FAQ

Who are you?

I'm Jared "Jay" Davis. I began blogging in 2005 by writing about aspects of the Oz cultural phenomenon on The Royal Blog of Oz. In time, I began reaching into other topics my interest ventured into and occasionally my personal life on What I Got 2 Say. I have also written various fiction and non fiction for various mediums.

Why the Elongated Man?

Ralph Dibny is one of the mainstays of the DC universe since his introduction, even though he's never led his own title, outside of a four-issue miniseries. The character offers a different perspective to superhero life, not having a secret identity and being openly married. Yet while the character often makes many favorites lists of DC fans, it's rare for him to be at the high rankings.

Why start the blog?

Honestly, I was spurred by the announcement of the character appearing on The Flash TV series. I had intended to read through the Elongated Man stories in Detective Comics before but had stopped. Doing a blog, I decided, would give me some extra nudging to keep at it. As much as it seems like I'm sharing these treasures with you, often I'm rediscovering them for the first time since going over my first copy of Showcase Presents The Elongated Man, or sometimes reading old issues of Detective Comics. In time, I'm sure I'll be coming across stories that are totally new to me.


I was inspired by the podcast The Fantasticast, and while I have hosted a podcast before, I decided to blog instead as it's easier for me to write than record and edit, plus I can share samples of the artwork.

The name "Dibny Diaries" is more about the work speaking for itself than trying to frame the review as Ralph or Sue commenting on their past adventures while trying to make that also work as a review. Although I'm a fan of the character and am aware of things about how these comics were produced, I try to review the story on its own merits. I don't rank the stories.

Isn't Elongated Man just a second rate Plastic Man?

I happen to be a fan of both characters and feel that they are unfairly compared by many fans. They have a similar power set, and are both usually depicted as Caucasian males, but that's really as far as it goes.

Plastic Man began as a crook who wanted to reform and was actually a fairly serious hero with a funny powerset. Soon, the original stories gave him funny characters to bounce off of. In time, later writers made Plastic Man more of the funny hero we know today. Even then, the best Plastic Man stories stop and let the character show that he's not just simply a walking talking joke.

Ralph Dibny, however, starts as a person following his passion who winds up with these amazing powers he uses to complement a detective skill set. His marriage to a socialite woman and forgoing a secret identity creates a public persona that really should make him more of a target for supervillains, but doesn't.

It's also been stated that Ralph was created because DC didn't realize they owned Plastic Man. As covered in the very first blog, it's more complicated than that. Ralph's debut was supposed to make him look like a new addition to the Flash's fantastic Rogues Gallery, but the plot twist was that he was a good guy all along. Reviving a previously established hero like that would ruin the plot twist for more experienced readers. Perhaps if the creative team knew they could use Plastic Man, they would have revived the name rather than use the more unwieldly "Elongated Man."

Is it "Dibny" or "Dibney"?

For Ralph, there is no E in "Dibny." Similarly, Sue's maiden name is "Dearbon," not "Dearborn."

How are you going to handle new stories, Identity Crisis or 52? Why do you handle the TV shows differently?

For story arcs and miniseries in which Ralph only makes small appearances, I intend to cover the whole thing in one blog, or multiple parts if there's that much to talk about. I'll handle the comic stories in order of publication, meaning that I won't do a new blog on a story that just came out. Unless I somehow catch up. While I do talk about new episodes of The Flash TV series featuring Ralph as they air, these are stories of a brand new incarnation of Ralph in a different continuity, in a different medium. So they're handled differently.

Can you link to pirated or bootleg scans of the stories?

No. I subscribe to DC Universe and only use non-official scans for images in the blog as it's easier to handle them. If you want to find those scans, you may search for them.

Why don't you have a regular schedule? Why do you go for weeks or months with no new entries?

This is a non-profitable project for me, and sometimes I get tired or burnt out and need time off.