Prima Aprilus: The Anatomy of a Hoax

Almost a month ago, I came up with the “brilliant” idea to pull an April Fool’s prank this year on the Wolverine Files website.

A week ago, I put the finishing touches on the article, ran it past a bunch of people, all of whom thought it was believable, funny and wanted to be in on the roll out.

But as April 1st came closer, I started to have doubts.

Would people get angry at the website and at me for trying to fool them? Would people sniff it out too quickly? Would it work too well, overloading my servers? Or, would Joe Quesada have a cow and send the Marvel lawyers after me to shut down the site?

How about all of the above.

Well, except for Marvel lawyers trying to shut me down. I’m shooting for that for next years April Fools.

Here are some of the reactions to the ‘Wolverine Prima Aprilus’ Hoax:

Hey, wait a minute! Prima Aprilus? as in April First…April Fool’s?

OMG IT IS ISN’T IT? LMAO I fell for that one.

I haven’t laughed this much today. Thank you DiG!

Good one, it got me for a second, until I remembered what day it was. ;)

Good AFJ. Not Alex Ross doing the Wonder Twins, but good none the less.

“I hope we can seamlessly achieve this goal with the full support of the fans, much like we did with Spider-Man and ‘Brand New Day.’” That is the best line I have read all week.

And my personal favorites…

This is why I hate the Internet more today than any other day of the year.

Would’ve been more believable if it was better written and the story wasn’t broken by a lone Wolverine fansite.

For the record, the hoax helped to generate, by far, the best day this website has ever had, doubling our previous best day in pageviews, visits and visitors.

I also want to thank Tod, Anne, Gabriel, Ace and Brian who helped to spread the word, posting “believably believable” comments to help keep up the pretext.

And I do want to apologize to anyone who was offended. It really was not my intent.

Finally, let me thank the Wolverine community for keeping our discussions civil. Aside from one commenter whose comments I removed, we have been able to maintain a level of civility I did not think possible in a mostly anonymous Internet forum.

So let me know what you thought of the ‘Wolverine: Prima Aprilus’ hoax. Did you enjoy it? Did it fool you, if even for a second? Did anyone notice my other attempts at humor?

Please add your thoughts in the comments below!

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14 years ago

My friend and comic book dealer, Brian Distefano printed out the story and showed it to all of his customers. It was hilarious.

The poor guy didn’t realize it was a joke until he showed it to a lot of his customers. He couldn’t believe how real it sounded.

Anne
14 years ago

That was such a blast! Thanks for letting me help out, and fantastic idea DiG!

Katie Heart
14 years ago

Hi Guys

Wolverine fan her just wont to tell you guys about the new Wolverine DVD , Its Super cool , It has 6 exciting episodes and extra little something something to tickle the fun factor , Its Wolverine vs The Hulk (Wolverine my Favorite) , I must have and so should you guys.

Kate In4merz

Guys make sure you visit the In4merz webby which is http://www.in4merz.com

DF
14 years ago

“Did it fool you, if even for a second?”

Of course it fooled me haha. Good one DiG, it made me doubt 50% at the beginning but after a few minutes analyzing the situation, I realized the truth :)

templedog
14 years ago

It fooled for a second and then at second glance…

Ahma
14 years ago

I gotta say it worried me. It really did (that was before i read the article to the end, noticing the Prima Aprilius hint). In retrospect, it was silly of me to react before analyzing the situation.

The one thing that I worry about now (as one of the people who posted this link on other sites) is the bad publicity that it might generate. Maybe the prank was a bit too good.

I hope I`m wrong though.

Ace
14 years ago

It was fun indeed, hopefully no one was offended. I enjoy a nice little April fools day joke. Glad I could be a part of it.

14 years ago

Yes, it was funny, and well-written and believable… up until the Primus Aprilus part, when a big silly grin erupted into a real-life “laugh out loud”. I happened to read it just a few minutes after midnight Apr 1st and it literally left a smile on my face all day long. Bravo! Brilliant, just like the rest of this great, great website. Thanks man!

14 years ago

LOL

I never had this much fun with a April Fools joke. Next year we’ll double the amount of sites we spread the news to!

tiv132
14 years ago

It was fun to see how well most folks reacted. On a personal note, I want to make it clear that, yes, I do still read comics, and no, Ant Man is NOT my all-time-favoritist Marvel hero of them all.

That would be Doop. ;-)

Pamela
14 years ago

In this day and age of corporate mergers, take-overs, and buy-outs, not to mention just plain old selling out of formerly valued brands, I bought into this “announcement” at first. Another example of the big dogs losing sight of things important to long-time support base…but then, I can decipher Latinand can look at a calendar, too. Great joke…

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