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Hey, all. Welcome to issue deux of HEROES! I'm Jason Kenney, Editor-In-Chief, and, like last month and any number of months in the forseeable future, I'll be your host for the duration of your visit.
So, "who is this guy?" your mind screams, awaiting an answer. Well, let's start from the beginning. Not the whole beginning, just the fanfic beginning.
Yep, I write fanfiction. I started back in October of 1998. I'd been and still am working on a novel and was and still am stuck in a writer's block. I needed something else to do, something to get those creative juices flowin'. Since I'm legally underage, I needed something non-alcoholic. I had also just recenty gotten back into comics. So, one day, while mindlessly surfing the net, I thought I'd look up X-Men. Poof! I was magically wisked away to a whole bunch of links, one of which was to this site called Vision Comics. I checked it out, read the X-Men series there by Tom, and I was hooked.
I proposed a series to him two days later. It started in January and is running 12 issues. It's X-Corps, and the first 3 issues were done by the end of November, the first 3 fanfics I ever wrote. It shows.
But, I kept looking for sites, not really interested in just the short stories that are everywhere. I wanted to do more in the way of series like Visions. I wanted to find a group that did a whole bunch of series, like the real companies. I found that in Marvel Volume 1 in December. Again, I was hooked, and I immedeately proposed 2 series, both of which didn't come to be, but for very good reasons. And, I understood that I couldn't just walk into a group and have a series of my own, especially one a big as MV1. Well, I looked just a bit further and linked to it's sister site, FauxDC. YES! I quickly tossed out a Hellblazer proposal and I had my first series at a group that was based on a regular comic.
Since then I've written more and more stories and series and developed in fanfiction, both writing and interaction wise. But, ever since I started finding all these groups, I wondered if there was a magazine out there for them, one like WIZARD is to the comic industry. I never came across one, and if there is one that's been there, please let me know, but I saw a need. I wanted to fill it. I did.
In April, HEROES debeuted. And, man, oh, man, did it get a reaction! My inbox exploded with feedback, all either positive or simply making me aware of more groups or, and these were the great ones, offering to write stuff! The fanfic community seemed to love it. I loved it.
So, now we're at issue 2. We've expanded from 6 groups linked to 16, and the number continues to grow. We've got new features and new faces.
New features you'll see are this Monthly Ramblings column, the letters column, reviews, a message board and contests and polls, hey, even graphics! (Thanks, Josh and Trevor.) And there's more where that came from. We're looking into live chats where you can talk to some of fanfic's biggest names, writing tips, picks of the month, closing remarks form various writers, exclusive HEROES issue #0s, and more!
Some new faces you'll see are Donald Pfeffer from FauxDC with a great interview with FDC's EiC Clay Arceneaux, Chris Hatfield, MV1's News & Rumors man, takes a look into the recent closing of doors at various X-Men archives, and you'll see even more as we grow. Hey, we're always taking on new writers and reviewers here. Let me know if you're interested.
So, welcome to the still new and now improved HEROES, the fanfiction groups fan mag. Hope you enjoy the ride.
See ya in the funny papers,
Jason Kenney
April 28, 1999
