The Future of the Idol-Head of Diabolu Blog

If you followed me on Twitter-- well, sorry about the entirety of the first Trump Administration. I thought screaming until I ripped out my proverbial social media vocal cords would be beneficial to anyone anywhere. Anyway, Twitter got taken over by a billionaire supervillain, and I eventually nuked that account.

Over the years, especially on blogiversaries like today's eighteenth, I often talk about how my online Martian Manhunter enshrinement began on the DC Universe Message Boards, and on a WebTV fan site that I built with the absolute most rudimentary tools. But even before I had a WebTV of my own, I used the one my buddy Illegal Machine's family had to sign-up for my first even email account. I remember because they tried to warn me that I was misspelling the handle, but I brushed them off. Anyway, that was the email I used for all my earliest log-ins at sites... where I got into a lengthy email discussion about homophobia with JLA-period Mike S. Miller... where Tom Mandrake invited me to buy some of his Martian Manhunter pages while he was still on the book... and so on. It was also where my family typically reached me, some of whom are no longer with us. Anyway, Yahoo! recently upgraded their (in)security, demanding personal information to access that near thirty year old account. The back-up Hotmail email address in long dead, and I kind of wanted a break from my family anyway, so I guess that's gone forever.

I've been locked out of the official Idol-Head account, email_of_diabolu@yahoo.com, for some time now. Those who send me emails know that I take months to respond anyway, but now you're looking at something like a year to never on those replies. If I recall correctly, I bought a burner phone to reclaim my Twitter account after a MAGAot decided that reporting me for phony abuses was better than being able to win an argument against me, and that cell might be tied to the official email. So maybe I'll pay for another month of phone service with a gift card to regain that account someday.

I don't know which email the MySpace page was tied to, and haven't looked at that in ages, but the one email I used to build this blog is also lost to me. Recently, Google began heightening their own security, and because of cookie demands, I can no longer access this page via the browser of my choice. The email tied to this blog is different from the "official" email, and I'm locked out of that one, too. I don't care to have to access my old Blogspot/Google sites through the Chrome browser exclusively, and I don't expect to go the burner phone route if I lost access through Chrome, too.

As I've mentioned previously, part of my continued blogging has been "keeping the seat warm" until I run out of commissions created for this site to actually get posted. My hope, and not an entirely unreasonable expectation, is that I may have finally finished getting that done this month. The way things are going, it's a good thing too, because I can't be certain how much time I have left to do that before the guys who supposedly were guided by the principle "Don't be evil" finally decide that mining my personal data to "protect me" may be more important to them than allowing me access to a blog that I've worked on for nearly 20 years.

But look, I'm not bitter. A clean, quite break from blogging would be good for me. Like my shouting into the Twitter abyss, all that time devoted to Martian Manhunter education and opining haven't appreciably moved the needle on the Alien Atlas' stature and popularity. You could remove me from the equation without making a dent, and in fact, excising my worst protectionist efforts could be a positive development. Also, I can't even really be mad at Google. They never charged me a dime for hosting all of this nonsense, for providing me the tools to construct, or even taking on the load of all my pictures since Photobucket turned me out. I sincerely appreciate Google for that, even as a chafe against their demands on my privacy.

All this is really to say that the day may come where I'm just gone. Despite it's ineffectiveness and my personal frustration at same, I'm still proud of the work that I put into this place. I've met good friends here, sometimes in person, and get their Christmas cards. Doing this project prompted me to start collecting comic art, and to talk to comics creators that I'd have been too intimidate to approach otherwise. I've sat by their side at tables, asking questions and soaking up their kindness and fellowship. That means a lot to an aging comic book nerd. I've also shared joy and commiserated with fellow fans through comments here, whether or not we've ever seen each other's face. It's enriched my life, and there are worse legacies, short term as they may be.

Look-- I'm still here. The blog's still going. We'll see how many posts I can crank out in September, long past the days when this was a daily. and almost certainly not even a weekdaily for even this one month. I'm shooting for weekly, and anything else we get to is a bonus. I'm also still online elsewhere. I'm on BlueSky as Diabolu Frank, but you can only see me if you have your own account there. I'm also still putting out Rolled Spine Podcasts, which has a WordPress blog that gives me a lot less grief than here, and has a bunch of routes on contact if so desired (Spotify, Internet Archive, direct email, the odd Tumblr.) I'm not trying to abandon anyone, so if Blogger slips away from me, you have alternatives.

The blog incarnation of this project was directly inspired by Rob Kelly's The Aquaman Shrine, which got hijacked by someone that was supposed to be a friend and helper. That place was may more successful at building a community and increasing the visibility of its subject. It's been nine years since their last post, and it's slowly being reclaimed by broken links and redirects to Asian skin cream ads and such. That was also a Google blog, which gives me a glimpse at the Idol-Head's possible (probable?) future. And so it goes...