Blogathon 2011: One Week Away

It's less than a week, technically, until this year's Blogathon where I will blog every 30 minutes for 24 hours beginning at 9am on Monday August 15, all for the Hero Initiative. The Hero Initiative is a charity that provides financial assistance to current and former industry professionals who need it. It's a fantastic charity started by people who saw what the comics industry can (and has) done to the people who made the comics and wanted to give something back and right some of the wrongs that have happened. If you wish to sponsor me, there are a variety of options:

* Direct donations to the Hero Initiative
* Purchasing products from their site, including annual memberships
* Purchasing products from their eBay store

If you do give money, please let me know so I can keep track of the amount of money raised and, of course, to thank you for sponsoring me. My e-mail address is chevett13[AT]yahoo[DOT]ca. If you purchase any items, don't include the cost of shipping in your total. And, I do encourage anyone who's hesistant about donating money directly to see what the Hero Initiative has for sale. They have comics, t-shirts, collections of their various '100 Project' books featuring a lot of great art. I recently purchased the New Avengers one and it's really cool to see what all of the different artists decided to draw on the blank New Avengers #1 covers.

For this year's Blogathon, I won't be focusing on any one series (or connected series) like I have in the past. I'll be doing a mix of things, including adding to long-running series on my blog, and doing freeform essays. My only limit is that I'm focusing on superhero comics published during the past ten years. Last week, I revealed a few of my intended topics and, this week, I want to reveal a few more:

* The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller, specifically its relationship to The Dark Knight Returns and Kingdom Come.
* The Authority: Revolution by Ed Brubaker and Dustin Nguyen.
* The Programme by Peter Milligan and Cam Smith.
* Some portion (I haven't decided which or how much) of the Mark Waid/Mike Wieringo Fantastic Four run.
* A meandering look at some different interpretations of Superman featuring All-Star Superman, Joe Casey's Adventures of Superman run, Superman: For Tomorrow, and It's a Bird... plus anything else I feel like drawing upon.

Plus, I have a few more ideas. I don't know what order I'll do things in or how many posts they'll take up. Stuff like last week's announced issue-by-issue look at Iron Man: The Inevitable will, obviously, take up six posts. But, the topics I mention this week? Who knows. That will part of the fun -- and the challenge.

Please join me next Monday as I try to pull this off, deliver some good writing, some thoughtful insights into the works I discuss, and raise some money for a fantastic cause. If you can, give a little bit to the Hero Initiative. It doesn't have to be much. Anything you can spare will be appreciated. And, if you can't spare anything, moral support will do quite nicely as well.

Thank you