You have to love this time of year…March Madness!
The fans have voted!
Feverishly watching the bracket and matchups!
Cheering on the overwhelming favorites and familiar faces, while secretly hoping the underdog Cinderella will sneak through to the final round, and having your hopes crushed as your choices fall by the wayside…!
I’m talking, of course, about the DCUC Fan Bracket here at AFi.
Yes, you remember the Fan Bracket, right? Any similarities to other events occurring right now are purely coincidental.
As this recent version of the Bracket limps to the finish line, I will be the first to admit that it really should have been completed months ago. When we began this back in August of 2010 (!), we had every intention of continuing the mindless fun of the AFi Fan Bracket tradition, but we also wanted something that would hold to a tight schedule and keep the interest of the collecting fanbase.
Well, you see how wonderfully that worked out.
Early on, all of our ‘Real Life’ responsibilities of work and family began to creep into the schedule, and we had some brief delays. Nothing critical, but we slowly began to miss a week here, two weeks there…and then came the holidays, which led to longer delays. But we were still working on it behind the scenes, trying to get to the finish line while still raising the awareness of the Bracket on the various forums. Unfortunately, we then had some technical issues, and then some health issues with the staff that led to even more extended delays. Personally speaking, I’m still recovering from coming down with the flu in late January, which turned into bronchitis, which then became pneumonia. Six weeks of illness can really put a chokehold on your best-laid plans.
As much as it pains me to admit, things like this Fan Bracket seem like such a great idea in the beginning, everyone is pumped up and excited. But as with anything else, once the long hours of work began on each Round, it got lost in the endless to-do list, and seven (!) months later, here we are. I dislike excuses, but I also want to be honest with the fans that wonder why this activity seems forgotten by AFi. The good intentions have always been there, but the follow-through left much to be desired, and I take the full blame for that. Trust me when I say the next one will be planned out far in advance and hopefully painless (yeah, right…)
So what now?
Well, the Bracket voting is still active for the FINAL ROUND. Since this blog entry is serving as a reminder, I will leave this voting up until next week, so you still have a chance to vote for the final characters. Once voting is completed, I will have a full writeup of the Elite Eight characters.
Thanks for your support. I really appreciate all the enthusiastic fans that have a great time with this event, and I will make sure the next one is even better. And let me know what characters you want to see in the the next AFi DCUC Fan Bracket!
Thanks for all the hard work. I, for one, really enjoyed voting for the various characters.
First of all, a really big “thank you” for doing the bracket.
Personally, the delays were beneficial to me in keeping up. Not being paticularly on the ball, it allowed me to maintain my involvement with out undue pressure.
thanks for the bracket even with all the delays for had fun getting a chance to help hopefully get some characters their shot at showing up in dcuc.
You guys rock! Thanks for helping make the Action Figure collector hobby that much more interactive and exciting!