The World's Finest

:For other uses, see "World's Finest"

The World's Finest website was created in 1998 to focus on DC's ever-expanding animated adaptations, including such shows as ' and '. The website is often cited as the premiere online resource for information on DC cartoons [http://www.batmanytb.com//weblinks.php?cat_id=1] , specifically for the DCAU programs, and is a reputable source within the industry. This website also first coined the term DCAU [http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=17445] [http://forums.toonzone.net/showpost.php?p=1272073&postcount=8] (a term which applies to the shared continuity between a host of the DC cartoons) and is the most popular animated DC-themed site online. The website contains exclusive news and content, downloads, bios, reviews, guides, etc. It was initially created by James Harvey, who still works on the site alongside Zach Demeter (aka "Bird Boy"). With the DCAU, the animated DC universe the site was originally created to cover, now at an end (for now), the site plans to still cover all upcoming DC Animated shows, movies, and related content. The website is hosted by Toon Zone, and often refers to Toon Zone as its "big sister site," but it is not considered a Toon Zone site.

=Focus= The World's Finest primarily focuses on the shows that make up the DC Animated Universe, and a handful of other non-related shows, movies and specials. Covered shows that make up the core DCAU include, , , Batman Beyond, The Zeta Project, Static Shock, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Other DC animated programs, such as The Batman (TV series), Teen Titans (TV series), Legion of Super Heroes (TV series), and DC's animated features past, present and future are also covered in detail. The sections feature many exclusive interviews with the creative team behind the DC cartoons and related comics, and are done either through the site or Toon Zone.

Growth

The World's Finest began as a simple message board for "" back in 1998 and quickly grew from there.

James Harvey created the "Superman: The Animated Message Board" forum in September 1998 as a companion forum to the then-popular "The Animated Bat" forum (which is no longer online). Realizing that fans wanted to talk about more than just Superman, James created two more forums for "Batman: The Animated Series" and "Batman Beyond". At the same time, another website called "Batman: The Animated Homepage" was online and drawing attention for it's great layout and image quality. Not too long after that, James got in touch with the creator behind the site, Barry Bradfield, and talked about working together on the site.

Shortly afterwards, "Batman: The Animated Homepage" expanded to cover more than just Batman cartoons, but all the recent DC cartoons. Redubbing itself "The World's Finest", named after the term applied to Batman and Superman's dynamic team-ups, and hosting itself on Geocities, the site grew evermore popular. The popular forums James spearheaded early on carried over to "The World's Finest". Once the forums for that site joined Toon Zone, its popularity further increased.

Keeping up-to-date with the shows, the forums for the site went through a few changes before establishing one single forum for all animated DC program from 1991 to the present. With 1991 bringing into production for a 1992 premiere, this seemed like the ideal starting point for the series, the modern era of DC Animation.

The very first interview performed on the site was with Min S. Ku, artist for the now-canceled Batman Beyond comic, which would be the first of hundreds of interviews performed. Shortly afterward James Harvey starting contacting people within the industry who worked on a whole assortment of shows. A large amount of DCAU news was first reported on "The World's Finest". Throughout the site's life, a lot of people came on to help Harvey with the site after Bradfield left to pursue other interests. In 2002, James gave Zach Demeter and Ian Moore permission to reconstruct the entire website, bringing in unique designs and amazing graphics. Moore, the creator of the site's logo, left the site in 2004. Demeter has continued his long tradition of keeping the site on the cutting edge.

Zach Demeter is the creator of the site's current design and layout, as well as a steady contributor to articles, reviews, etc. James Harvey continues to contribute to the site on all fronts.

Accomplishments

The site has led the way on many big events in the DCAU community, such as bringing to light the initial drastic cuts to and successfully campaigning for Justice League to be released in widescreen on DVD. The World's Finest has truly proven itself to be a beacon of the DCAU presence online, and the site has many pages backing up and spotlighting its accomplishments. The World's Finest also was the first outlet to publish a review for .

Forums

The website's forum is also hosted by Toon Zone.

Community & influence

The community has been one of influence and accountability. James Harvey, the creator behind The World's Finest, was able to direct creators of the popular DC shows onto the forum where fans were given the opportunity to interact with them directly. The creators behind these DC series have direct access to fan feedbacks through the assorted talkbacks for various episodes. Creators are also able to react directly to any news posted, let fans in on original ideas for episodes, things that were changed, and helping to connect the dots on over-reaching arcs.

Redesigns

The site is constantly updating and redesigning it's look to help accommodate the site's growth. In December 2007, the site revealed it's latest redesign with a focus on news, which can be seen on the [http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/main.php/ main site page] .

pin-off sites

Several related sites have emerged. While the first official spin-off for the site is the new WF DVD Report, it has created a host of unofficial spin-off sites currently hosted at Toon Zone. Marvel Animation Age, hosted by Toon Zone, is the unofficial spin-off of The World's Finest, focusing on Marvel cartoons instead of DC shows.

References

*Beyond, Chris. [http://www.batmanytb.com//weblinks.php?cat_id=1 "Batman: Yesterday, Today, & Beyond"] , "Batman: Yesterday, Today, & Beyond", 2003 - 2007. Accessed May 16th, 2007.
*Forums, Toon Zone [http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=17445 "The DC Animation Forums"] , "The DC Animation Forums", 2001 - 2007. Accessed May 31st, 2007.
*Timm, Bruce [http://forums.toonzone.net/showpost.php?p=1272073&postcount=8 "The DC Animation Forums"] , "The DC Animation Forums", 2001 - 2007. Accessed June 10th, 2007

External links

* [http://www.toonzone.net/ Toon Zone]
* [http://forums.toonzone.net/ Toon Zone Forums]
* [http://forums.toonzone.net/forumdisplay.php?f=9 The DC Animation Forum]
* [http://marvel.toonzone.net/ Marvel Animation Age]
* [http://worldsfinestonline.com/main.php The World's Finest]
* [http://www.wfdvdreport.com/ WF DVD Report]