During my youth, I was a total comic book addict. I read four issues of Spider-Man every month along with healthy doses of the X-Men and the Dark Horse Star Wars series. But in 1994, when I was just beginning my descent into what would become a lifelong hobby, I dabbled and sampled from all the publishers. I dabbled, that is, until I discovered Kyle Rayner, the third iteration of the Green Lantern.

Let me break it down for you: Kyle Rayner was introduced by hotshot young writer Ron Marz to serve as the replacement for Hal “Highball” Jordan, a no-fear Air Force pilot as straitlaced as my grandfather and almost as old. Kyle was the exact opposite. He was young. He lived in Los Angeles.   He was an artist. He openly professed his love for Nine Inch Nails. And most importantly, he was completely unsure of himself in his new role as superhero. Ron Marz’s Green Lantern is the prototypical coming of age story dressed up in spandex and set against the backdrop of ’90s LA. It’s a series that really mattered to me.

He was kind of like Poochie, albeit a really badass Poochie who could fly around and shoot energy beams.

Cut to present day. I follow a bunch of comic pros on Twitter, and one of those writers is Ron Marz who still works in the industry penning a bunch of wonderful titles for Top Cow. A few days ago, Ron Marz tweeted about how his son’s JV soccer team was being cut by his school. Marz went to the principal and tried to come up with some answers and reported his findings via Twitter. I replied, curious about how old the kids were, and he answered a few of my questions and for a brief while, we chatted about youth sports. I clicked out of Twitter and went about my day, and it was only later that I thought about how fucking weird everything is.

I just talked to Ron Marz, beloved Green Lantern creator of my youth, about his son’s disbanded JV soccer team. Seriously, folks. Could we even have imagined this back in ’94? I know I couldn’t have. What this all leads to are questions about what’s happening to the relationship between readers and writers in a post-internet age. I certainly don’t have the answers, and I’m curious as to what you all think.

For an example of the type of altered dynamic I’m talking about, look no further than Tao Lin. Many writers have been dubbed “the voice of their generation”, but none before have had open Facebook profiles and such visible online presences. Sign onto Facebook. Look up Lin. He’s there. His profile is almost totally open.   Peep some photos of Lin hanging out on his couch with some buddies. How about a picture of the vegan dinner he prepared for his dog? It’s all there. On Facebook. Forever. And if you’ve never met Tao Lin but you love Richard Yates, it’s just as easy to add yourself to his close to 4,000 friend list and tell him how much you like his work yourself. He usually responds.

Obviously, old guard writers like John Irving or Joyce Carol Oates aren’t much for Facebook. But what’s going to happen in twenty years? How about thirty? What happens when it’s not just Tao Lin and a handful of other writers who completely open up their lives through Facebook, Twitter and blogs, but the entire literary community? What would have happened if Jonathan Franzen had a Facebook account and called out each and every backlash article on his wall?

Maybe nothing. Maybe I’m making way too much out of the whole internet thing, and it’s not that far removed from when readers would send fan letters to writers they admired. But I don’t think so. It feels to me like something’s changing, and to steal a page from the Tao Lin playbook, that what it means to be a “writer” and “reader” is shifting at a fundamental level as well. All I can say for certain is that 16 years ago I did not have the ability to tell Ron Marz how much I loved his Green Lantern run and get a reply within seconds.

I'm living in the future so the present is my past.