GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES
February 19 – February 26, 2009 Edition
TorchOnline
Specializes
In Fantasy Genre
TheTorchOnline.com, a news and commentary website devoted to the genre of fantasy in all entertainment mediums, is now online.
“I’ve always loved fantasy,” said editor and founder Brent Hartinger. “But I’ve also always felt it doesn’t quite get the respect it deserves. The wider culture ignores and ridicules it, or thinks it’s only for kids. And
even in genre circles, people lump it in with science fiction, which is totally different, and even then they sometimes ignore it.”
According to Hartinger, there are plenty of sites that cover sci-fi and fantasy, but very few that are able to concentrate exclusively on fantasy–and fewer still that update daily with original content in two
forms, text and video.
“The irony is, with The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, fantasy is bigger and more popular than ever,” Hartinger says. “Overall, fantasy novels routinely outsell science fiction.”
But Hartinger says TheTorchOnline.com will also focus on lesser-known fantasy projects. The site covers all entertainment media: movies, television, video games, RPGs, books, live theater, graphic novels and comic books, and web content.
“We define ‘fantasy’ pretty broadly,” Hartinger says. “Ultimately, it’s a question of, ‘Is it science, or is it magic?'”
Hartinger is a long-time internet writer, and the author of a number of novels for children and teenagers, including Geography Club (HarperCollins) and Dreamquest (Tor Books).
“Our motto is ‘Exploring all things fantasy,'” Hartinger says. “Think of us as the torch that lights the way!”
