Month in Review: January 2011

I'm meeting my Month in Review post quota for the year straight away in 2011, coming right out of the box with a recap of our January offerings.

And, oh, what a January it was.

Lots of writing, lots of "Best of" lists, and lots of our trademark nonsense. Here's what we added to Internet culture over the past 31 days.

--We rang in the New Year, mostly by reminiscing about the Old Year. Oh, and in true fannish style, we offered solutions to things we figure will need fixing in 2011.

--A quick review of a great book that peels away the layers of the comics professional.

--Year Three of our comics-centric/self-help/certifiably insane weekly feature, Waiting for Wednesday, rolled out with issues one, two, three, and four.

--Nathaniel's enjoyment of having to wait to play the next installment of Back to the Future, an episodic point-and-click adventure game.

--A recap of some big comics announcements, including Superman's return to DC's flagship title, Action Comics, Grant Morrison's Flex Mentallo series finally getting a hardcover release, and Joe Quesada's stepping down as Marvel EIC.

--Nathaniel's post about accumulating 500 games on his Backloggery, including 400 that he owns outright. He also talks about the nature of his video game collecting. And, just because he feels a compulsion to mention it...he mentions his Mega Man Marathons.

--Speaking of mentioning Mega Man, here's a handy little guide that provides links to each one of Nathaniel's Mega Man-centric posts.

--An epic post that pits the original Tron against its decades-later successor, Tron: Legacy. Who wins this battle of epic-ness? I dunno. Just go read the post, Bucky.

--A post that I had initially thought was directed towards me, but then turned out to be about enjoying one's fandoms.

--A review of a trippy little documentary about a trippy comics writer.

--A manifesto of sorts about 3-D movies in general, and The Green Hornet in particular.

--The first in our new series of posts spotlighting comics and gaming stores, and really, whatever other places sell cool swag. Oh, and when the second installment comes your way this month, it'll have a new, official name.

--Of course, not every day could bring an in-depth, relevant post. In such cases, things like this and this and this are life-savers. Oh, and this, too.

--And, since it's our blog and we like to justify things in our own heads, a post about why filler posts are okay.

--Just to prove that it's not all fun and games around here, we talked about the continuing problems facing bookstore chain Borders, and we lamented the likely end of an era.

--A quick post featuring some fantastic and geeky motivational posters.

--The shocking two-part series of posts about my shocking introduction to Anime. And, uh, some other things, too. Shocking!

--Yet another post by Nathaniel describing something I never even knew was a thing--some good, old-fashioned video game map editing.

--A post about how Venture Bros. has helped Nathaniel to better appreciate Star Trek.

--When I read this one, about (lack of) snow days, I heard it in the voice of Charlie Brown.

--A sad little post about Wizard Magazine shutting its (print version) doors.

--And, finally, a recap of all the video game goodness that was GameCola in January, 2011.