Sat 28 Dec 2019
The first post on this blog was 13 years ago today. That seems like a long time ago, and yet it seems like yesterday.
Here’s the link: https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=6
Since WordPress itself has changed over the years, I decided to do some very minor re-formatting, otherwise all is the same as it was 13 years ago.
Since than there have been 7,281 posts, 39,704 comments approved, and 8,956,901 spam comments foiled.
Thanks to all who’ve stopped by, left comments, and even many of you who have contributed. I couldn’t have done this without you!
December 28th, 2019 at 3:36 pm
Congratulations! What an accomplishment!
December 28th, 2019 at 5:11 pm
Thank you, Karen. I know some people have a phobia about the number 13, but I never have. I’m ready for another 13, starting right now!
December 28th, 2019 at 4:59 pm
“F’ree’s a jolly good fel-low…!”
December 28th, 2019 at 5:17 pm
Thanks for joining up with me and this blog as early as you did, Dan. I’ve enjoyed every one of your reviews, many many years’ worth, and many more to go. They’ve added a much needed sense of class to my act, if I’d have had to have done it all on my own. (Well, some of the movies were clunkers, but not your reviews.)
December 28th, 2019 at 5:32 pm
I have enjoyed your blog and used it as a resource for many years and I appreciate all the effort you put into it. I do hope it continues for many more years.
The comments here are also very enlightening.
— TracyK at Bitter Tea and Mystery
December 28th, 2019 at 5:46 pm
Likewise, Tracy. Thanks! I have your blog bookmarked on my iPhone and I visit it often.
December 28th, 2019 at 6:00 pm
Thanks Steve for offering us such a nice place to gather and discuss the neglected entertainment of the past and present.
December 29th, 2019 at 2:47 pm
The stat I’m proudest of is the almost 40 thousand comments left on this blog over its lifetime. And a good percentage of seem to follow your posts on various TV series and TV history. Keep them coming!
December 28th, 2019 at 7:12 pm
Congratulations Steve! This Is my favorite site to visit on the internet.
December 29th, 2019 at 2:44 pm
Always happy to have you stopping by, Rick!
December 28th, 2019 at 8:05 pm
Congratulations! I was thinking this afternoon that at the end of next month I’ll be entering my tenth year as a blogger and wondered how long yours had been around. I thought for sure you were over 15 years. The discussions in the comments can often be extremely informative and fascinating. I continue to discover new writers and books to investigate when I’m reading posts here. This is one of the few places I visit regularly. And I have Mystery*File to thank for getting me involved in the blogging world. So thank you, Steve!
December 29th, 2019 at 2:51 pm
Yes I remember your getting your start online with a dozen or so reviews posted here before you started your own blog, and I’m very pleased you did. I visit it often, and so should everyone else;
https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/
December 29th, 2019 at 8:04 am
Pretty amazing, and thank you for all the hard work. The knowledge and sometimes first hand experiences from you and all the contributors continues to impress me.
I have learned more new information from this blog than probably all of the other ones I check on combined.
I also appreciate the civility of all contributors, it is nice to see people agree and disagree with respect for each other.
December 29th, 2019 at 2:57 pm
David, You’re not the only one. I’ve learned something I didn’t know before from every article or review posted on this blog. That includes my own. If I don’t see something new in every review I post, you’d never see it here.
But it’s the people who also contribute, whether by their own reviews or by leaving comments, that keep me going. I can’t thank you all enough.
December 29th, 2019 at 9:21 am
And think how much information you have given all of us along with the book and movie and television reviews. Well done!
December 29th, 2019 at 2:59 pm
And thank you, Jeff, for having been with me for all 13 years, and even long before that, in the pages of DAPA-Em. Good memories!
December 29th, 2019 at 10:00 am
Congratulations! It’s been a great run, and I look forward to many more years. This is one of my favorite places on the Internet.
December 29th, 2019 at 3:04 pm
Likewise, I’m sure. I check out your blog 2 or 3 times a week. You can’t imagine how many good books and movies have gone into my Amazon shopping cart after stopping by there.
December 29th, 2019 at 11:02 am
Actually since I’ve been reading MYSTERY FILE since the early 1970’s I tend to think of this blog as being almost 50 years old. So Happy 50th birthday!
December 29th, 2019 at 3:09 pm
I’m not sure of the year myself, Walker, and off hand I’d also have to say it was the early 70s. I wonder where I have those early printed issues stored. I’m sure they were as crude as all get out, but it was a start.
In case, thanks for being along for the entire ride. I think maybe Mike Nevins has, too. I can’t think of anyone else.
December 29th, 2019 at 6:27 pm
Wow. Puberty.
It should start to get interesting now.
Congratulations!
December 29th, 2019 at 6:45 pm
Sometimes the early teen years are the toughest, but not when I have reviewers like you around to keep me chugging along in the right direction. Thanks!
December 29th, 2019 at 9:16 pm
Steve, this is a wonderful accomplishment!
I always learn so much reading here.
December 29th, 2019 at 11:48 pm
Always happy to have you stop by, Mike!
December 30th, 2019 at 11:23 am
And many happy returns! An invaluable reference through the years and the posted reviews have led to many hours of great reading for me – Many Thanks!
December 30th, 2019 at 1:41 pm
Thanks right back at you, Bill. I don’t know how you do it, but you know more about what’s been done before on this blog than I do.
December 30th, 2019 at 5:55 pm
Congrats, Steve. You’ve given me and many others a lot of enjoyable reading.
December 30th, 2019 at 6:12 pm
With lots more to come, if I have anything to say about it, and I think I do. Thanks,Jim!
January 1st, 2020 at 5:25 pm
I wasn’t there in the very beginning, but pretty close and I think my paper copies are in the Cox Collection at the University of Minnesota Library. I only know they aren’t here.
January 2nd, 2020 at 4:15 am
As I recall it, Randy, we first met at an Old Time Radio convention, probably in Bridgeport CT (but why would you have been anywhere near Bridgeport?) This would have been in the early 70s, right around I started the print version of M*F, and I began sending it to you after we’d met that first time.
Good memories, even if I don’t have the details remembered exactly correctly.
January 2nd, 2020 at 2:25 pm
Steve, That’s as good as any recollection I’ve heard. I was at an OTR convention with Walter Gibson somewhere in Connecticut about that time.
January 3rd, 2020 at 8:45 am
Steve, congrats on both milestones – 50 years for Mystery File, and 13 years for your blog. Mystery File Online is where I read Walker Martin’s convention reports and stories of collecting, both served as my introduction to the pulp magazines and community.
My own blog is now in its 7th year, hope I can go on as long as you can.
Long live Mystery File.
January 4th, 2020 at 12:21 pm
Thanks, Sai. Walker was a little premature on talking about 50 overall year of Mystery*file, but we’re getting close.
I hope you and your pulp collection made a safe and secure trip back to India, and that you’re doing well there. It must have been quite a task. Glad you had a chance to stop by my house with Paul Herman that afternoon late last year. It was the only “pulp convention” (three people) I was able to get to last year!