Woof and Welcome!

The name of this blog I hope is pretty direct and to the point: this is intended for gay bear-identified men (and their admirers and allies) who are into comic books and comics culture and will compliment the Comic Book Bears groups that can be found on Facebook and LiveJournal.

First, a little background on myself and why I am putting this together. My name is Bill - Billy to many. I am a lawyer by profession and live in New Jersey with my partner Robert. I also have been a comic book reader and collector since the fall of - gulp - 1973. Despite some periods of inactivity, I have always loved the art form. But there was rarely a social edge to this interest for me in the past. I never really had that Wednesday-in-the-comic-store discussion group thing and knew very few people who shared this same interest, for whatever reason, until recently. I didn't even go to a con until 2008. Over the past year and a half though, I have met some other bear-identified guys online and in person who do share this interest.

Now as for the bear thing – let’s face it – you go to a con, and half the guys you see, queer or straight, look like us. I looked for and had not seen a social or discussion group quite like this so I guess it made sense to help put it together myself. I have never been the Grand Pooba (or Poobear, I guess) of anything close to this; this is very new terrain for me so any suggestions you can offer about making a network like this work, please don’t hesitate to give me your ideas.

I’d love for there to be a discussion element to this page and the group. Initial ideas that come to mind for discussion on a consistent basis include asking the group members what are some books on their pull lists for the week, or if they had a favorite book – perhaps their “woof of the week” – to write about it and share it with us. For those of you who are artists, I’d love for the group to become a vehicle to spotlight your work. And as to the outside social element of this thing, I’d love to have meet-ups during cons in some formalized context, informal or sponsored brunches or bar nights during the conventions where we can all meet up. Also I think it would be great to eventually have some presence at bear runs and contests.

As mentioned above, this group will not be limited as an online function to this blog. I have registered www.comicbookbears.com (don’t bother typing that into your browser, there is nothing there yet) and the Facebook group and LiveJournal community both went live within the last week.

The Facebook group can be accessed it via the top link and if you want to friend me on FB - if you haven't already - you can hit me at the link below the one for the group.

Comic Book Bears on Facebook

Bill Zanowitz on Facebook

The Comic Book Bears community on LiveJournal link follows, as does a link to my personal LiveJournal where I post as Boomerz1.

Comic Book Bears on LiveJournal

Boomerz1 on LiveJournal

(My apologies if you are reading this and it seems very familiar. I recycled portions of this post from prior e-mail invites and postings – as soon as the growing pains end, so will the repetition.)

Now for a pitch - I have recently become a huge fan of some of the roundtable comic discussion podcasts out there such as 11 O’Clock Comics and the about-to-conclude Around Comics podcast. If you would like to become part of a Comic Book Bears podcast, please reach out to me on that end. I am determined to start one up before the end of the year. I live in the Tri-State NYC area but in these days of Skype and other systems, it really doesn’t matter where you are – it can be virtual roundtable and I know it would be a hell of a lot of fun.

I’d also like to have this group open not just to people who fit the bear mold but also to our allies and admirers, so please don't hesistate to become part of this if you fall into the latter definitions.

Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my friend David Stevens for putting together the fantastic Comic Book Bears logo that you see.

Thank you for taking a look and I certainly hope you decide to revisit soon and maybe fill someone else in who might enjoy.

Hugs,
Billy

comicbookbears@gmail.com

Comic Book Bears
P.O. Box 644
Plainsboro, NJ 08536