You may have noticed that Boosterrific.com has been taking its own sweet time loading in recent weeks. I have the data to prove that this sluggishness has been affecting the site traffic. Hopefully, I'm only scaring away bots, and not Booster loyalists.

Since January 1, server response time has been frequently slow, with the homepage taking anywhere between 3 (good) and 20 seconds (very bad) or longer (very, very bad) to load.

To combat the problem, I've re-written the code rendering the pages and re-indexed the database. The server host has updated both the processing engine and the database server. By every internal benchmark, Boosterrific.com should be running faster than ever.

All our work has uncovered a new problem with the server that may or may not be faulty RAM. (I've checked, and it's certainly not the alluvial dampers.) So once again, I'm asking you to be patient with me and the site while we continue to investigate.

I'm still chronicling the problem, so I implore you, if you notice the site acting unusually sluggishly or erratically, please let me know. Either in the Boosterrific Forum (assuming that it is responding) or via email at webmaster at boosterrific dot com.

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: website update

Last week, in regards to sales of Justice League of America, I said, "I suspect that since DC isn't crowing about how great [sales] have been, they can't find anything to crow about." Looks like I was very, very wrong.

According to Comichron.com, Justice League of America and its 53 covers was the best selling book for the month of February... since 1996!

Comichron goes on to note that this book even outsold Superman: The Wedding Album (November 1996), the previous best-seller since DC signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Diamond Comics Distributors in 1995. That's great news for Booster Gold fans, who saw their hero get his first in-continuity reference in months.

(Aside: For years, a good friend of mine who has owned a comic book store since the early 1990s had several unopened cartons of "white-bagged" Superman: The Wedding Album in his basement. It took him the better part of two decades to unload the unwanted issues that the hype following Death of Superman had lured him into over-ordering. I still tease him about that overly-ambitious order. Needless to say, his order for Justice League of America was much more conservative.)

While Justice League of America sold better than all comics in recent memory, there is ample evidence to suggest that fans were buying for the "53 covers!" gimmick, not the concept itself. Over at ComicBook.com, Russ Burlingame points out that Katana and Vibe, the tie-in series to JLoS, sold comparatively poorly at #80 and #78 respectively for the month. This a surprise, especially considering their pedigrees. Burlingame notes:

It's been a long time since [writer Geoff] Johns launched a title that debuted out of the top 50; back in 2007, Booster Gold came in at #58....

As we know, Booster Gold was cancelled after 4 years, but mainly because of Flashpoint. (Yes, sales were falling, but the title would indisputably have reached #50 if not for the Great Random Reboot of 2011.) What are the odds that Johns' latest series, Vibe, makes it even half that long?

Comments (4) | Add a Comment | Tags: comicbook.com comichron.com geoff johns justice league russ burlingame sales vibe

To start the week, I'm going to tell you to go away. Specifically, I recommend that you follow this link to FirestormFan.com, where The Irredeemable Shag! has assembled a pretty interesting demonstration of how the art for a page of Extreme Justice #12 was pieced together, from inks to overlays, to color. Even if Extreme Justice isn't your bag, I think you'll be entertained.

Comments (1) | Add a Comment | Tags: extreme justice firestormfan.com original art shag

What If... DC and Marvel had a crossover and all the fight scenes were arm wrestling matches? It might look a little something like this:

I don't care if he is "Invincible," there is no way that old drunk Tony Stark could beat college quarterback Booster Gold in an arm wrestling contest. I'm just saying.

For the record, niteowlfanatic had a wedding where all the guests dressed like superheroes? Yeah, that's awesome. Very awesome, indeed.

Comments (3) | Add a Comment | Tags: cosplay niteowlfanatic youtube.com

It's hard to tell how well Justice League of America #1 sales have gone overall. I suspect that since DC isn't crowing about how great they have been, they can't find anything to crow about. It certainly looks like Boosterrific readers didn't buy into the hype.

Last week's poll question: How many copies of Justice League of America did you buy? (44 votes)

I haven't been subtle about my dissatisfaction with the New 52. However, I'm willing to admit that it could be a case of new tricks for this old dog. Now that it's been a year and a half, what's your opinion of the New 52?

Comments (0) | Add a Comment | Tags: polls reboot