Today's completely trivial statistic: 36 years after the first appearance of Booster Gold (on October 29), there are still 28 different days of the year that have not yet seen a Booster Gold comic released.

This includes Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as well as September 11, and, ironically, my birthday. As it happens, September 14 is not one of those days.

There has been exactly one Booster Gold comic released on the 14th day of September, and that occurred one year ago today, in 2021, when Booster Gold appeared in these four panels of Justice League #67 drawn by Phil Hester:

pages 3 and 4

pages 7 and 8

pages 16

pages 19

It's a hallmark of issue writer Brian Michael Bendis to give everyone something to say in his crowd shots, so it's a shame that Booster doesn't have any lines. Oh, well.

Maybe Booster will get a speaking part in his next book released on September 14. Here's looking at you, 2027!

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: brian micheal bendis justice league phil hester statistics

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Boosterrific.com opening its doors in the digital wasteland. Since construction started on this website, Booster Gold has gone from a dead supporting character in 52 to "The Greatest Hero You've Never Heard Of" to the leader of the United Nations' Justice League team. Booster's rise to greatness and the creation of this website cannot be a coincidence. You're welcome, Booster.

Google tells me that Boosterrific.com has been reached by over 40,000 unique computers around the world in the last two-and-a-half years alone. (Site visitor tracking was turned over to Google Analytics on Jan 24, 2010.) That's about how many Booster Gold comics sell each month. Could that mean that everyone who reads Booster Gold comics monthly has already dropped by this site?

The most hits Boosterrific.com has yet recorded in a single day was 301 on April 22, 2011. That's the day that Booster Gold made his appearance on Smallville. If a one-shot guest appearance on a television show can invigorate fans like that, bring on Booster Gold: The Television Series!

Since adding the blog, Boosterrific.com now has also added an RSS feed, a forum, and regularly updated Facebook and Twitter accounts. However, that's all just advertising for the heart of this site, the Boosterrific annotated archives. The archives now contain well over 2,500 pages of information about Booster Gold's adventures, artists, and associates, with new content still added at least every month. I proudly maintain that this site ensures that Booster Gold is the best documented character in the history of comic books. That's exactly how Booster would want it.

Something else Booster would want is revenue. Limited advertising was added to the site in January 2010. As mentioned in the blog shortly thereafter, it was estimated that advertising would generate its first windfall in May 20128. I'm glad to report that thanks to the interest of site visitors, the site advertising is now on pace to pay out just in time for Christmas 2014, so long as traffic doesn't decrease too significantly.

But speaking of a decrease in traffic, it appears that interest in Boosterrific.com is declining. So far in 2012, despite the fact that comic book sales have been surging, the site has averaged 121 hits per day. Over the same period just one year ago, the site averaged 153 hits per day. The data doesn't lie: I've experienced a 20% decrease in visitors since DC destroyed their old universe. The daily hits continue a slow but steady decline begun when the "New 52" debuted in September 2012. No doubt the cancellation of Justice League International doesn't help the situaton.

Whatever the future holds, Boosterrific.com wouldn't be anything without you, the Booster Gold fans. A hearty thank you to everyone who has dropped by in the past 5 years. I've enjoyed meeting, informing, and entertaining you. I hope to see you again in the future.

Comments (7) | Add a Comment | Tags: ads google statistics website update

Reviewers across the internet have been pretty kind to Justice League International, Vol. 3, #1. ComicBook.com, Comics Alliance, and Inside Pulse all rate the book highly. It seems pretty clear that the majority of reviewer across the net seem to rate the book no worse than average.

In the Boosterrific.com review for the issue (found here), I expressed my relief in finding a familiar port in the storm of the DCnU reboot by giving the issue a five-star rating. In no time I was accused of being overly generous. That criticism made me wonder about how highly I was rating other issues on the site, so I took a look. Here's the results:

Obviously, I like more books than I dislike. Does this mean that I like most comics, rating comics in general higher than they deserve? Or does this mean that Boosterrific.com exhibits a selection bias, consistently rating comics containing Booster Gold as better than average simply because they contain Booster Gold? You be the judge; I'm busy reading comics.

Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: comicbook.com comicsalliance.com insidepulse.com ratings reviews statistics