The Watchtower

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This is the true story of a boy who followed his dream”¦the good times, the bad time and the ugly times”¦this is the story of Ben Morse & The Nexus

Humble Beginnings

It all began in a freshman year Intro to Philosophy class at Connecticut College in the spring of 2001.

I was bored (the default state for most of my classes at CC, and this was one of the better ones) and my mind was wandering to what was going to happen on Smackdown that night rather than what my teacher was lecturing about. More importantly, it was wandering to what I thought was going to happen on Smackdown that night and how I could make those thoughts interesting for others.

You see, for the past couple of years I had gotten into professional wrestling in a big way and thus had been overjoyed to find the internet (a tool not readily available during my first pro wrestling renaissance during the early 90s) flooded with information and columns dealing with what I was watching on TV. My two favorites were undoubtedly Scott Keith at Rantsylvania.com and Chris Hyatte (before he dropped his first name) at 411wrestling. An aspiring writer myself who was already discovering he had little interest in Jane Austen or Chaucer, I wanted to hone my skills alongside those guys. But I knew I needed a hook, a gimmick that would make me stand apart from slews of imitators and wannabes.

It was in that Philosophy class I found my gimmick.

My professor was lecturing on Aristotle and his theory of “The Mean,” the idea that perfect success and happiness in all things could be found by gauging the exact halfway point between excess and deficiency (i.e. a truly nice person was neither excessively kind nor deficiently mean, they were somewhere in the middle). Immediately, rather than try and figure out a final project revolving around this or even take the proper notes, my mind worked a mile a minute at transforming it into a wrestling column (and all my friends who actually paid attention in college took just as long as me to get jobs, ha!). I reasoned that professional wrestling fans could be perfectly categorized by this little Aristotelian theory: marks were deficient and smarts were excessive, somewhere in between was the mean”¦thus if I examined an individual wrestler through the eyes of a mark and a smart, I could then figure out the mean between the two and give the best possible assessment of the wrestler. “Brilliant!” thought I.

Now all I had to do was shop my idea around and get discovered and I’d be the next internet wrestling darling.

Easier said than done.

I put together a quickie sample column on Kevin Nash (marks loved him, smarts hated him, thus the mean was that he was a prick but one who knew how to get the job done) and e-mailed it out to Scott Keith in hopes of snagging a prime spot on RS.com.

One week went by, no response.

Chagrined but reasoning that Scott probably just wanted to keep the focus of RS.com on him (and that was certainly his right given that he had built the site from nothing as thus), I turned to 411. I sent out e-mails to both Ashish Pabari (the site founder) and Widro (a many of mystery with no first name who served as webmaster).

Ashish I later learned was very ill and not online, so the lack of response from him was understandable, but Widro did respond, informing me that 411 was not looking for any new columnists at that time.

Drat.

I figured I had one last long shot. I had been a longtime reader of Hyatte and had written him a few times to say I liked his column, perhaps he’d dig my idea and get me in through the back door.

Jackpot.

Hyatte thought the column idea was different and cool and went to Widro with it. Widro sent me another e-mail as if he’d never sent me the first one saying 411 would be proud to be the home of The Mean and asked me to send him my sample column (which I already had) so he could run it. Within a week he was telling me to cancel any plans I had for Thursday night and stay in and do a recap of Smackdown because he wanted to go to a concert (unbeknownst to him at the time, I went out that night anyway and read some other guy’s Smackdown report later and more or less reworded it for our site”¦and the fans loved it, earning me Widro’s praise and undying love).

I ended up becoming chummy with Widro (and he admitted that he had never even read my initial proposal as he got like a hundred proposals a day and just ignored them unless they came recommended from somebody else) and a bee-yoo-ti-ful friendship began.

It was also around this time that I rediscovered a love for comic books vis-a –vis a new group of friends who had all loved the X-Men as kids (we ended up getting drunk one night and scouring the internet to find out everything that had happened in X-Men comics since we had all stopped reading five years earlier and assigning ourselves all characters; mine was Iceman) and the biggest comic book store I’d ever seen being located about five minutes away. My first comics read in over half a decade were the ones in which Colossus died and Kitty Pryde sprinkled his ashes (ironic, no?), but more on the comic stuff later”¦

The New Kid at 411

I was a big hit on my new internet home, getting the most praise and hits of any new column in years, being dwarfed only by Hyatte’s numbers. My success inspired Widro to give chances to other new guys Hyatte discovered including Josh Grutman and Flea. I was very friendly with Grut as he would IM me all the time asking for advice at first and then promptly became an arrogant primadonna once his A Wrestling Tale column became the bee’s knees and he won Columnist of the Year for that year despite my shameless campaigning (but I still love you, Grut).

Some amusing (and never before revealed to the public) anecdotes from my early days on 411:

-After like my second column, Hyatte made fun of me when plugging it because I’d pissed him off online or something and I threw a temper tantrum to Widro. Hyatte ended up apologizing to me in his next column, but I felt like a total tool because of my childish behavior and never complained about anything Hyatte did ever again.

-I was a semi-regular on Scott Keit’s forums back in the day and once I became an internet writer in my own right would often disagree with and debate him over certain issues. I did this several times without incident then one time really pissed Scott off over something and he stopped responding; later that day, Widro IMed me and fired me from 411. I remained fired from 411 for about two minutes before I asked Widro if he was joking and he said he wasn’t, but I could be re-hired as long as I laid off Scott Keith, but would not give me a reason why”¦a few days later, RS.com closed and Scott Keith joined 411, a deal Widro told me later I almost blew.

-Grut used to IM me drunk all the time saying how great The Mean was and then seconds later saying he was going to kick my ass.

-I was one of the first staff members to ever see Widro’s picture when he showed me a preview template of what would eventually become 411mania and had left pics of himself up as the sample top stories. This would begin the long running jokes between Widro and I about the fact that he looked like he belonged in a boy band; around the same time, I tried out for MTV’s Say What? Karaoke with some friends as a faux boy band (we never made it on the air because the show got cancelled, but I got offers to be a crowd member in various MTV specials and an extra in Mariah Carey’s movie Glitter from the casting agent). This all culminated in the recent Daily Pulse in which Widro asked me “Which one of us would be Justin?,” so now you know.

-After seeing him get beat up in the forums, I decided to give 411 bad boy poster Nemesis a shot at producing his own mini-column for my column; he thanked me profusely then never sent me anything. Nemesis of course went on to infamy on 411Black under his real name of Seth Monroe.

-My friend Jay Breuer became a writer for 411 once they started a Games section and we actually auctioned off on eBay a chance to come and watch Raw with us. Grut called us whores in his news report but still pimped the auction and some dude in Canada ended up winning with a bid of like twenty cents; he never showed for Raw and e-mailed us that he “just wanted to win.”

-One time I pissed Matt Hardy off so bad”¦oh, wait, that was somebody else, never mind.

Feel The Mania

I was pretty consistent through my sophomore year filing Means (with the exception of the summer between freshman and sophomore year, during which I was working at a summer camp in the middle of the woods”¦yet I still managed to compiling the least-read Mean of all-time on Jerry Lynn during my free periods on the camp computer over the course of three weeks), but as the year wound down, I was getting bored with the format.

I went to England for four months as part of an abroad program and filed only one Mean, a live report of a show I went to in Manchester with a friend. I returned in December of 2002 less a lot of my interest in wrestling and one other thing: my girlfriend of three years.

Suddenly I had a lot more time on my hands and a desire to fill it with something I was passionate about. Meanwhile, during my time away Widro had been slowly transforming 411wrestling into a site that had sub “zones” for movies, music, etc. When I came back he expressed me to me a desire to re-launch the site with a new layout as 411mania. I realized that this was my chance to re-dedicate myself and launch a new endeavor behind the hobby that had supplanted wrestling as my number one passion: comic books.

Since those first few X-Men issues, I had thrown myself back into comics all out, finding it to be a far more mature and well-produced medium than the one I had left back in junior high (I was a fan the first time around at the height of the 90s “Dark Ages”). I was loving books like JSA, Exiles and Young Justice and also devouring back issues of books like New Teen Titans and Avengers. I knew that people who enjoyed wrestling tended to read comics and vice versa so I knew the crossover audience was there, I knew I had time because I had no girlfriend (yes, essentially what I’m saying is that had I not broke up with my girlfriend there probably would never have been a 411comics or a Nexus or me getting a job at Wizard”¦wow, maybe I should have added her to the thank you section) and I knew Widro would love it!

Except he kinda didn’t.

Wids’ response was that he didn’t know anything about comics and didn’t have the time to devote to another section, and of course I assured him he needn’t worry about either thing because I would take care of everything. Still, he just didn’t think the interest was there or that the new section would get enough hits to justify its existence; he told me he’d give me a sub-section in the figures zone for the two months leading to 411Mania’s official launch to prove myself.

(Widro mere days before the publication of this column when approached on his early attitude towards the section: “i still think it’d work better as a subsection of ‘you dont know jakks’…”)

The game was afoot and the challenge was on.

411Comics Assemble!

As I told my interviewers at Wizard, my initial qualifications for the people I hired was more or less “can string three sentences together;” I needed a staff and I needed it fast to meet Widro’s deadline. Luckily, a series of fortunate events would provide me with a quality group of writers who were able to get their stuff together very quickly.

The first place I turned was other web sites. I had been a longtime reader and admirer of Fanzing!, a DC Comics-centric web magazine that featured much of the same things I wanted but on a monthly basis; unfortunately, Fanzing! was ceasing operations about the time I planned for 411Comics to start”¦unfortunate, except for me. I went about e-mailing my favorite writers from Fanzing!, offering condolences on the end of their prior venture but offering a new home for their columns on 411. Only one writer ended up wanting to keep up his column, but luckily it was the one guy I wanted to get: “Starman” Matt Morrison, the outspoken writer of The Mount. Matt was anxious to expand his writing beyond DC topics and requested only that I didn’t censor him; his Looking To The Stars has been a weekly fixture for almost two years now and I’ve never censored him, even when he engaged in an online feud with PvP creator Scott Kurtz that saw me and him flooded with e-mails from angry fans (of course it also gave the site the most traffic we ever saw in our first year or so, so thanks guys). Fanzing! founder Michael Hutchinson was also very helpful in giving me advice and helping me get the site on its feet (I conducted part one of a two part interview with Mike and a year and a half later have yet to complete it”¦if you’re reading this, sorry about that, Hutch).

Another guy I “headhunted” was Jim Lemoine, not just because he was the creator of X-Assault, still the best online game ever, but because he wrote a great column called Did I Think That Out Loud?! Over at ComiX-Fan (then simply X-Fan). The only problem was that Eric Moreels, founder of X-Fan, was a friend, so I hardly wanted to steal his writers; instead, the three of us came to an agreement wherein we would “syndicate” Jim’s column and cross-promote our two sites; the partnership has served us well over the years as Eric helped us to get the word out when we switched our site from 411 to The Nexus and we conducted an interview with Eric when he worked on the Marvel Encyclopedia. Jim remained onboard until earlier this fall when, sadly, after Marvel had X-Assault shut down he lost interest in comics and left the online community.

With two established guys on board, I turned to my friends to fill some other key positions. Jim Trabold and Manolis Vamvounis were two guys I knew from other comic book message boards who I knew were itching to write; I tapped Jim for my Marvel News column, knowing he was a walking Marvel Encyclopedia, and let Manolis go nuts and write our “mature readers”/independent column Leave Your Spandex at the Door (not long ago, Manolis won acclaim in his native Greece when a local newspaper named 411Comics as the best comic book site on the internet with Manny apparently as the Editor-In-Chief, which was news to the rest of us). Another friend from the same boards, Tom Toner, was one of our initial reviewers and another guy we shared with X-Fan; Tom eventually left 411 to focus more on X-Fan, but he’s recently returned to the Inside Pulse fold as a writer for the Sports zone.

FUN FACT: The final friend I recruited, Lauren Dougherty, was the one and only female writer in the history of 411Comics/The Nexus (my girlfriend Megan and Jamie Hatton’s girlfriend Danielle have contributed to our respective columns, but have never written full columns); she wrote one edition of Strange Fruit, in which she described the life of a female comic book fan, and then was never heard from again (Lauren and I are still friends, she called me the other day and I mentioned her old column and she just laughed).

I still had a few spots left to fill and for this I turned to a few different online message boards and received the bulk of my responses from the DC Comics Message Boards. My message was simple: I’m starting a web site, we’re an offshoot of the highly successful 411Mania and I’m looking for anything. I received four responses from people who would end up having a major impact on the site:

-George Gebhardt, our original DC News reporter, who had a lot of talent and passion but would provide some headaches down the line (keep reading).

-Jesse Baker, once upon a time a quiet and mild-mannered fellow (I swear) who has gone on to become our most outspoken and controversial reviewer, going head to head with Tom Breevort, Micah Wright and, of course, his archnemesis Brian Michael Bendis.

-Mathan Erhardt, who immediately submitted a thought out and enthusiastic proposal for a DC question & answer column that reminded me of my own original Mean proposal (if M were younger, he’d remind me of a young me). Mathan ended up finding tremendous success at 411 and later Inside Pulse as every other zone recognized the talent we had unearthed and he ended up writing for about everybody but the Fashion zone (which Widro never really got off the ground, to be fair). I edited Mathan’s Who’s Who In The DCU column and before long we were featuring a back and forth banter that the fans really enjoyed and that was a lot of fun for us as we found that we got along quite well; in tribute to the success of DC’s Superman/Batman title and the two title characters calling one another by only their first initials, we became 411’s version of the “World’s Finest Team,” M & B.

-Last, but certainly not least, a young man by the name of Daron Kappauff. The most frustrating thing about Daron was that it took me a good six months before I memorized how to spell his last name correctly. From the minute he replied to my ad, Daron was all over me with ideas and ways to help the site run smoothly, e-mailing me and IMing me like every five seconds; I was amazed to find that he’d never run a web site before because he seemed to know every trick of the trade (including at least a dozen I didn’t). I knew just having Daron as a columnist or reviewer would be a waste, so I put him to work running our reviews section, which we both envisioned to be among the most comprehensive on the internet, and he also served as my right hand man and confidant.

With a solid staff in place (in addition to the names I already mentioned we had several reviewers whose names have passed in and out of my memory with the years) Daron and I set about building what we considered to be the ideal site. With the news, my attitude was similar to the way I ran my college newspaper: we can’t cover national news as well as bigger papers, so we find our niche, local and campus news; with 411Comics, I knew we couldn’t compete with sites like Newsarama and The Pulse as far as getting the news the quickest, so I encouraged George and Jim to take snippets from those sites, credit them, and then focus more on offering their own opinion than breaking news; we’d be an editorial site rather than a news site (though George did get the inside scoop on one story as we were the first site to report on the cancellation of Kurt Busiek’s DC title The Power Company).

With columns, I just wanted our coverage to be expansive, covering all aspects of the industry. I didn’t want to be too heavily skewed towards any one company (though we’ve been accused of having a DC bias over the years; I counter that by saying just about all of us read as many Marvel titles as we do DC, we just had more access to DC creators for interviews and stuff). In addition to the columns I already mentioned, Daron and I had our own columns: he had Missing The Boat, a weekly spotlight on underrated books, and I had The Watchtower, my own random musings (each of us quickly drew back from a weekly schedule for our columns as we were simply too busy). Wrestling zone staffer Pat Brower, the patron of Graham Cracker Comics, provided us with (and still provides us with) a weekly What’s Shipping list.

The reviews column was, to me, the most crucial, and as such I oversaw it closely at first, but mostly let Daron run with it, taking care of everything else on the site so it could be his sole focus. Within months of our existence, we found quotes from our reviews being used on Crossgen comics as well as DC/Vertigo titles like Y: The Last Man and Catwoman and on the Marvel web site.

With a solid staff, a lot of readers (Daron, myself and the others media blitzed every message board on the internet) and the most mainstream success of any 411 zone, needless to say Widro gave us our own section on the new and improved 411Mania.

Bigger and Better

Unfortunately, I again had to go away for the summer of 2003 back to camp, but I was fully confident in Daron to mind the store while I was gone. Not only did Daron keep things going, he actually improved the site, bringing aboard Chris Delloiacono to help keep the reviews section organized and launching his pet project 144anima, a cartoon web strip that parodied the site (and Daron’s villainous “Dark Overlord” character) and featured strips written by our own columnists and reviewers. Through Chris, Daron also hired “the Italian Stallion” Mike Maillaro, John Babos and a lovable drunken longshot named Jamie Hatton.

When I returned, I thought it would be pretty counterproductive to bump Daron back down to reviews (and in the process waste Chris), so we decided to split Editor-In-Chief duties. I wanted to reinvigorate the site and thought we could do so by “relaunching” all the columns with a “new Fall season” gimmick like a television station; Daron agreed and we went about setting things in motion. I also added a new column called the Roundtable where I’d pull the biggest news stories of the week and give the whole staff a chance to comment on them; it proved to be one of our most popular features among readers and staff alike.

Unfortunately, the one thing that did not go well over the summer was a continuing series of communications problems between Daron and George; despite Daron’s best attempts to smooth things over, George made it clear he was frustrated and left the site for the equivalent of what divorcees would call “irreconcilable differences.” We were left with a major hole on the DC News side, but I was given a major opportunity”¦

Tim Stevens, one of my best friends in college, had graduated a year prior to me and was visiting; he noted that with all the free time he had in between taking Grad School classes and working at Kinko’s, he thought he might give internet writing a try, seeing as how I enjoyed it. So he told me he wanted to work for”¦Comix-treme? Needless to say I was taken aback that my good chum would dare apply to work for a site other than mine until the ol’ compliment fisher said sheepishly, “I figured you wouldn’t take me”¦” and the rest is history; Tim has been a fixture of the site ever since.

Sadly, we were also forced to make a move on the Marvel News side of the equation that we had been putting off for some time. Jim T., one of the nicest guys I know, was simply not right for a news gig, even he admitted that his writing style didn’t fit”¦but Daron & I were both too fond of Jim to simply kick him off the site. At that point, Who’s Who In The DCU was among our most successful columns, so we figured why not try and replicate it on the Marvel side”¦and since Jim knew nearly every fact about said comics universe (I’m still looking for stuff he doesn’t know), two birds with one stone, dig? As far as finding a new Marvel guy, that was a bit more of a problem, as every time we found a new guy for the job, they fit in perfect”¦for about a month. Paul Sebert, Jason Berek-Lewis and Iain Burnside all had fabulous but brief runs on Marvel News & Views, but various other commitments drew them away (luckily all three have come back and done other stuff for us: Jason now writes A View From Over The Edge, a column about the comic book experience from an Australian perspective, Iain is taking over as organizer of the Roundtable this week and Paul contributes in various capacities). I think we’ve finally found a stable Marvel news person in Mike Maillaro, but, fingers crossed.

During this tumultuous yet exciting period, I was also finally able to woo Tim’s childhood friend Tim (Sheridan variation) into joining the team, first as a sidebar in my newly weekly again Watchtower and later as a reviewer (my first meeting with Tim Sh. involved him getting drunk and making fun of me for owning a full run of Titans about 85 times”¦I knew he’d fit right in).

The Rich & Famous

With 2003 winding down, our presence in the industry became more noticeable via both 411 and over at 144, leading more creators to e-mail us with kind words; as a result, we began to feature regular interviews with creators, from well known names like Kurt Busiek, Ed Brubaker and Mike Carey to some of the indys’ brightest stars.

We attracted more positive attention with our first ever Year End awards, recognizing the best creators, titles and characters of 2003. In particular, Geoff Johns, was very excited to receive Best Writer of the year and e-mailed me telling me we had “made his day.” For me, this was tantamount to being my mother in 1963 and getting a 1963 equivalent of an e-mail (um”¦a postcard?) from one of The Beatles (except that I don’t have a crush on Geoff”¦seriously”¦shut up, Jamie!). Since I’d started reading comics again, Geoff had quickly become my favorite writer with his appreciation of old school superheroics combined with the modern sensibility and intelligence he brought to his stories. Receiving an e-mail from him was both a fanboy delight and professional validation that we were running the site correctly.

Tim also received a cool e-mail from Geoff when Tim threw down the gauntlet that he and I wanted to interview him over a few drinks and Geoff replied with “first round is on me” (or possible “first round is on you guys””¦hmm”¦). Daron also received a very special correspondence from Hollywood big shot and sometime comic writer Kevin Smith complimenting 144anima (who knew the director of Clerks dug talking monkeys?)

Also coming aboard was Will Cooling, a Brit with mad connections who seemingly had a new interview with somebody who’d worked on Judge Dredd every week; Will also started a column called Across The Pond about British columns”¦and then disappeared a couple months back (Daron has search parties looking everywhere. We miss you, Will! Come back!).

We hit more high marks when one of our reviews was quoted on the back of the Arkham Asylum: Living Hell collected edition (our first trade paperback quote) and Chris formed a great relationship with the people at Beckett Comics, with an interview he conducted being included in one of the issues of their launch title The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty and quotes from his reviews being used for one of their ads in Wizard (Pat also made an appearance in Wizard as he was quoted in the price guide on what titles were becoming valuable).

The question started to be less how could we go higher, but how much higher could we go?

My Personal Journey

As the year changed from 2003 to 2004, my senior year of college was winding down and I found myself wondering what was next for me. I’d toyed with the idea of going into journalism or advertising, but in truth, neither appealed to me, just as the last few years of classes I’d taken hadn’t really interested me. The only things I was truly passionate about (outside of family and friends) were the school newspaper and 411Comics. I had more or less ruled out continuing life as a newspaper editor following an internship at my local paper in the summer of 2003 in which I found myself counting the days until it was over. That left the web site, but sadly, that brought me no money”¦but could it?

It was actually my father who came up with the idea; he took me out for dinner over my winter break and when I expressed to him my lack of excitement over my future prospects, it was he who said “you love comics so much, you love working on your site so much”¦isn’t there something you can do with that?”

I’d never thought of legitimately trying to make a career out of my love for comics; I didn’t enjoy fiction writing and I can draw decently, but so can eight hundred other people. An editor? I had no idea how. But wait”¦I’d always patterned my site after Wizard Magazine, the “Entertainment Weekly” of the comic book world (or the “New York Times” as my new boss calls it)”¦maybe a bit crude or irreverent (I prefer “fun”) here and there, but at the end of the day a polished and impressive way for people to promote their love for comics. Maybe there was a place for me there”¦?

My only problem was, I didn’t know a way in, so I turned to somebody who would”¦Geoff Johns.

I just e-mailed Geoff hoping for a friendly word of advice or two, but he ended up becoming a mentor in every sense of the word, teaching me about the business and helping me make connections at Wizard, but more importantly in the process we became friends and he made me realize that a business with folks like him in it was definitely something I wanted to be a part of.

However, even with Geoff’s help, I faced a major roadblock in the winter of 2004 not from any professional barriers, but from my own health. I’d been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and an irritable bowel during my freshman year and mostly been able to not have to worry about either through a combination of medicine and mental discipline, but they resurfaced in a major way at the worst possible time. I ended up having to leave school and miss about a month, disqualifying me from passing one class I needed to graduate on time and also forcing me to withdraw from a part in my good friend’s student-directed main stage play.

I was down, but not out; I kept up work on the site and received support and encouragement from my friends and family as well as my online compatriots; my peers on 411 were invaluable in helping to keep my head in the game and get back on my feet.

Also, I made my first appearance in the DCU as “Zombie Ben” debuted in JSA, courtesy of Geoff.

By the time I returned to school, I was more determined than ever both to end my college career on a positive note and somehow, someway gain access to my dream job.

Summer Lovin’

As I was waiting to hear back from Wizard, Tim and I decided to fulfill a long time dream of both of ours and journey to the fabled San Diego International Comic-Con; it was there that we met Jamie face to face (it was love at first sight) and also where we finally got to shake hands with Geoff in person (and he bought the first round”¦and the second).

Additionally, I got to meet a ton of other cool creators, including Jeff Smith, Colleen Doran, Peter David, Allen Jacobson, Todd Nauck, Mike Carlin, Chris Claremont, Joe Casey and many more too numerous for me to list. I also got to meet Andy Serwin, Mike Cotton, Richard Ho and even Gareb Shamus from Wizard for the first time and Tim ended up sitting next to Dan Didio during an Identity Crisis panel. We even hobnobbed briefly with Joe Quesada who let us hand out our business cards to a bunch of Marvel creators.

The highlight of the show for me was definitely a panel with Geoff and his friends/fellow writers Brad Meltzer & Judd Winick. They talked a bit about what was coming up in their various titles, but mostly they just chatted about how they had gone from buddies who loved comics to buddies who loved and worked in comics; they were just excited to field questions and talk comics as those of us in the audience were, erasing any small doubt in my mind that a career in comics was the path for me.

Just before going to San Diego, an even more important event occurred in my life as I began dating Megan Sherlock, the girl who’d give me the boost of confidence and blissful state of mind to push my dreams to the limit. She swore she’d never read comics, but within a couple months, I had her reading Teen Titans feverishly and waiting anxiously for each new issue.

Of course when I returned from San Diego, a major surprise that would change the landscape of the site as we knew it.

Caught in the Nexus

When I came back from San Diego in August of this past summer, Widro had a shocker for me: he, Hyatte, Eric S., Scott Keith, Daniels, PK and pretty much everybody else I was friendly with or worked with on 411 were leaving the site to start a new one. They wanted me, Daron and the rest of the comics crew to come along, but didn’t want to bug me until I got back from San Diego.

I was torn, not so much out of loyalty to 411 (I felt bad leaving Ashish in the lurch, but I’d never really had much interaction with him and was pretty sure he wanted to focus more on wrestling than comics anyhow) but because we had a recognizable brand name, and one Tim & I had just spread across San Diego in the form of like a hundred business cards. Still, loyalty to Widro trumped all that and I was confident we could re-establish what we had built.

I spread the news to the rest of the crew, gave Ashish my notice and then”¦went on vacation.

Hey, I’d been planning to go with Megan out to Vegas to meet her grandparents for months, gimme a break.

When I returned, Daron, myself and the rest of the guys worked tirelessly (seriously tirelessly) to move everything over to our new server, except there was one problem: the name.

Widro had designed the new site already and it was called Inside Pulse, this was non-negotiable, but we knew the people at The Pulse wouldn’t be too thrilled by a comics site called that and fans wouldn’t be too impressed either.

Wids gave us permission to have our own separate name that he would help us set up, we just had to pick it. We ran through about eight million suggestions from the entire staff (my personal favorite being Mathan’s “I Can’t Believe It’s Not 411Comics”; Manny suggested some names too “mature” for me to reprint here) before settling on The Nexus.

To All Good Things”¦

We settled into our new home perfectly, with a (in my humble opinion) vastly superior layout and much easier access to great creator interviews following our presence at both San Diego and at WizardWorld Chicago (where Daron, Chris & John peddled our wares). We experimented with a few new columns, writers and schedules and things seemed to be hitting on all cylinders. I even returned to my roots and brought The Mean back to the Wrestling zone as a monthly pay per view report (with Widro footing the bill).

So naturally, I got a phone call asking me to leave the site”¦but since it was from Wizard, I didn’t much mind.

That’s not entirely true. I look at this site, all we’ve accomplished”¦heck, I read this article back to myself and think of everything I’ve done”¦

“¦and I smile.

It’s been an incredible adventure, and though I’ll miss all the stuff that’s come already, I’ve got a feeling the best is still yet to come, for both me and The Nexus.


I can’t possibly sum up my gratitude and other feelings about almost four years of work, so consider this my recognized best effort and nothing more.

I’d both like and need to thank the following people for this tremendous experience:

-Jonathan Widro for giving me this forum for my work and for being an incredible boss and friend. I don’t think anybody really comprehends how much work Widro has put into both 411 and Inside Pulse, and if you think you do, multiply it by ten and you’ll still fall short. Despite all this, he’s always been available to me to chat on IM whether it’s about a site issue or something else altogether. I’ve met very few people with as much drive and vision and that’s why I probably would have followed him into the wonderful world of botany web sites if he believed he could make it work. Thanks for everything boss, I’ll be in touch.

-Chris Hyatte for opening the door when nobody else would.

-Josh Grutman, Eric S. & PK for giving me something to aspire to and fun stuff to read every week (and Grut for some truly surreal IM conversations), good co-workers and good buds; I’ll still be reading Eric’s stuff (and whatever the heck Josh does).

-Tom Daniels, without whom I would never have learned to love the archway (and the guy who makes everything on the site run right)

-Ashish Pabari for founding 411 in the first place.

-Bob Miller and the rest of the crew at Sarge’s Comics, the largest and best comic book store in New England (located in New London, Connecticut, check out their web site); had I not had such a great comic store nearby my college, I probably would never have rediscovered a love for comics that has driven me to where I am. I was fortunate enough to get a chance to go in and tell Bob about my job at Wizard last week, he was very excited for me and told me that they needed more people like me in the industry; it meant a lot to me as Bob represents to me all that is right with people who love comics as he works tirelessly to get kids into the store and reading and to promote the world of comics to people who otherwise wouldn’t give it a chance.

-Geoff Johns, once upon a time my favorite writer, now still that but also a friend and a mentor. Thanks Geoff for believing in me and giving me a chance, I’m looking forward to working with you more in the future; truly one of the most talented and generous guys I’ve ever met.

-Brad Meltzer and Todd Nauck, two more of the most talented people I know and two more reasons I’m proud to be associated with the comic book industry.

-Matt Morrison, Jim Lemoine, Jesse Baker, Jim Trabold, Manolis Vamvounis and anybody else who was willing to jump on this crazy ride from the start.

-John Babos, Jason Berek-Lewis, Paul Sebert, Iain Burnside, Mike Maillaro and everybody else who came along later (including some guys who I regret I didn’t get the chance to know better before taking off).

-Tim Sheridan for finally coming aboard after months of begging.

-Chris Delloiacono for making sure the review section was something I never even had to think about for most of the time I was here.

-Mathan Erhardt, my partner-in-crime on Who’s Who In The DCU who made every Tuesday a pleasure. M was also along for this whole ride and has been one of my closest confidantes and a guy who can always make me smile; M is one of the nicest guys you’re going to find anywhere and one of the most talented, he’s destined for big things and I hope we have not collaborated for the last time.

-Tim Stevens and Jamie Hatton”¦what can I say about these two when I’ve already said so much (and most of that has been about Jamie’s drinking and Tim’s megalomaniac tendencies). Tim was one of my best friends in college and I’m so glad this site gave us an opportunity to continue to bond over our shared passion following his graduation. Our trip to San Diego stands out as one of the coolest experiences of my life and a big reason for that is that we got to meet Jamie (and his girlfriend Danielle). From the minute the three of us (four of us) got together, it seemed as if we’d been friends for years; there are certain people in this life I feel are destined to meet and I believe this little posse was always fated to come together. Since that fateful trip, all of our respective girlfriends complain that we spend more time on the phone with one another than with them. I can’t think of two people I’ve had more fun with as friends or two writers I’ve been more consistently impressed with as co-workers. In my dream world, it won’t be long before Tim & Jamie are following me to my next big challenge, but no matter what, I look forward to years of more fun drunken (and sober) adventures with two of my best friends.

-Without Daron Kappauff, I think it’s fair to say either this site would not exist or I would be in an insane asylum”¦and the site would not exist in that scenario either. From the first days of this site, I found in Daron a true partner, somebody who shared my vision and my love of the material we were covering. Whenever I was too tired to keep going, Daron was there to pick up the ball and run it the next ten yards. That he found the time to create something like 144anima and never missed a beat with his work on this site says a lot. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but we always pushed each other to be better and in turn the site became better as well; I have a lot of respect for him. Daron is dedicated, talented, and one of the brightest people I know; he’s going to go very far in whatever he chooses to do and, again, hopefully we’ll work together again; thanks bro.

-My friends, whom I am truly blessed to have; very rarely did they ever say “no, but seriously”¦” when I said I was pursuing a career in comics or spending so much time writing about them. They’re an incredible group of people. Special thanks to my best friend, Jordan Geary, who was both my regular Wednesday traveling companion to Sarge’s and, for a brief and glorious time, this column’s Senior Political Correspondent when we needed one the most.

-My family, who have always encouraged and appreciated my hobby and the work I do and given me as much love as I could ever need; in particular my father, without whom I would never have had the courage and resolve to go for this dream.

-My wonderful girlfriend, Megan, whose beauty is exceeded only by her kindness and her faith in me. None of this would mean a thing if I didn’t have you; also, she writes a mean Teen Titans column.

-God, who makes all of this possible.

-Lastly, everybody who has read, e-mailed and supported me from the early days of The Mean to today. A lot of people give folks on the internet, and in particular wrestling and comic book fans, a bad rap, but I can rarely remember an unkind word from any of you (well, a few, but where would I be without constructive criticism?). I’ve been cited in college theses, used in high school classes as a writing example and received praise and kindness from people on every continent (yes, that’s hyperbole, as Megan just pointed out to me nobody lives in Antarctica”¦I can’t believe I put her after my family); it’s more than any twenty-two year old could hope for (and it’s amazing I’m still so modest and able to keep things in perspective”¦right).

I created this site (or some form of it) over two years ago because I had a lot of passion (not to mention free time) and wanted a place to funnel it. As the site came together, I came to see what it was I wanted to create: I wanted to erect a monument to my love of the comic book medium and in doing also construct a place where people who felt the same way could gather and talk and write, etc.

I love comics and I believe in them (given my chosen vocation, this shouldn’t really come as much of a shock). I believe in the power of merging writing and art; I believe in getting kids to read at a younger age; most of all, I believe in promoting right over wrong. My parents and the people around me had a huge part in shaping the person I grew up to be, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like comic books played an important role as well in defining for me right from wrong. Whether you love super heroes, the supernatural, hard boiled crime stories, swords and sorcery or something else, comic books provide you with worlds to retreat into when the real one is too boring or too harsh and characters you grow to love and/or hate like the people around you. If there’s one thing I can leave you all with, it’s to believe in the power of comics; continue to appreciate them despite what people around you may say (hey, with the movies and everything, being a comics fan is hip now anyways); if you love something or if you hate something, go online and make your voice heard, be a part of the process and share your passion with the world.

The mission statement for this site once upon a time was simple: we love comics; we’re here to talk to you about them. That bedrock statement remains the same, but I truly believe this site has evolved into something more: these are the writers who will be shaping the comic book industry for years to come. I’m the lucky one who can say I’m the first to “graduate” into the industry, but I promise you I will not be the last; other of these talented men I’m proud to say I had some hand in recruiting will follow and exceed me.

“The Nexus” is a point where many people or things intercept; The Nexus has become a place where readers and writers intercept around the topics that matter to them. To me this is no longer just a comic book site; it’s an important step on the road to making comics what you do for a living if you’re so inclined. If you’re a long time reader who has enjoyed my work and have favored me with your e-mails, do yourself a favor and keep writing what you feel, whether it’s on a message board or a web site. Someday maybe you’ll be the next Matt Morrison and then maybe after that (he said with all humility) the next Ben Morse. Comics are at their best when they are written by fans, the people who love them; though we may argue and disagree, we are all members of a brother/sisterhood who believe in what we love; in the end, we all want to keep comics going strong.

Thank you for helping me do that over the past two years.

I look at this site, the legacy I’m leaving behind as I step into a dream come true, and it makes me smile; I’m sad to leave it behind, I’d be lying if I said otherwise, I’ll miss working alongside these people, but I’m proud that something I created has such a bright future with such amazing writers at the helm.

So with that, I get to take on another new role: I get to be like the rest of you who read the Nexus religiously, checking in every day to see what my favorites think of the industry and then e-mailing Hatton to tell him how wrong he is.

Now that’s gonna be fun.

Good luck to everybody here in the future (like you need it) and to the readers, keep reading and believing, and these guys (and me) will keep bringing you the good stuff.

In the mean time, thanks so much for reading.