It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all

[maggie]

August 2019 - This is a re-post of my original message on Sun Oct 20, 2013 1:58 pm - That message was lost top time when the backups were lost during a host move after the site was put into read-only mode. Thanks to the Wayback Machine for having my back here.

It's with a heavy heart, but a heart full of good memories, that I announce the closing of Pulp Faction and the forums. The forums will be put into read-only mode in the next couple of days, so please log in and say any goodbyes while you can. The forums will remain online in a read-only state for at least the next 12 months. †

I created The Pulp Faction 9 years ago after Darren Close decided he needed to close OzComics and its forums. I was living in Wollongong with my partner Sarah at the time and, having been warmly accepted by the Aussie comics community (I'm American), I wanted to give something back. The untold story is that Pulp Faction actually started out as something called 'The Board' which I created as a private forum to share with a group of friends who were sometimes jokingly (or not) referred to as 'The Mafia'. At any rate, when I heard that OzComics was closing, I decided to go a step further and open the board to any Australian comics enthusiast or creator who cared to join. Thus The Pulp Faction was born on Wed Nov 24, 2004 at 11:06 am AEST.

We had some interviews, a short-lived podcast, meetups, drinkups, challenges, tutorials and, most of all, a community of people who just loved comics and wanted to talk about reading and making them.

Just about nine years later there are 1520 registered users, 52688 posts in 5666 topics, and we hosted 9 24-hour comics challenges. I'm pretty proud of that. You all should be too. And I'd like to take a second to thank, some of the people who helped shape the board, me and the challenges. I'm gonna forget several of you here and I'm sorry about that. But here goes: Sarah, Mark, Steve (Practicecactus, user #2!), Troy, Ive, Fink, Liz, Chris, L. Frank, Simon, Komala, Darren, Daren, Avi, Dean, Tonia, Jason, Jace, Jase, Jacen (holy crap, Aussie parents, enough with this! hehe), Doug, Trudy (you're the best!), Dougal, Tee, Trev, Sean, Grug, Jess, Owen, Matt, Matt, Matty, Monkeh, Kirk, Arran, Kenny, Ian, Christian, Em, Alex, Tim, Keiko, Dillon, Shaun, Andie, Nate, Josef, Glen, Mandy, Jules, Andy, Greg, Gary, Gary, Aaron, Eddie, Caanan, Hayden, Trev, Patrick, Kevin, Dave, Henry, Garth, Scott, Dan, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, David, David, Ben, Ben, Ben, Julie, Gavin, Colin, Alastair, Joe, Ash, Ant, Rebecca, Michael, Erin, and ohmygod I have to stop, this is getting out of control. ALL of you. Thank you. It's been so much fun.

On behalf of myself and all who've helped run the forums and challenges... Thank you!
Maggie McFee
Oct. 20th, 2013

† - Sorry, this means the 24 Hour Challenge Mature entries will no longer be visible as they require login to view. There's no way around this as it would be unfair to the authors to suddenly have these available to the world (and Google).
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[maggie]

And here are all your wonderful replies to that original message. Fittingly, practicecactus was the first regular user to sign up and the last user to post. And Matt G, the first reply here, was the one who got me off my ass to get this back online.

Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby matt g on Sun Oct 20, 2013 8:14 pm

Thanks for all the work over the years Maggie. If you ever want to offload maintaining the archive, could I suggest getting in contact with the National Library of Australia - they've got projects aimed at both Australian comics and websites and would hopefully jump at the opportunity to add PF (which represents a pretty rare documentation of an artistic community) to their archive.

cheers,
mattg.
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby Ian T on Sun Oct 20, 2013 8:29 pm

Thanks, Maggie, for these boards and all the Australian comics fun they've brought together over so many years. I'll miss them! It really is the end of an era, but the world changes and forums seem to have faded as a format.

Best wishes for your future endeavours in comics and beyond!

Cheers,

Ian T.
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby ShadowFD on Sun Oct 20, 2013 9:41 pm

Thanks for everything Maggie, it's been fun!

PulpFaction.net will be sorely missed, but I am glad I participated and enjoyed the roller coaster ride~
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby mark selan on Sun Oct 20, 2013 9:46 pm

I'm glad there's an opportunity to say thanks, Maggie, I think its important to recognise how important Pulp and the preceding Ozcomics forum were in instilling and maintaining my interest in local books, exposing me to books i wouldn't have otherwise seen and providing a venue where i got to know some people I call friends now.

I liked the sense of debate and discussion that forums seem to encourage, as opposed to Facebook's friends talking to friends, where everyone seems to agree with everyone.

For me, highlights were, the 24hr challenges watching 100-odd creators crank out pages and watching creators put their books together; i know at least 3 comic creators who got publishing work from the work they posted here, and where would Tom Taylor (playwright) of Star wars, Earth 2, etc, be if he didn't post here, meet Colin Wilson and put the Example together?

I completely forgot about the podcast, I was on that wasn't I? Did I say anything stupid? I do remember you said I looked like James Spader, so its clear you say stupid things.

So I'm grateful I can spend 12 months going through the archives and find some highlights, when people smarter than me said smart things, when people who draw pretty drew prettily and evidence of whatever the hell i said.

thanks Maggie.
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby Greg Gates on Mon Oct 21, 2013 5:32 am

Thank you Maggie.

I echo what the others have said about the PF site. An amazing resource. Look after yourself Mags.
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby Troy Kealley on Mon Oct 21, 2013 5:13 pm

Can't believe it's been 9 years. From signing up with a crappy entry to the 24 hour challenge, to eventually becoming an organiser, from scratchy submissions to running my own comics and back again, my comic 'career' began and ended with OzComics/Pulp Faction. It's been real, it's been educational, it's been emotional (I hope everyone from Adelaide forgives me!), I beat the US comic crowd at SPA idol on their home turf with the support of everyone here, I met a lot of very cool people and read a bucket-load of amazing local comics. I one day hope to continue Badlands Taxi and Owen as WebComics or pdf's just to complete those stories but for now my creative time is still in the miniature hobby scene. Thanks to everyone who has supported me, but especially thanks to the following people: Maggie, Steve, Hayden, Avi, Grug, Keiko, Dean, Jacen, Thomas, Dan, Trudy, Liz, Simon, Doug, Darren, Mark, Tonia, Aaron, Ant, and many others for being inspiration, guides or helpers in this journey.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Troy Kealley
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby Darren Close on Mon Oct 21, 2013 6:32 pm

You did an amazing job Maggie, as well as your great support staff of Mark Selan, Avi Bernshaw and Troy Kealley in particular. The 24hr challenge was a major highlight.

A lot of good was achieved for many people over many years. Thankyou.
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby JasonFranks on Mon Oct 21, 2013 7:58 pm

Wow, I still remember when I was trying to connect with the Aussie comics scene, moving back here from the US, and Doug-bot told me this was the place to do it. That was six years ago. PF was already a vibrant place, even though you had already returned to where I was coming from. (I think.)

Cheers for everything, Maggie!

-- Jason
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby maggie on Tue Oct 22, 2013 5:04 pm

Thanks so much for the kind words, everyone. It really means a lot.

What made this site was you all. And that's a fact. I've met so many talented, fun and interesting people along the way and I don't regret a moment of it. I got to meet and hang out with Trudy Cooper and her pet man Dougal. That right there was worth the price of admission. I have original art from Trudy and Chris Wahl (an amazing drawing done in the time it took me to drink a beer) and Doug Holgate and Ive and Jessica Monster. I have copies of Something Wicked and Something Weird. And a shelf full of books like Azarath, Mojo & Fuzz, OCD, Ghost Farm, Gasp!, Sure Shot, Basic Wage Kids, Sporadic, Guh!, Big Time Brisbane Comics Revue, Geeen, Tales All Up In Your Face, Badlands Taxi, Cosmic Corsairs, Diabla, Useless Ephemera, Plump Oyster, Glenjamin, Phatsville Comics, Pink Chickens, Maxwell the Demon, The List, The Watch, Eldritch Kid, Local Act (several), Hairbutt Hippo, Digested, CAB, Platinum Grit and more. I even have a Zero Assassin, Platinum and Dark Nebula I picked up used.

Things change, of course, and traffic here has dropped to a trickle. But that's the way things go and we've all got new places to be and discover and new ways of connecting. And that is, in the end, what it's all about; Connecting. And I'm so happy to have connected with you all and helped you connect with each other.

Thank you all. Every one of you for a great run. I'll try to keep PF around as a read-only archive as long as seems useful.

You pal,
Maggie (one last non-stop grin!)
@tankgrrl on Twitter or http://about.me/maggiemcfee

PS - If anyone is looking to take up the hosting and running of the yearly Comikaze24, contact me directly at admin -at- pulpfaction.net
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby LauraSeabrook on Wed Oct 23, 2013 1:00 pm

You know I was mostly here during the comikaze, but that was pretty cool. I'll miss that, and the rest as well.
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby Ka-ru on Mon Oct 28, 2013 11:44 pm

Amazing job, and super thanks, Maggie. I really wish I'd been more aware of community when I was starting out, especially with both of us in Wollongong. It would have been nice to have at least met, but by the time I was more in-tune with things, I was living overseas.

Comikaze has been great over the years, and I've greatly appreciated the work of yourself and others in running this, and the central role PulpFaction has played in it. Though things have been quiet here lately, this forum remains my only real link to the Australian comics community, which is a shame as I've been producing work again lately and am within a few pages of completing 2 projects - including the 9 year late 8th chapter of my WA comic. PulpFaction will be sorely missed.

I just want to say thank you for all the hard work you've done here for no real reward other than for the love of the community. Domou arigatou gazaimasu, Maggie-sama!
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Re: It's been a wonderful 9 years, thank you all
Postby practicecactus on Sun Nov 03, 2013 9:14 pm

What can I say that hasn't already been put far more eloquently than I ever could? How do I pay tribute to this wonderful forum and it's illustrious 9 year life? Look at it. Doesn't look a day over 5. Gone too soon. Let's not lay the blame on anyone or anything *coughfacebook*, instead, let us remember the happy times. The sense of community and kinship, the time that person joined just to say the band Pulp sucked, the flame wars, and the circle jerking. Good times. I've met a lot of good people through Pulp Faction and it's because of this forum, I've forged a lot of acquaintances. Solid acquaintances.
Since that first day, when I was still figuring out this internet thing and comic making stuff, even when I was an annoying douche, this forum and Maggie was good to me. I have no idea why.

Thank you Maggie for your efforts in maintaining and captaining this ship and Pulp Faction, I bid you adieu, you sexy beast