Rik Offenberger is an American

People of the United States

The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

 comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 journalist and publicity agent, an early utilizer of the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 for distributing comics news, and currently the public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

 coordinator of Archie Comics

Archie Comics

Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...

.

Career

Offenberger started his career in comics as a retailer at Paper Hero Comics in Chino, California. He began writing for the Comic Buyers Guide in March 1992, where he covered stories about retailers to help promote the comics shop. He broke stories on the formation of Image Comics

Image Comics

Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...

 and also covered the Marvel Retailers Summits. Following work on the Comic Buyers Guide, he began working for the British Borderline Comics Magazine

Borderline Comics Magazine

Borderline Comics Magazine was a comics magazine created by former Comics International news and features editor Phil Hall, which was published from 2001–2003...

 until it was discontinued. This was followed by a move to the Internet, where he worked as an interviewer and senior feature editor at Silver Bullet Comic Books (now Comics Bulletin

Comics Bulletin

Comics Bulletin is a website with an emphasis on the American comic book industry, updated daily with news, reviews, interviews, and editorial content. Coverage ranges from mainstream to independent/small press comic book and graphic novel publishers.-History:...

), conducting interviews with Paul Levitz

Paul Levitz

Paul Levitz is an American comic book writer, editor and executive. The president of DC Comics from 2002–2009, he has worked for the company for over 35 years in a wide variety of roles...

, Dan Didio

Dan DiDio

Dan DiDio is an American writer, editor and publisher who has worked in the television and comic book industries. He is currently the Co-Publisher of DC Comics, along with Jim Lee...

, Neal Adams

Neal Adams

Neal Adams is an American comic book and commercial artist known for helping to create some of the definitive modern imagery of the DC Comics characters Superman, Batman, and Green Arrow; as the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates; and as a creators-rights advocate who...

 and Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison is a Scottish comic book writer, playwright and occultist. He is known for his nonlinear narratives and counter-cultural leanings, as well as his successful runs on titles like Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, The Invisibles, New X-Men, Fantastic Four, All-Star Superman, and...

, among others. In 2004 he began producing trend-oriented interviews for Newsarama

Newsarama

Newsarama is an American website that publishes news, interviews and essays about the American comic book industry.-History:Newsarama began in Summer 1995 as a series of Internet forum postings on the Prodigy comic-book message boards by fan Mike Doran. In these short messages. Doran shared...

 and by 2005 he was writing for both Newsarama and Comic Book Resources

Comic Book Resources

Comic Book Resources, also known as CBR is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book-related news and discussion.-History:Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1996 as a development of the Kingdom Come Message Board, a message forum that Weiland had created to discuss DC...

.

In December 2005, Offenberger succeeded Alex Segura as Public Relations Coordinator of Archie Comics

Archie Comics

Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...

, where he currently works.

Rik Offenberger is a voting member of the comic book related "Inkblot Awards".

Super Hero News

In October 1998, Offenberger founded Super Hero News, one of the earlier Internet-based news distributors in the comics industry, utilizing the Yahoo!

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...

 List server. While the service primarily distributes affiliate press releases, it's also been used as a vehicle for debate and contention by some of its members.

First Comics News

In April, 2010, Rik Offenberger, Phil Latter and Ric Croxton founded First Comics News, a web-based division of Super Hero News. The name is derived from one of the early independent comics publishers of the 1980's, First Comics

First Comics

First Comics was an American comic-book publisher that was active from 1983–1991, known for titles like American Flagg!, Grimjack, Nexus, Badger, Dreadstar, and Jon Sable...

. The site logo

Logo

A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...

 was also fashioned after the publisher's imprint

Imprint

In the publishing industry, an imprint can mean several different things:* As a piece of bibliographic information about a book, it refers to the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication as given at the foot or on the verso of its title page.* It can mean a trade name...

 trademark

Trademark

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

. The site carries comics news, publisher solicitations, opinion columms, interviews

Interviews

Interviews is:# the plural form of "interview"# a compilation album by Bob Marley & the Wailers, see Interviews # a C++ toolkit for the X Window System, see InterViews...

, podcasts and reviews. Contributors include Beau Smith

Beau Smith

Beau Smith is anAmerican comic book writer and columnist, best known for hiswork for DC Comics, Image Comics, IDW Publishing and as vice president of marketing for Eclipse Comics.-Early career:...

, Bob Almond

Bob Almond

Bob Almond is an American comic book inker whose credits include the Marvel Comics publications Warlock and the Infinity Watch, Black Panther and Annihilation: Conquest: Quasar.-Early life:...

, Holly Golightly, Ian Flynn

Ian Flynn

Ian Flynn , also known by his Internet pen name Ian Potto, is an American comic writer. He has been the chief writer for Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic since issue #160....

, Michael Netzer and cosplay

Cosplay

, short for "costume play", is a type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan, but recent trends have included American cartoons and science fiction...

 actress Tanya Tate

Tanya Tate

Tanya Tate is a British pornographic actress from Liverpool. She entered the British adult industry at the age of 30 in 2009 and now divides her time between London and Los Angeles.Tate also writes a regular column for British adult magazine ‘Ravers DVD’....

. The site maintains offices in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

At the 2011 San Diego Comic Con International, under the auspices of First Comics News, Offenberger moderated a panel on How to Get News Coverage, in which he was joined by Rich Johnston

Rich Johnston

Rich Johnston is a writer who writes about the comic book industry.-Early life:Johnston grew up in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, studied politics at University of Newcastle upon Tyne, and was an advertising copywriter until 2009; he currently lives in Kingston Vale, London, with his wife, Janice...

 and other journalists in a workshop for the benefit of small press

Small press

Small press is a term often used to describe publishers with annual sales below a certain level. Commonly, in the United States, this is set at $50 million, after returns and discounts...

 publishers seeking news coverage for their publications.

In January, 2011, First Comics News announced the winners of its first annual First Place Awards, among whom were publisher DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

, writer Ed Brubaker

Ed Brubaker

Ed Brubaker is an Eisner Award-winning comic book writer and cartoonist. Brubaker first early comics work was primarily in the crime fiction genre with works such as Lowlife, The Fall, Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives and Scene of the Crime...

, artist Ivan Reis

Ivan Reis

Ivan Reis , born 1976 in São Paulo, is a Brazilian comic book artist. He is known for his work on books such as Marvel Comics' Captain Marvel, and DC Comics' Green Lantern books...

 and DC Universe: Legacies writer Len Wein

Len Wein

Len Wein is an American comic book writer and editor best known for co-creating DC Comics' Swamp Thing and Marvel Comics' Wolverine, and for helping revive the Marvel superhero team the X-Men...

First Comics News is a source of reference for comics creators

Comic book creator

A comic book creator is someone who creates a comic book or graphic novel.The production of a comic book by one of the major comic book companies in the U.S...

, publishers, entertainment & gaming

Gaming

Gaming is the act of playing a game.Gaming may also refer to:* A synonym for Gambling; playing games of chance for money.* Playing a role-playing game, in which players assume fictional roles....

 and comics news sites.

External links

• Super Hero News, Yahoo! homepage.
• First Comics News, official site.