On 1 October 2016, we launched Atomic Junk Shop, so that makes this our tenth anniversary/birthday. Yay to us!
I always like marking anniversaries, and here at the blog it’s no different. It’s been a strange decade — we launched right before the beginning of what we might call “The Trump Decade,” which is not a high-water mark of ‘Murican history, I think you’ll agree, and it’s been tough for most of us. But we’ve been here, doing our thing, checking out some of the weirder corners of pop culture, and it’s been fun.
It feels like we’ve reached an inflection point with the blog over the past couple of years, as you might have noticed. Many of our writers don’t post much (if at all) here anymore, and it continues to bum me out. If you go to the sidebar and click on the writers’ names, you can see when their most recent posts are, and it’s kind of depressing. I get that we all get older and have more things to take us away from writing, but it’s still a bummer. Fraser and I are holding down the fort, but I do miss the variety we used to have here. I wonder how Travis is doing. I hope some people who used to comment here are doing ok. I really like this community, and I like discussing things with people in the comments, and it bums me out that we don’t have a bigger readership. Consider these anniversary posts, which I do every year. In 2017, we got 44 comments. In 2018, 34 comments. By 2019, it was down to 16. 22 in 2020, 18 in 2021, 16 in 2022, 20 in 2023, 20 in 2024, and 12 last year. I know that comments aren’t necessarily the best indicator of who’s reading, but they’re not the worst way, either, and I wish more people would say hello. I know we’ve had some issues with signing up for the blog, and I don’t know how to fix it. None of us here are, as far as I can tell, that technically minded, so when something goes wrong with the blog (which it does every so often), I don’t know how to make it better. I do apologize for that.
So, an inflection point. Which means, will the blog continue? Well, as I say every year, as long as I’m around and have a little bit of time, it will, because I really do like writing for the blog. I think Fraser enjoys it, too, and I still have a few years of Greg’s columns to repost, so you’re stuck with us a bit longer unless AI finally reaches out of my computer and kills me. I still think we have interesting people reading the blog, and I like hearing from them. Of course, I wish we had more diversity in our posting, but such is life, and we will always welcome it if one of the absent writers pops up and posts something. Life is hard, and life in the past decade has been even harder, and I do not blame people in the least if they can’t write something about a weird 1980s movie or a great comic they read recently or how Traylor Howard is the stealth MVP of Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, and I do not blame people in the least if they simply don’t have time to check in and read our ramblings. We do hope we can continue to entertain you with all our weirdness, and if you have a few free minutes during the day, you’re more than welcome to spend them with us. Fraser still has a lot of Silver Age/Bronze Age stuff to read, after all! I took September off from writing about Wizard and my old favorites, but that should be starting up again soon, plus I just read a comic from my bookshelf that I’m going to have to do a new Comics You Should Own about. I have a lot of things to write about, but — you guessed it — time is never abundant. So I get it. Still, we hope that there will always be someone out there reading.
As always, thanks to everyone for making this a fun corner of the internet. As I always do, I encourage you to comment, even if you usually lurk, just to say hi and tell us how you’re doing. I never have any idea what the future will bring, of course, but I know we’ll be here for a little while, at least. Let’s rush headlong into the future together!
Happy anniversary! I’m still reading, even if I rarely comment (it doesn’t help that when I do want to comment it’s always been long enough that I’ve been logged out, so I have to log in again each time…). Also, sometimes I’ll file a post away in my head as something I’ll want to comment on later, only to have it shift out of the front page before I get to it… Oh, well. Still enjoying reading what all of you people write. Here’s to another decade, at least.
I am certainly glad you’re still reading, and we thank you. I do wish commenting were a bit easier, but that comes along with the tech-challenged part of me, so it’s out of my hands. Thanks again!
Happy anniversary! I can’t believe it’s been ten years already. I don’t comment as much as I want to but I still check out this place daily enjoying the articles with the Wizard magazine reviews being my favorite. Here’s hopefully to another ten years.
We appreciate it, sir! My Wizard articles will be back in a few weeks! 🙂
Thanks for keeping the lights on, Greg & Fraser. I confess I’ve been AWOL a lot more than I intended to be, but I’m working on rearranging things to make myself more available.
I stepped back a lot when I got hired at the House of Mouse; there’s no way to write about pop culture and entertainment media without creating a problem for oneself there. If you’re critical of one of their projects, you’re “biting the hand,” and if you praise one of their projects, you’re toadying, and the opposite situations occur when you’re writing about one of their competitors. I briefly tried posting under a pseudonym (my middle name and an archery-related last name), but that interferes with the social aspect and I really didn’t want to build a fake persona to go with the name.
Then COVID hit, along with job changes and new projects, and my posting remained sporadic. Finally I resorted to recycling some old posts from a long-defunct site I used to own. But it felt more perfunctory, like a tedious chore.
Now that I’m semi-retired, I’m busier than ever. We’re having the house painted, I’m working on a book, and I’m teaching and coaching archery at a university, a charter school, an archery club, and private lessons.
But sometime soon I will sit down and write something for the ol’ Junk Shop, and figure out a way to get back in the saddle more regularly. Not that anyone is crying out to hear from me…
We get it, sir. I’m always amazed that I ever had time to write so much, as life just keeps getting busier. You know we’ll look forward to new stuff from you!!!
It is good to be busy in retirement from what I hear
Involuntary semi-retirement. While I was working full-time doing movie title localization, I was also hired to teach an archery class at the local university. That meant working four 10-hour days at the main gig and teaching on the 5th. Then when the main gig went away (AI does it now), the teaching expanded to 5 classes and coaching the club/team, then a charter school joined in, and then a local archery club came calling. So now I’m almost full-time with that, and then a lot of home repairs they we had put off doing. I turn 68 tomorrow and feel younger and better that I have in a while, except for the stroke and cancer last year. Both pretty trivial, no after-effects except more doctor visits.
Good to hear.
My sister’s retiring next year but she stays busy with local theater and Toastmasters’.
Congratulations on 10 years. I’ve been lurking here for lots of them, and used to comment regularly on the old csbg blog. I still check in regularly to read all the posts. Hope you continue to enjoy what you do
Thanks so much! We appreciate it!! 🙂
Happy anniversary AJS, and yes, thanks for keeping the lights on!
Your hard work is read and appreciated, thank you.
Amidst the content I particularly appreciate the effort to keep Greg Hatcher’s torch alight. Makes me proud to be a nerd and aspire to be a better human.
Thanks, sir. We appreciate it. I’ve been enjoying going back through Greg’s stuff and remembering all the fascinating things he wrote about, too.
Good to see you guys sticking around, even if the content has dropped off a bit. But i totally get that boring real life things get in the way.
Blogs like this are sadly few and far between these days, Attack of the 50 years old comic books is still going strong, I check in every few days to see what’s going on.
Back in the Bronze Age sadly bit the dust a few years ago, that was one of my faves and the old CBR site is a total dead loss these days.
Yeah, it’s a shame about blogs dying. They were such a cool space to interact with people, but such is life. We do appreciate you reading our stuff, though!
Waiting with bated breath on that Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place piece.
I’ll get to it eventually! 🙂
Glad to see the nice comments. Still wrestling with life to get more stuff up.
It’s true, comments don’t always reflect readership. Periodically I talk to someone elsewhere online and discover they read us. That’s cool (“Oh, you’re Atomic Junk Shop Fraser Sherman!”).
I’m glad this place exists. My writing here skews nerdier than my stuff on my own job (though that’s certainly nerdy enough) and that’s fun. I’m glad I was invited to participate.
That is pretty cool that people realize who you are. You fame is widespread!!!! 🙂
Congragulations on hitting 10 years. I’m more a lurker than a poster but I enjoy this site and I look forward to many more years from you guys.
Thanks for reading, sir. We do appreciate it, even if you’re more of a lurker! 🙂
Happy Anniversary. I was overjoyed, originally, when Greg Hatcher sent me the notice about the new place and invited me to contribute. Unfortunately, I was too involved with job, taking care of my wife (who sadly passed away in 2023) and other responsibilities to commit to anything like that. I especially love that you guys have kept his light shining, posting the old columns. I at least try to add my thoughts, when I can and when they occur.
We very much appreciate your input, sir — you always have a lot of fascinating thoughts about stuff!
Yeah, happy anniversary to everyone.
I’ve probably mentioned before (maybe in our private channel?) that life’s been throwing some serious s**t my way over the past two or so years, mainly having to do with my partner’s health, but I had my own brief and ultimately none-too-serious (despite a hospital stay) health scare a few weeks ago.
Still I feel bad about not contributing; except for posting comments, I usually can’t seem to muster the energy to put together a decent post – but I’ll keep trying.
Anyway, I always like coming to this site every day and seeing whatever is posted and reading the comments.
That’s no good, sir — I hope things have worked out. Health scares are not pleasant — we’re going through it a bit with my parents, although they’re both fine now, and it’s so stressful.
I always like your comments, you know. Don’t fret about anything here, because you have bigger things on your mind!
Happy anniversary.
Sorry about the delay. Now on our way back from 4 days in Berlin. We had 2 concerts (1 planned and 1 due to Nicoline seeing a Facebook message).
It took me a while to discover that you moved away from CBR but very glad I found this site.
It’s always read every article although I don’t comment all the time.
Until the next anniversary!
You know we appreciate you checking in, sir. How will we ever hear about the vast amount of concerts out there, as you go to all of them!!! 🙂
I hope you and Nicoline are doing well!
We’re doing fine. Thanks for the kind words.
I wrote about our lifes on the what I bought page
Happy Anniversary! I’ve read every post for the past 10 years and beyond going back to the ole CSBG days. I’m back every weekend to catchup on AJS goodness and hope to continue for another 10 years…and beyond! Thanks for all that you do, Greg. I’m really enjoying your re-posting Hatcher’s columns.
Thanks so much — you know we appreciate it! I’m glad you’re enjoying it!
Congrats! As mentioned recently, long time lurker (going back to CBR) and fairly recent commenter, mostly because it seemed the comments were getting fewer and fewer. Other than (sometimes) TCJ and WWAC, this is the only place where there are people posting about comics that I care about, in a way I like. A former popular comics Twitter poster and I were just talking about how much harder it is to find good content like this, and BlueSky hasn’t really seemed to be the place for it that Twitter was. Wish I had an answer other than the common “capitalists destroyed a once beautiful internet” take, but it certainly seems to be the case.
We’re glad you decided to start commenting, certainly, Mike. I do get bummed that comics blogs seem to be a thing of the past, because you’re right — I usually don’t know what’s going on in the comics world unless I accidentally stumble across something. I don’t always miss it, because some of the old controversies were ridiculous, but I do miss it occasionally!
Capitalists DO destroy everything, though!!!!
Congratulations on 10 years!!
I followed the “2 Gregs” from CSBG, it was awesome to see your own site, as you both were the best things on CBR. Obviously been a tough 10 years, but I’m sure it means a lot to many people, I know it does for me.
I love that you are keeping the site going, and its the only place I go for my comics news (yes I am slowing down on comic buying). Comics you should own is still the best reference point!!! What I bought, read or otherwise consumed is another favourite but I did prefer the single update as it was easier to read in one hit, rather than read each review as a standalone.
Please do keep it up. I’m not sure how representative the comments volume is – its actually not that easy to be able to comment – especially if you are daft like me.. The login is not actually that simple (nor is it actually complex when you put your mind to it) and there is nothing on the specific page to take you to it. I’m sure if it was easier you would get more.
Thanks for all the work you do!
I always forget the barriers to commenting — I don’t know why it’s such a pain, but I’m pretty sure it’s not us, it’s WordPress, and we can’t do much about it. I wish it were easier, but we do appreciate that you stopped by to comment here! I’m glad we’re able to keep one torch burning, at least!
I’ve gotten different opinions about how I review the comics I buy, but I do like to try different things. I’m not sure how I’m going to do it in the new year — we shall see. I’ll keep trying to make the blog interesting, though! 🙂
It periodically logs me out between visits and I find it annoying getting back in. Though obviously I manage it
Congratulations, Mr. Burgas. I first read you when I was 14 or 15 years old, in the old CBR blogs. I haven’t commented since those times. Your critical insight helped shape the way I read not only comics, but fiction in general. I’ll be forever grateful for that.
I hadn’t read comics in more than 10 years, but something brought me back to the medium the last couple of months, not even nostalgia, but a new found appreciation. I went to the Comics You Should Own archives to freshen up my memory and figure out what should I read next. So thanks again, and here’s for (at least) another 10 years!
Your comment makes me happy, because I really like doing Comics You Should Own, and I’m always elated when it helps someone out. And that’s very cool that I was able to give you insights on stuff — I know I can be a bit critical sometimes, but I really do enjoy digging into things! I’m glad you’re still reading, and I hope we can all keep helping you find good stuff out there! 🙂
Congrats, AJS crew!!!
By far my favorite website about comics, the universe, and everything.
Plus, Greg has the same bad luck as myself in terms of NFL fandom!
Here’s to a much less chaotic second decade – thank you for the work you’ve done and the work you do.
Thanks, sir. I’m still having fun doing this, so why should I stop? We appreciate you keeping on with us!
I think the last week might — might! — have cured me of my sports fandom, not just my football fandom. What a cluster of crap!!!! 🙂
Congratulations Greg and everyone else!!!
Yes, I still read but I rarelly comment anymore because I got a job and my job doesn’t leave that much free time
As long as you keep posting stuff, I’ll keep reading even if I. don’t really watch old movies(but I love reading your takes on them) and everything else that everyone else here posts!
You know I appreciate you reading, even if you can’t comment as much anymore! I’m glad you found a job — I know you were looking for a bit, so I’m happy it happened for you.
Watch some old movies! They’re fun! 🙂
Congrats on 10 years! I’m here reading often and commenting occasionally. I dip into “Comics you should own” archive frequently for my next read (or reread) suggestions. Also I really enjoying the walk down Wizard memory lane. I never picked Wizard up at the time so it’s really fun to see the snippets with your commentary Greg.
I appreciate all you do and will keep checking in.
We very much appreciate that you check out the blog, of course, and I’m glad I’ve been able to help you out with Comics You Should Own (of course, I wish I could get them up a bit faster, but such is life). I’m enjoying the Wizard posts, too! Thanks for the kind words!
Congratulations on 10 years
(it only feels like half that …I’m worried that means I’m getting old….which I’ve been trying to put off until later)
Thanks, sir! We appreciate you keeping up with us! And I know what you mean — I think it means we’re ALL getting old!!! 🙂