Sodapop Journal: Where class lives
June 15th, 2009
Back in 2008, after PiQ was abruptly put to an end, some of us were still itching to do something in entertainment media and publishing. The only problem was that here in the Houston area, there’s not a whole lot of opportunity in that field, so we all scrambled to find whatever work we could. Me? I managed to snag a contract job at Shell that turned out to be one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had (not my fellow designers, mind you, just the corporate treatment) and all the while I kept the idea in the back of my head that one day I’d be back in publishing. I’d even started to blog about entertainment-type news and goings-on here to sate my appetite.
A few months later, I met up with some of the old PiQ crew and a kernel of an idea turned into a discussion, and that discussion turned into a plan. Myself, Scott Howard and Paul Starr decided to put together something along the lines of what we originally envisioned with PiQ. Entertainment coverage with some depth and character, but without all the all-too-easy snark that seems so prevalent these days. As “the magazine formerly known as Newtype USA“, we’d seen the blind hatred and spite of anime fans first-hand and made it our mission to fight the trend of just hating on things because it was easy. We wanted to celebrate the things we (and apparently, more than a few PiQ readers) loved and had fun talking about.
Enter Sodapop Journal. Sounds like a mouthful, but we found it catchy, meaningful and even a bit timeless, if you will. Unlike PiQ, this baby is all ours, free of interference from silly coked-out execs who can’t sit still and cagey money men who bend numbers to their will. If it fails, it’s all our own fault, but like PiQ, this is a labor of love first and foremost, so just the fact that we’ve actually started doing something is already satisfying in itself.
So remember the name. Sodapop. Journal. Even “SPJ” if you like. We’re just getting things rolling but feel free to jump into the discussion on your favorite movies, music and other entertainment. We won’t bite.
