gamegrene.com

Started by a college kid named Steve Milo from out of his dorm room closet, AnotherUniverse.com went from a tiny pamphlet filled with lists of comic books to worldwide reknown through the 1990s. At one point they were publishing catalogs around twice a month, had an immensely popular website, boasted a number of high profile gaming columns, and were generally on top of the world.

About 18 months ago there were signs of stress. Within a few months, these strange guys from the West Coast offered to buy the dying company. Over the next 12 months, AnotherUniverse.com was gradually absorbed into Fandom.com, along with numerous other fansites (including the well known Cinescape). Founder and president Steve Milo was removed from power (he's now heading up online operations at Marvel.com), and sporadic layoffs blossomed like laser fire from a Borg cube.

Now it seems that the final hammer has fallen. We've heard that Fandom is officially suspending all East Coast operations and laying off the entire division--which pretty much consists of everyone who was once a part of AnotherUniverse.com. A small transition team is all that remains at present, and even that will vanish shortly like a team of red shirts left behind while Kirk and Spock make their escape.

Apparently, online sales and fulfillment operations will be handled by Fandom's Chicago office (Cinescape), but with the current climate being what it is there's a question of how long that can remain too. The pessimistic view is that they've got a few months on existing capital, and then they'll be next down the garbage chute, flyboy.

I wish the best of luck to the creative minds at AnotherUniverse.com/Fandomshop.com/Away Team 7 who, until very recently, worked their butts off to generate slick-looking color catalogs and a spiffy website, for the purposes of providing objets d' art to fans of comic books, collectibles and role-playing games all around the world. It's sad to see them go.

Chalk up another win for the Borg.