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The internet is NOT forever. DC’s website is undergoing a huge overhaul in a few weeks, according to The Source, with a new design, and new, exclusive content, and the old forums are going to be erased.

The new site will be the home to all things DC Entertainment and will incorporate many different community elements, including opportunities for fans to comment throughout the site and integrated social media features.

As part of its online makeover, DC Entertainment will be shutting down the current message boards in early March.  Active message board users are encouraged to save their favorite conversations leading up to the closure.  Special thanks to the many fans who participated in the messages boards over the years.

The online team at DC Entertainment looks forward to seeing fans on the “other side” after the new site launches.  With comments hosted by Facebook and real-time Twitter feeds integrated throughout the site, fans will be able to jump back into conversations about the latest announcements, like BEFORE WATCHMEN or the Second Wave of DC COMICS-THE NEW 52. Or talk about how excited they are for the new Vertigo title, FAIREST.


Archive those message indeed! More than 10 years of accumulated fanboy ire and praise will just be swept away by the sands of time, like it never happened. Luckily, we still have the wayback machine but…it won’t be the same.

DC’s last attempt at moderating comments on the Source ended about a year ago.

15 COMMENTS

  1. CBR and Newsarama will be there for you Marco.

    I jape. The internet is a big place. I’m sure there’s all sort of fun to be had.

    Glad to see DC keep turning the marketing wheels.

  2. Marco Polo, I hardly think you’ll have trouble finding a site for that!

    I used to frequent the DC Boards. It was actually my first introduction to an online comics community. Haven’t looked at it in years and can’t say I’ve missed it, but hopefully the regulars have fun with the new site. At least DC gave them ample heads-up on the change.

  3. See, this is why comics should still have letters pages. How are we going to read them again in fifty years and know what contemporary readers where thinking?

  4. That’s a surprisingly accurate illustration of the DC message boards, or at least what they looked like the last time I frequented the place.

  5. That comments on the DC site will now be “hosted by Facebook” is a growing trend, I think. In essence DC will be farming out moderation for their blog comments, etc. to Facebook; I wonder if they’ll see the same level of ire as they did when they hosted comments themselves, or if the Facebook connection will tamp it down a bit.

  6. My local paper switched from their own comments to facebook login comments. It definitely cut down on the crazy and hateful stuff by a good amount.

  7. Does Facebook allow you to hide behind a screen name? Might this sunshine create a more civil discussion?

    Yeah… sure it will…

    As for going back and reading the comments years later, I recommend reading the Usenet postings regarding the monthly issues of Watchmen, as readers discuss the whodunnit storyline and other minutiae. This, of course, is way back in 1986, back when only computer geeks posted to Usenet.

    ftp://ftp.white.toronto.edu/pub/white/pub/cks/comics/watchmen/readme

  8. The use of a screenname does not necessarily constitute “hiding.” Depending on the board, a person’s name may already be in use by someone else. Some people sign (practically) their full legal name to posts that are hate-filled and insipid.

  9. “Well, we’ll always have CBR.”

    CBR deletes their comments after a year or so.

    I agree, some history and insights into what people were thinking at the time will be lost. One of the pleasures of reading old comics is seeing the letters page and getting an idea who was reading and what they thought at the time. Or at least what editors were willing to print.

    Erasing it all rather than closing the boards and keeping them as an archive seems a bit of a waste.

  10. They want to give rid of the negative nancies following upon the heals of censoring comments the Source blog. People will take to Facebook but there aren’t many their the posts sink to the bottom. Nobody has time to sift through the horrible archiving system that is Facebook.

    Marvel at least has message forums up and they recognize freedom of speech. This is no however way in praise of Marvel who have made more mistakes than DC ever has and many more to come with the rumored Bendis move.

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