Sunday, August 23, 2015

Tools of the Trade: News Websites



This is the first in a series of posts about "Tools of the Trade": websites, apps, publications and craft to be familiar with to make collecting more enjoyable, potentially profitable short-term, and more rewarding long-term.

There are several good news sites that report breaking news about comics and comic book movies.  The first I'll mention is Flickering Myth, which does a comic book movie news round-up every Saturday.  I think this outfit is out of the U.K.  Besides excellent writing, they do a great job of calling B.S. on groundless rumors that other sites hype up.  Count on them not to lead you astray.  The best in terms of getting balanced news.

The second-most important one for me is Comic Book Resources.  I get their breaking news alerts by email, although I'd like to see fewer alerts that are not comic related.  They are quick to report scoops by "pro" news sites like Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. A lot of comic book movie news originates from these sites, and check them out if you want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

Marvel news often breaks on their own website.

Some of the most cutting-edge, high-profile scoops have come from Badass Digest and Heroic Hollywood ("el Mayimbe," formerly of Latino Review), who besides a couple of face plants has some amazingly successful predictions under his belt, like the fact Sony and Marvel had come to an agreement to share Spider-Man on the big screen when everyone denied it.

Bleeding Cool is a good site to follow about developments in comic books themselves, like creative team changes and character developments.

The Comics Journal has unrivaled comic reporting, even having the confidence to name their editorial staff on the front page.

Comic Book Movie has the most entertaining comments section. 

io9 has some nice in-depth articles and concept pieces about the comic world.

You can configure sections of your Google News feed for keywords of interest like "Marvel Studios", "Dr.Strange cast", "Batman", "Zack Snyder" or whatever.  This will often lead you to sites like Forbes which you wouldn't think covers comic stuff.  Good for news on studio strategy from a business context or brand power.

Batman News is a fun site dedicated to DC.

I check out L.A Times Hero Complex once in a while for true broadsheet style reporting on the superhero myth as a part of pop culture.

If you can bear sifting through the sea of posts, Twitter can be a good source.  Follow directors and cast members and you may get a head's up on breaking news before the world at large (follow us).

There are some sites to avoid (or be skeptical when reading), like MoviePilot.  They are wrong a lot of the time, and it's so poorly written I wouldn't be surprised if the articles were generated by bots.

Our own site collates a lot of the news releases most likely to impact comic values, with an easy search feature for related comics in our marketplace.

Finally, I have to give a shout out to Superhero Hype, which was one of the first in the game.

Next post will be a spotlight on two modern comics.  Next "Tools of the Trade" will be about online forums where comic speculating and investing is discussed.

Happy collecting!

www.heronext.com

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