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Posted-By: auto-faq 2.4
Archive-name: comics/faq/part3

WELCOME TO REC.ARTS.COMICS (part 3 of 7: the r.a.c FAQ)
written by lots of different people
edited by Paul A. Estin 1990-1993
          Tom Galloway  1993-present

[last update: 4/10/94; updated gay characters and split discussion answers
and added new info about Zero Hour. Also added new question about email
addresses of comics companies]

3.    Frequently-Asked Questions (The r.a.c.* FAQ)

Questions answered here (a + before a question indicates a changed answer,
a * indicates a new question).
0. What other comics FAQs are available?
1.  Why not split off a new group for Marvel/Sandman/comix/etc?
+ 2.  What is Zero Hour?
3.  What's this about Sandman ending?
4.  Who's this Cerebus character people post a lot about?
5.  What was the Crisis on Infinite Earths?
6.  Where can I find Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex?
7.  What are the different types of Kryptonite?
8.  How do you spell/pronounce the last name of artist Bill Sienkiewicz?
9.  Isn't there a gay Marvel mutant?
+ 10. What are some of the gay characters in comics?
11. How old is Kitty Pryde (of Excalibur)?
12 .Where are the "real" locations of Metropolis, Gotham City, Hub City,
   etc., in the DC Universe?
13. Who is Suicide Squid?
14. How can I get a Suicide Squid t-shirt?
15. Who is Paul
16. What is The Cowboy Wally Show?
+ 17. Is that really Peter David who posts here?
18. Is that really Art Adams, Kevin Maguire, and Michael Collins who post
   here?
+ 19. Are there any other pros on the net?
20. What's the joke behind John Byrne's Next Men's letter column title?
21. Where can I get GIFs or other scanned comics art?
* 22. What are the email addresses of comics companies?

0. What other comics FAQs are available?

In addition to this general FAQ, there are a number of comics FAQs
available about more specific topics or characters.. Information about
how to obtain these can be found in parts 5 and 6 of the Welcome to r.a.c.*
posts. Available FAQs are:

rec.arts.comics.marketplace
rec.arts.comics.xbooks
Grendel
Legion of Net.Heroes
Legion of Super-Heroes
Preserving and Protecting Comics
Rogue
Sandman
Superman
Watchmen (annotations)
X-Men characters
X-Men creators
X-Men history

Numerous other information sources are listed in parts 5 and 6, and should
be checked before posting a query to which the answer is already available.

1. Why not split off a new group for Marvel/Sandman/comix/etc?

This is a highly flammable topic of debate.  Several dozen splits have been
suggested over the past few years.  Only two (rac.strips, and the rac
re-org) succeeded.  Many readers would still prefer going back to a single
r.a.c with no subgroups.  Here is an incomplete list of previously rejected
ideas:

 rac.superhero      battlin' guys wearing tights.  Failed in the 1992 vote;
                    also ambiguous.
 rac.marvel/dc      company-based splits have failed several previous
                      votes. In November 1993, a straw poll had both groups
                      fail to achieve a majority, much less the needed
                      2/3rds vote. A general other companies split question
                      got only a 30% positive response.
 rac.vertigo/image  both suggested in late 1992, told to wait a while.
 rac.indie          basically a company-based split.
 rac.alternative    rejected due to ambiguity of "alternative".
 rac.mature         implies other comics are immature.  ambiguous.
 rac.adult          implies sexually-explicit material.  ambiguous.
 rac.sandman        Sandman is ending as a regular series within two years.
                      Empheral groups like this are very unlikely to pass.
 rac.other-media    Comics characters in non-comics media such as tv, movies,
                    prose, and toys. Failed in February '94 due to lack of
                    a 100 vote margin (generally people thought this was
                    a reasonable split proposal, but it didn't work up enough
                    enthusiasm to pass)
 rac.creative       failed by four votes in October '93. Likely to be
                    reproposed around April '94.

In the November '93 poll, only 38% indicated there was *any* non-company
based or non-rac.creative split they would support...and since
rac.other-media was first proposed during the poll period, it's likely the
percentage is even lower.

alt.comics.alternative was created as the alt hierarcy does not require
a vote before a group is created. Due to the way in which it was created,
propagation is limited and crossposting between it and r.a.c.misc is
strongly encouraged. It's possible that after a year or so, it may be
possible to pass r.a.c.alternative, but suggesting it until 1995 would
be premature given poll results.

Splits are not impossible, though-- the r.a.c hierarchy *was* created.  But
any further split would have to be very well justified.  Attempt them at
your own risk (buy lots of asbestos).  Some things to consider:
 - Is the split easily and clearly defined, and separable from other
   traffic?
 - Will a fair number of people *not* want to read the new group?
 - Is current group traffic too high?  Will the split reduce it?
 - Will the topic die off in a few years, leaving us a redundant group?
 - Will at least 2/3rds, not a majority, of voters want to create it.
 - Can you convince thousands of people you are not a raving loon?

Please note: r.a.c. has seen a lot of split discussion over the years.
Particularly given the poll results, anyone who proposes a split similar to
the ones listed above other than rac.creative or rac.other-media before
around November 1994 will likely get posted and emailed responses on the
order of "Not AGAIN!" While things may change over time, there's strong
evidence that of the ones listed, only creative and other-media have any
reasonable chance of succeeding at this time.

2. What is Zero Hour?

From various reliable sources, including the 1994 DC Editorial Presentation,
the following seems pretty definite. Zero Hour is a major DC crossover
series which will happen in summer '94.  There are reports it will be
"self-contained" by which people have guessed that it will feature many
different DC characters in the mini-series, but will not have explicit
crossovers into existing DC titles. However, October dated issues of DC
comics will all be #0 issues instead of the regular numbering for that
month. The #0 issues will either deal with changes to the book from Zero
Hour or retell the conclusive for the moment origin of the character(s).

Currently being built up to in a number of books, most prominently Team
Titans and Valor, this series will be about "fixing time" in the DC
Universe. It'll be written and drawn by Dan Jurgens, and will be five
issues, published in the order of #4, 3, 2, 1, 0. There'll be a related
crossover between Legion of Super-Heroes, Legionnaires, and L.E.G.I.O.N..

Zero Hour is intended to clean up DC continuity problems, particularly those
resulting from either time travel or the phasing in of Crisis results (see
below for a summary of those).

3. What's this about Sandman ending?

Neil Gaiman has announced that Sandman will relatively soon end as a
regular, monthly, series. The current storyline is titled The Kindly Ones
and is the last multi-issue major storyline.  This will be followed by a
short storyline titled The Wake, and several one issue stories. The final
issue will be The Tempest, drawn by Charles Vess. He's announced his intent
to continue to do specials and mini-series about the Endless and their
supporting cast, but not as a continuing, regular, series.

4. Who's this Cerebus character people post a lot about?

Cerebus, written and produced by Dave Sim, is longest running and generally
best selling black & white comic on the market.  Cerebus, the main
character, is a 3 foot tall aardvark who has been, among other things, a
barbarian, prime minister, pope, and outlaw.  The series is expected to run
exactly 300 issues, ending in March 2004 (I'm not making this up) with the
death of Cerebus. A long time net.favorite, the comic can be read on
several levels. Sim keeps just about all regular issues of Cerebus in
print via what are called phonebooks; trade paperbacks collecting 20-25
issues at a stretch, all of which are kept in print. See near the back
of any issue of Cerebus for details on how to order them if your shop
doesn't carry them.

5. What was the Crisis on Infinite Earths?

The _Crisis on Infinite Earths_ was a 12-issue series published by DC in
1985-6.  The "Crisis" effectively revamped the entire DC Universe by
merging several universes (containing the various DC characters) into a
single universe (whose history is still somewhat unclear in parts).  The
Crisis was used as an opportunity to change DC history retroactively (see
"retcon" in the list of definitions), including the remaking of several
main DC characters.  Thus people refer to the "post-Crisis" Superman,
Wonder Woman, etc., as distinct from the "pre-Crisis" versions who existed
on "Earth-1" or "Earth-2".

The confusion *really* begins because the revamping and "retconning" didn't
all take place in the Crisis limited series itself, nor in the comics
immediately after then.  If DC had simply started all their series over
from scratch, thing would have been pretty straightforward.  Instead, they
declared the Pre-Crisis history to be implicitly intact, until and unless
they could explicitly create the new, post-Crisis versions of characters
and histories.

Thus, new changes are still being made in titles today, more than half a
decade later.  So, for example, the "old" Hawkman appeared in the "new"
Justice League.  But then Timothy Truman began writing _Hawkworld_, which
retconned Hawkman's character; among other changes, Hawkman "now" arrived
on Earth much later.  *So*, the Hawkman who appeared in the new Justice
League comic (call him the Silver Age Hawkman, or the pre-Crisis Hawkman)
"now" (in real world time) "no longer exists, and never has" (within
current DC continuity).

But then the creators realized the problem, so they said that most of the
Silver Age Hawkman appearances in JLA were actually by the Golden Age
Hawkman, and a new Hawkman was created whose purpose was to satisfy those
few JLA appearances made after the GA Hawkman was known to have been MIA.

Confused yet?  Suffice it to say, the way DC handled the Crisis and its
aftermath confuses *lots* of readers and provides a perennial topic of
discussion on r.a.c.misc. Zero Hour is said to be an attempt to "fix"
problems caused by Crisis, but we'll see.

There has been the occasional announcement that Crisis would be reprinted
as a trade paperback, but the latest word from DC is that they feel it
would be too expensive and don't plan to do so.

6. Where can I find "Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex"?

In the late 1960s, Larry Niven wrote a hysterically funny essay in which he
speculated about possible problems that the pre-Crisis Superman would have
in attempting to reproduce or just have sex with a Terran.  The essay
appears in Niven's collections _All the Myriad Ways_ and _N-Space_, and in
the anthology _Alien Sex_. And yes, we know that Niven didn't take the
bottle city of Kandor into account.

7. What are the different types of Kryptonite?

Post-Crisis there have been only three main types, of which only one has
made more than one appearance. This, usually refered to just as
"kryptonite", is green and has similar effects on Kryptonians as pre-Crisis
Green K. While it has no immediate effect on Terrans or other races,
prolonged exposure has resulted in cancer due to radiation.

Mr. Mxyzptlk created a chunk of Red Kryptonite, which effectively removed
Superman's powers for a time.

In the Pocket Universe storyline, Superman encountered what amounted to
a rainbow of types of pre-Crisis Kryptonite. He was not affected by any
of it, although PU Kryptonians were.

Pre-Crisis, there were numerous types. These were:

Green Kryptonite: weakens and eventually kills super-powered Kryptonians.
  Usually harmless to other races, but one story in Brave and the Bold had
  a device used which resulted in Terrans being affected similar to
  Kryptonians.

Anti-Kryptonite: similar to Green K, but affects non-super-powered
  Kryptonians. This was a retcon used to explain why the non-powered Argo
  City residents could be killed by what seemed to be Green K.

X-Kryptonite: Only one chunk, it was created by Supergirl trying to find a
  cure for Green K. It gives Terrans, or at least Terran cats, Kryptonian
  style powers for a limited time.

Red Kryptonite: Causes a specific, odd, effect. Often involved physical
  transformations or mental changes. Each chunk had a different effect, and
  could only affect a given Kryptonian once. Effects usually wore off in
  24-48 hours. Created when Green K passed through a space cloud.

Gold Kryptonite: Removes a Kryptonian's super-powers permanently. Created
  when Green K passed through a different space cloud.

White Kryptonite: Kills any plant life from any world. Yep, another space
  cloud.

Blue Kryptonite: Has the same effect on Bizarro Kryptonians as Green K does
  on real Kryptonians. Created by the same imperfect duplicator ray that
  created the Bizarros.

Jewel Kryptonite: Remnents of Krypton's Jewel Mountains, it allows Phantom
  Zone residents to focus their mental energy and cause explosions in the
  outside world.

Two notable fake varieties are Silver and Yellow K. Silver was used to keep
Superman from closely investigating what turned out to be a 25th (silver)
anniversary gift for him from his friends, and Yellow was used by Luthor to
fake out what he thought was Superman. It turned out it was a Superman
robot ordered to react to Kryptonite like the real thing. When Luthor found
this out, he returned all the gold from Fort Knox which he'd stolen.

8. How do you spell/pronounce the last name of artist Bill Sienkiewicz?

It's spelled as above, and pronounced "sin-KEV-itch".

9. Isn't there a gay Marvel mutant?

Yes. This is Northstar (Jean-Paul Beaubier) from _Alpha Flight_.  When John
Byrne began the series (issues #1-26), he made the point that Jean-Paul was
gay, using tiny hints that are obvious if you're looking for them.

In issue #7, Northstar visits Raymonde Belmonde, presumably a former lover.
In #8, Aurora apparently knows (and disapproves) of his sexual orientation.
In #11's back-up story, James Hudson comments that Northstar didn't seem
too interested in women.  There were other tiny hints as well-- nothing
that really made sense unless you knew what to look for.

The hints were subtle enough that you might not get the idea independently.
But if you read the stories with the possibility in mind, it was quite
clear.  Later in the series, there were strong hints that Jean-Paul had
contracted AIDS.

Unfortunately, the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel, (there is debate on which
one; Jim Shooter or Tom DeFalco), declared "There are no homosexuals in the
Marvel Universe," and decided to "fix things."  After Byrne, Bill Mantlo
was writing Alpha Flight, and he retconned both Northstar and Aurora into
being half-human and half-elf (thus their pointed ears), and decided that
Northstar's sickness was due to being outside of the realm of faerie.

Note that nothing in the faerie storyline indicated that Jean-Paul was
*not* gay, just that he didn't have AIDS.  Also, Mantlo should be given
some credit. He dropped several "hints" as well, including issues #28 and
#45 or 46.  Unlike Byrne's, these had the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

The "faerie" change was later de-retconned, though I am unfamiliar with the
details.  In any case, much later, in issue #106, Northstar held a press
conference is which he came out of the closet (He does *not* have AIDS).  A
Marvel editor explained that (paraphrasing), "Many of our readers suspected
the truth all along, but now we decided to make the issue clear."  Yeah,
right.

It's also worth noting that the true powers-that-be at Marvel (i.e. way
above the editor-in-chief level and at the corporate level) got very antsy
about this story and the media attention it got. Northstar pretty quickly
effectively went back in the closet in that little if any reference to his
orientation was mentioned during the rest of Alpha Flight's run.

10. What are some of the gay characters in comics?

A short list for DC includes Mindy Meyer's brother (Wonder Woman), Maggie
Sawyer and Toby Gaines (Superman), Extrano (New Guardians), Pied Piper
(Flash), perhaps Lightning Lass and Shrinking Violet (Legion of
Superheroes).  It has also been suggested that the Amazons in WW are gay to
some extent.

In the Vertigo line, there are numerous gay characters. Offhand, Hazel,
Foxglove, and Judy in Sandman, along with Judy. Lenny and Kathy in Shade,
Ray Monde in Hellblazer, Liz Tremayne in Swamp Thing, and others.

Marvel has Northstar, perhaps Mystique and Destiny. Mystique has been
revealed to have mothered two children, and it's strongly implied that she
had sex with Wolverine in Wolverine #51, so if she is gay, she's bi-.
Note that according to Chris Claremont, his planned origin for Nightcrawler
had Mystique, a shape-changer, being Kurt's father and Destiny being the
mother. At the time, Mystique was in male form and sufficiently traumatized
from war incidents to not realize her true gender or past. Hector of the
Pantheon in Hulk is gay; while at first this was somewhat hinted around
in the comic and only stated in Peter David's CBG column, he has now
explicitly stated his orientation in the comic.

In the Milestone line, Fade in Blood Syndiate is gay, and Masquerade is
what amounts to a self operated transsexual, although it's unclear what
his orientation is beyond that. Donner and Blitzen in Shadow Cabinet
are lesbian partners, and Rick, a supporting character in Static, is likely
gay although it's not been explicitly stated yet.

Others include the women warriors in Epic's _Sisterhood of Steel_, Barney
(The Masked Man), the woman from _Detectives, Inc._, Robbie and Frank from
_Omaha_, and Terry, Pam, and George from _Zot!_.  Several characters are
either gay or bi in _Love and Rockets_. _Desert Peach_ has a gay main
character, Erwin Rommel's (fictitious) younger brother.

Many of the above are gays-written-by-straights and are of questionable
merit. Others have been said by gays to have been handled quite well.

11. How old is Kitty Pryde (of Excalibur)?

The short answer: Kitty was 13 1/2 when she joined the X-Men.  She had her
15th birthday in Excalibur #24.  Soren F. Peterson reports that Claremont
spoke at a con the weekend of July 27-28, 1991 and stated without a shadow
of a doubt that Kitty Pryde is only 15.  Now, there's no *way* that only 18
months passed in the interim; too many events have occurred.  But forget
trying to make sense of it.  If Chris Claremont can't keep track of Kitty's
age, why should you?  Until the writers retcon it, 15 it is.

However, as of October, 1993, an issue of Excalibur had Kitty saying:
"Unh-uh, Professor...we've *had* this conversation once too often,
when I was still a *minor* [her emphasis], living at the mansion.  The
whole stern-but-benevolent patriarch riff isn't going to *work* anymore.
You have a *case* to make -- make it as an *adult, one-on-one*."
So she may be 18 now, but it's not completely sure. Particularly since an
issue of X-Men appearing at about the same time stated that only a year had
passed since events which took place before Kitty's 15th birthday party.

12. Where are the "real" locations of Metropolis, Gotham City, Hub City,
etc., in the DC Universe?

Metropolis and Gotham City have been equated to *many* different real-world
cities over the years; there is no one correct answer.  (Even if there
were, the current writers are under no duress to use it.)  Hub City, from
_The Question_, is a bit different; it is based on a combination of two
cities in Illinois, one of which is definitely East St. Louis. Writer Denny
O'Neil admitted this at one point, but no longer does so in order not to
offend residents of the cities.

Metropolis, as originally developed by Siegel and Shuster, was probably
Cleveland, the "big city" with which they were most familiar.  There are
also possible early references to Toronto. Later, Superman's home was moved
to somewhere in the BosWash corridor on the U.S. East Coast.  _Who's Who in
the Legion of Superheroes_ showed a 30th century Metropolis, which
stretched slightly beyond New York and Boston in either direction, and used
those names explicitly in the description of Metropolis.  John Byrne seemed
to think it was back in the midwest.

Gotham is a traditional nickname for New York City, but there is a separate
NYC in the DC universe. It is definitely a port city, probably on the east
coast; too much plot has depended on that fact.  Again, various sources
have placed Gotham City all along the east coast, often near Metropolis.
The distance to Metropolis has also varied; from hundreds of miles to
linked by a bridge.

Frank Miller once claimed that, metaphorically, "Metropolis is New York in
the daytime, while Gotham is New York at night."  Works for me.

Mayfair Games published an Atlas of the DC Universe, written by DC staffer
Paul Kupperberg.  While not completely official, it does jibe with
locations that DC used when its house fanzine of the mid-70s discussed this
same question.  The locations given for the main DC fictional cities are:

  Metropolis: Delaware
  Gotham City: New Jersey
  Star City: far nothern California
  Coast City: on 101 near Sausalito between San Francisco and Oakland
    [Now destroyed, but based on maps shown in the Superman
    titles, seemingly moved to midway between LA and SF.]
  Middleton (where J'onn J'Onzz first operated): suburb of Denver
  Littleville (Robby Reed): Wyoming
  Blue Valley (Kid Flash): northwest Nebraska, near South Dakota
  Central City/Keystone City: a bit north of Kansas City, Central is in
    Missouri while Keystone is in Kansas on the other side of the Mississippi
  Calvin City/Ivy Town (Atoms): both in Connecticut near New Haven
  Dos Rios (El Diablo): 65 miles south of San Antonio
  Fairfax (2nd Dial H for Hero): suburb of Bangor, Maine
  Midway City (Doom Patrol, Hawkman): Michigan, just east of Sault Ste. Marie
  Smallville: Kansas, 50 miles west of the I-70/I-35 interchange on I-70.
    The population is given as 90,000 btw.

Many people have noted errors in the geographical plausibility of the above
entries.  For example, the state borders near the Mississippi and Missouri
Rivers are obviously different in the DC Universe than in our world, and
Coast City can only be "between San Franciso and Oakland" if one intends to
drive from one city to the other without bothering to use the bridge that
directly connects the two.  These are from the Mayfair Games book, which
was obviously not edited as scrupulously as the r.a.c Welcome posting.  :-)

One final note: There's a real small town in southern Illinois named
Metropolis, located about twenty miles north of where the Mississippi and
Ohio Rivers meet.  On their "Welcome to Metropolis" sign they do claim
"Home of Superman", have a Superman statue on display, and every year they
have a Superman festival.  At least at one time, the local paper was called
the Daily Planet.

13. Who is Suicide Squid?

Short answer: Suicide Squid is the de facto r.a.c. mascot.  Squiddy was
accidently created in April, 1991 when a netter wanted to ask the question
"Can someone tell me what's going on in Suicide Squad?" and typed an "i"
for the "a" in Squad.  Many netters responded with what had been going on
in the Suicide Squid comic, which was a pretty good trick since it didn't
really exist.  People then tried to reconcile the different versions of the
comic, and it mushroomed from there.  Suicide Squid is now used in r.a.c.
posts for a generic comic book title when one is needed, or as a way of
commenting satirically on various events in comics. The current
writer/artist of the book is usually said to be Alonzo Mori, and the SS
fan club is the Black Ink Irregulars. The annual r.a.c. Awards are often
refered to as the Squiddies, and the r.a.c. team in the last two San Diego
Comicon trivia contests has gone by the name of the Black Ink Irregulars
(and won both years).

A copy of the Squid relevant parts of just about every post mentioning
Squiddy since his creation is kept at theory.lcs.mit.edu in the FTPable
file pub/wald/suicide-squid. As you might expect, it's quite large but
fun to read.

There are Suicide Squid t-shirts, and wearing them is a good way to be
recognized by other r.a.c.ers at cons, signings, and other events.

14. How can I get a Suicide Squid t-shirt?

There have been three runs of these shirts, sold only to r.a.c.ers and a
few comics professionals. The art was done by pro artist Ty Templeton, and
the shirts have appeared on an episode of Parker Lewis Can't Lose (then on
Fox, now being rerun on USA Cable in the U.S.) and on Prisoners of Gravity,
an Ontario public TV show about science fiction and comics which is also
shown on some PBS stations in the U.S.. A Squid shirt will appear regularly
on the '93-4 season of Prisoners of Gravity.

The third run has been mailed out. There may be extras. Send email to
[e-mail] to be put on a waiting list or to be put on a mailing list
for a fourth run should the third run be sold out (fourth run probably
won't happen until Fall '94, but could go earlier if a lot of interest).

15. Who is Paul?

Paul is essentially Suicide Squid mark 2. Someone posted about a rumor that
Marvel was going to kill off one of their characters and concluded the post
with a list of possibilities, one per line. Underneath the last, they had
their name, "Paul". People promptly jumped on this, and started
constructing a comics continuity for a character named Paul. The continuity
frequently made reference to the christian disciple Paul and his history.
There is no relation between this Paul and the New England Comics character
and comic book Paul the Samurai.

16. What is "The Cowboy Wally Show"?

TCWS is a graphic novel written and drawn by Kyle Baker around 1988. It was
done for Doubleday, not a regular comics publisher, and thus showed up in
bookstores rather than comics stores. In a strip in Spy Magazine in 1993,
Baker comments that more copies were returned than were published; it's
hard to tell how much he was exaggerating.

At any rate, this book is now out of print and very hard to find. To give
you an idea, Jim Cowling bought a copy via an ad on the net for $100. As
for why it's in such demand, Jim later stated it was worth every penny to
him. It's a very funny book, and has contributed numerous .sig quotes to
those of us who have a copy. It's become something of an icon on r.a.c.m.,
and in the 1993 Alternative Squiddies, one category (inspired by a thread
the previous year on r.a.c.m.) was "Body Part You'd Give Up For A Copy Of
The Cowboy Wally Show".

17. Is that really Peter David who posts here?

Yes, the Peter A. David aka PAD who posts here is in fact the Peter David who
writes Hulk, Soulsearchers & Co., Aquaman, Spider-Man 2099, etc. Want proof?
Take a look at this passage from one of his Psi-Man novels, written under
the pen name of David Peters:

"Chuck was impressed to see the latest hardware rolling his way--the
computer aided RAC 3000, Ultraflame Model.....'What does RAC stand for?' he
asked."
"Really Awesome Car."
"'Oh.' He shrugged. Obviously a name developed by people in marketing."

Not to mention individual netters who have shown up as characters in his
comics and novel work (Star Trek #4 in the current DC run includes the
FAQ maintainer as an Admiral in charge of Starbase 24, for example). And
in Spider-Man 2099, page 3, a reference to Suicide Squid is worked into
the dialogue.

Please note the following etiquette which has developed around posting to
Peter; he tends to read posts which have PAD in the Subject: line, and it's
perfectly acceptable to ask him questions, say something like:
Subject: PAD: When will Aquaman encounter Suicide Squid?

Keep in mind he's under no obligation to either read or answer such though.
Also, it's considered bad form to ask him either something which is either
not of general interest to r.a.c., or specifically ask him about topics
which he has no more personal knowledge of than any other r.a.c.er. For
example, specifically asking Peter about, oh, something in the Superman
books, makes no sense since he has nothing to do with them.

18. Is that really Art Adams, Kevin Maguire, and Michael Collins who post
here?

Yes, it really is Art Adams, Kevin Maguire, and Michael Collins who post
here. It's just that the people with those names who post here aren't the
comics artists with those names. This has led to an informal r.a.c. rule of
thumb; if you see a post from someone with the same name as a comics
writer, it probably is the writer. If you see a post from someone with the
same name as a comics artist, it's probably not the artist. And ruining a
perfectly good heuristic, Wayne Wong announced in late October '93 that
he'll be drawing Space Police, due out next year from Sky Comics. And just
after that, Steven Lieber, who draws Hawkman, came on the net.

19. Are there any other pros on the net?

There are a few at the creative level as mentioned in the previous answer,
but Peter and Steven are the only "big names" who post with any regularity.
Posts have been seen from the artists mentioned above, Diane Duane, Henry
Vogel, Louis Bright-Raven, and the Studio DNA crew and Jeff Lang.  Neil
Gaiman frequently is forwarded posts about his work, although he's not
directly on the net. A fair number of pros are on the COMICS-L via email
connections from Compuserve.  Malibu editor Roland Mann used to post
frequently until he moved and lost his net connection.  There are probably
others I've overlooked. A special case is Matthew High, who works for
Antarctic Press in a non-creative capacity and regularly posts information
about what the company is up to.

20. What's the joke behind John Byrne's Next Men's letter column title?

The title is "A Flame About This High". The joke to which this is the
punchline is "You know what really burns my ass?"

21. Where can I get GIFs or other scanned comics art?

You won't find that information here. It is illegal to post or make
available for FTP scanned in copyrighted art (the by far most common requests
being for same). Yes, it's against copyright even if no one makes money
off of it. Yes, it's against copyright even if you *really* want it and
don't have a scanner to make your own fair use copy.

22. What are the email addresses of comics companies?

DC Comics can be reached at:
  [e-mail]

Antarctic Press can be reached at:
  [e-mail]

To the best of my knowledge, no other companies are formally on the net,
as opposed to people who happen to work for companies.

[end of part 3]

"There are no net.gods, just some people with bigger mouths than others."
  -- Dan'l DanehyOakes, net.roach
tyg   [e-mail]