Sunday, April 10, 2011

Still rantifuso after all these years

Initially I wanted to congratulate my paisanos from RANTIFUSO for their 5th anniversary on Wednesday ( which is when I got the news ) but as always I just now found the time to do it. This week I didn´t get enough sleep and ate too much so I decided to catch up on the first and slow down on the latter.


As someone who has got his own 5 year anniversary coming up Tomorrow I know how difficult it can be to stick with something for so long. Why just today my brother had one of his famous rants about why I´m still doing my blog if I´m not getting rich and famous...or at least it helps me score with chicks or get free stuff. It´s all a waste of time and it never leads to anything and I should be doing something else - namely the things he decides I should do.

No, it´s not easy writing a blog. And most just do it for two or three years. There is this point when you realize that maybe 5 guys read your stuff and that´s not going to change in the forseeable future. Not many people care about it and you´re not going to change anything. And that´s the moment to pack it in.

Unless....

Unless you don´t care who reads it or likes it or wants it.


Unless you just have this creative urge to write, to express your ideas and be the one blog - the ONE blog - which is not always about putting things down and telling which comics suck. You try to be the blog that celebrates comics for all they can be. The silly stuff, the big mindless superhero brawl stuff, the parallel universe stuff, the mind blowing universe spanning concepts that can never be fully translated into other media. And the small, personal and touching stuff.

Unless......

Unless you want to do a blog where you can be proud of each posting no matter if the topic is serious, funny, thought provoking or even visionary. Where you get excited by the things you discover while doing the research for your posts. Where you can offer people a different viewpoint on comics and help promote the things you think deserve more attention.


Sometimes it´s hard, and you have to overcome personal difficulties, monetary difficulties....even technical difficulties. I have gone through 3 different computers and I had to build my picture archive more than 3 times from scratch. I have posted from different countries, without a computer using internetcafes or somebody else´s laptop getting the pictures from the internet. Somehow you still keep going through it all and then you get some really great posts that people appreciate.

Then it´s still a struggle but it´s a lot easier. And when you manage to keep going even through bad times, sickness, desperation...okay, and some good times....that´s when you can be proud of what you have accomplished.


Now, since we´re on the subject of accomplishments let´s get back to RANTIFUSO and a little history lesson. The artists / writers assemblage that should one day be known as Grupo Rantifuso was born in the summer of 2004. They worked through 2005 for what would later become the fanzine that won them numerous awards and the first issue of the RANTIFUSO comic was released in February 2006. And on Thursday, April the 6th EL RANTIBLOG started.

Looking back I have to say that April 2006 was a good month for the comic community. As the guys from RANTIFUSO are always a generous bunch, as I personally can attest to from the meetings we had at conventions, they have decided to expand the number of comics you can read for free on their blog to the first seven issues .


And for all who wonder why RANTIFUSO still isn´t on the blogroll - you know how it goes. You want something you gotta give something. Namely put a link for TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN on your blog.

I have written 2 reviews so far about them, one a bit harsh but just and another one a bit more enthusiastic - but also just . Yes, I would like to write more about them but so far I haven´t had the opportunity to visit Spain and ordering comics from Spain is just too expensive. If you find a shop where you can order them. So I hope that I can make the trip next year and stock up on my missing issues of RANTIFUSO since it doesn´t look like it´s going to happen this year.

In any case, happy fifth anniversary RANTIFUSO from someone who knows how much work it is to do a comic and to tough it out for 5 years.


As for my own anniversary I hope I can do a post on it because I want to announce the big 5th year anniversary contest. Which means that once again I´m giving away free comics because of the success of last year´s big Christmas contest. But don´t worry, this time there will be no task you must solve since there seemed to be a few people who had problems with this. This time around it´s just about getting free comics.


As always here´s a video to close out the post. Since we´re in Spain anyway I thought it appropriate to post the trailer for EL GRAN VAZQUEZ, a movie about the life of Manuel Vázquez Gallego one of Spain´s most famous comic creators ( next to Ibáñez ) who created such popular characters like Las Hermanas Gilda, La Familia Cebolleta or Anacleto - a spanish low budget version of James Bond, his most famous comic.


Last time we also had a Bond related video so it´s kind of fitting.



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