Official Grand Comics Database Press Release (www.comics.org)
Ray Bottorff Jr
From: The Grand Comics Database
Re: GCD Elects First Board
Priority: [Urgent]
Contact: Ray Bottorff Jr, CArch...@aol.com, or (313) 982-1831
GRAND COMICS DATABASE ADOPTS CHARTER, ELECTS BOARD OF DIRECTORS
NOVEMBER 30, 2000 -- The Grand Comics Database (GCD), the most accurate
Internet source for detailed information about the content of comic books old
and new (www.comics.org) announced today that it has adopted a charter and
elected its first Board of Directors.
Elected to serve one- or two-year terms were:
Will Allred (Writer, web developer, and comic historian)
Ray Bottorff Jr (GCD Promoter and APA-I Central Coordinator)
Michael Catron (Former Publisher of Apple Comics and co-founder of
Fantagraphics)
Lionel English (GCD Data Coordinator)
Lou Mazzella (Manager of All About Books and Comics, Tempe, Arizona)
Mike Rhode (Member of the International Journal of Comic Art editorial board)
Tony Rose (GCD Membership Coordinator)
Tim Stroup (Co-founder of the GCD and of Cold Cut Distribution)
Maurizio Villotta (Coordinator of the Italian branch of the GCD)
Board members elected GCD Data Coordinator Lionel English to chair the newly
formed Board for its first year.
"The GCD is intended to be the ultimate comics reference source," English said.
"For fans, scholars, and historians as well as the casual browser. We're trying
to document not just the big publishers, hot characters, and popular creators,
but also the little known players. Books from the U.S., Europe, Australia,
Great Britain, wherever. English, Italian, German, Spanish, everything. Big
publishers, small publishers, Independents, Undergrounds, minis, cereal box
giveaways. From the 19th century to the 21st. It's a dynamic, organic,
constantly evolving project. And it's free. The GCD was created by fans, is
maintained by fans, and is continually being built by volunteer fan efforts.
Check it out, join in, and help it continue to grow."
According to the new charter, the Board of Directors is charged with overseeing
the efforts of the group's members to "build a publicly accessible database
using the latest technology available in order to document the medium of comics
magazines and books wherever they may be published".
The GCD, an all-volunteer organization, was founded in 1994 by APA-I indexers
Bob Klein, Tim Stroup, and Jon Ingersoll. The GCD maintains a free, searchable
website of its enormous database where comics fans and researchers can go to
look up such details as cover dates, story titles, creator credits, and other
publication data for individual comic book issues from the 1860s to the present
day.
In addition, the GCD hosts several free e-mail-based international discussion
forums and chat lists where comic book fans, historians, indexers, and scholars
can ask questions and share their knowledge of comic book history.
Recent forum subject lines include:
"Superman and Batman inkers",
"Christmas covers",
"Who is this early DC/Nicholson Staffer?",
"Writer B revealed",
"BIO info on 1950s/60s Marvel Western Artist, Jack Keller",
"Doom Patrol credit?",
"More Fun Comics #73. Scan of final page of Aquaman Story",
"New Barks pre-comic work found (similar to Eye-Opener)",
"Alex Raymond",
"Old JLA TV Show",
"Chromosomes and Roy Thomas",
"Superboy penciller and Big hair Superboy inker",
"Katie Keene and Millie the Model comics 1950-51".
The GCD project continues to expand globally and currently includes members
from Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom,
and the United States. Membership in the GCD is free and is open to anyone
interested in comic books and their history.
The GCD's online database of comic book information and credits, all of it
painstakingly compiled and verified by its contributors, is one of the largest
and most diverse in the world. It has become one of the best stops on the
Internet for research by both fans and scholars. It currently has data from 13
different countries, including nine languages, from 179 indexers, covering
1,042 publishers, 6,330 comic book series, 63,464 issues, 314,452 features, and
detailing 1,093,672 creator credits.
Many notable groups and individuals have relied on and contributed to the GCD
database over the years, including:
DC Comics (with its Archive and Millennium Editions),
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund,
Michigan State University (with Randy Scott),
Bill Schelly (The Golden Age of Comic Fandom),
Jerry Bails (The Who's Who of 20th Century American Comic Books),
Bob Beerbohm (Overstreet Price Guide consultant and author of the forthcoming
Comic Book Store Wars),
And the late Howard Keltner (Howard Keltner's Golden Age Comic Books Index
1935-1955: The Revised Edition).
For full information on the GCD, including how to join or how to contribute
your indexing talents and comics knowledge, visit "http://www.comics.org/".
-30-
For further press information contact:
Ray Bottorff Jr, CArch...@aol.com or (313) 982-1831.
David Fulford-Brown
Harrison, mentioned elsewhere in this NG, listed as the inker for
several cheesy fifties comics.
DF-B
On 30 Nov 2000 07:02:54 GMT, carch...@aol.com (Ray Bottorff Jr)
wrote: