Name! That! Site!

Improvements, OpenDoor Comics

As mentioned in my final Spotlight Sunday post months ago, I’m planning to launch a new site here at OpenDoor Comics that serves as a dedicated location for those kinds of posts, and I noted that the first hurdle is coming up with a name for it.

I also asked for people to submit some suggestions. Unsurprisingly, the response was…less than overwhelming. I’ll give you another chance to throw out some suggestions here, but in the meantime, I’m left without a name, so I figured I’d take some time to talk a bit more about what I envision for the yet-to-be-named site.

If you’ve ever read a Spotlight Sunday post, you already have some idea of what I have in mind – informal posts in which I talk to you about comics new and old, giving you some idea of what the comics are about, how they look, what I liked about them, what I didn’t, mixed with personal anecdotes that relate to the comics in some fashion, with those anecdotes sometimes having only the very thinnest and most tenuous of connections to the comics being discussed.

Mostly those anecdotes are about my personal history with comics in general, about what comics mean to me, and why they mean so much. I’ve often referred to the posts as being conversations rather than reviews, and the whole point of them has been to share my enthusiasm, excitement, and love of comics in the hope of helping to generate or foster the same feelings in the – theoretical – reader.

After all – and this gets into why I want to create a separate site for these posts – the whole point of this site is to create a platform for people who love comics, and in particular, people who love them so much they want to make their own.

It’s because I want to revamp the main site a little and draw more attention to that goal and purpose, returning to my original intention of using this blog as a space for updates and relevant information about the site and the overall platform.

But I don’t want to stop having the “conversation” about comics I’ve read, and I am, as mentioned in that last Spotlight Sunday post, toying with the notion of providing space for others to join the conversation. That part I’m still kicking around, as not only can I not afford to pay contributors with money, I can’t even offer to pay them with exposure.

Because there isn’t much of either available here.

I’ll talk more about that in a later post, but for now, let’s get back to the whole name thing.

When I said I was ending Spotlight Sunday, I said I didn’t want to be confined by alliteration. I really meant that I didn’t want to have an alliterative name that contained a day of the week, as my plan is to post things whenever, not just on Sundays.

Because almost every post – even the posts about new comics – is at least tinged with nostalgia, one possible name I’ve been considering is inspired by a line from the nostalgia-fueled Netflix series Stranger Things. Specifically, a line from the very first episode.

Screenshot from STRANGER THINGS with the text "Mornings are for: coffee and contemplation."

And so, my prospective name for the site is “Comics and Contemplation,” though I don’t really love the name. Maybe “Comics and Conversation” instead?

I just don’t know.

And while it has been laziness that’s kept me from getting around to finishing this and posting it, it’s indecisiveness that’s kept me from creating the actual site. I’ve done so many things in such a haphazard manner here that I’m trying to be more deliberate going forward and soliciting feedback rather than just pulling things out of my own…brain.

My friend Scott threw out some suggestions in the comments on the previous post, and I do find myself going back to “Unbagged,” which kind of gets at what the idea, in that it’s a site that’s about reading comics, not bagging and boarding them and storing them away in a box.

I’m not sure, however, that it really conveys the idea of the site and the posts on it. Maybe expand on it a bit to call it “Comics Unbagged,” or “Unbagged Comics,” or something similar to the rest of his suggestions.

But, again, I really have no idea. What name would let people know that the site contains informal, conversational posts about new and old comics that frequently veer off into tangentially related personal history? Posts about comics that aren’t really reviews and don’t give ratings or anything like that, but instead are just a bit of friendly, one-sided conversation?

Once again, I’m asking for people to pitch in and help with some suggestions. This time, however, I’ll do so with a form rather than asking you to leave it in the comments. That way you can do it anonymously and without having to sign in to anything.

Please use the form below to give your two cents. I’d really like to get this whole name thing out of the way so that I can focus on the actual creation of the site and start writing some posts.

And if you want to give more than two cents, I’ll remind you that…

Supporting OpenDoor Comicsis a thing you can do, by whitelisting the site in your ad blocker, by purchasing something from the OpenDoor Comics Shop, by creating your own comics on the OpenDoor Comics platform, or through directly giving money via Patreon or PayPal.

What Should I Name The New Site?

  • Comics and Contemplation (44%, 4 Votes)
  • Comics Unbagged (44%, 4 Votes)
  • Comics and Conversation (11%, 1 Votes)
  • Unbagged (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Unbagged Comics (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Other (Use Text Field Below) (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 9

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