisis, to gather a first-person post-mortem on a war that obliterated every country on the map”, according to Variety. The adaptation has been written by J. Michael Straczynski with Brad Pitt’s Plan B is producing.

"The genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the 70s like All the President’s Men," Forster told Variety.

The studio optioned the book in 2006 for Pitt. Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks and the late Anne Bancroft. He first came to attention as author of 2003’s The Zombie Survival Guide. He’s also acted on shows like Roseanne and has done voice work on Batman Beyond and Justice League.

Actors working on Fox’s Prison Break, were told that there may be only two episodes left to the once hot series. There are six remaining episodes of the series for the total season and the series did not appear on the revised midseason schedule released last week.  As a result, the final two hours may be combined into a series-ending finale to air in December or as a spring special.  The series launched four years ago and was considered a daring change of pace for a drama.

The Sci Fi Channel announced that its latest drama, Sanctuary, has been given a second season, bucking a trend of high-profile one-season wonders. The next season of the series, starring Amanda Tapping, will consist of thirteen episodes. The series is expected back some time in 2009. The series, also starring Robin Dunne, Ryan Robbins, Emilie Ullerup and Christopher Heyerdahl, debuted in October to the highest-rated original series premiere ratings since Eureka debuted in July 2006.