The Final Issue

Friends, I’ve decided to shut the blog down.

As I’ve said more than once in the past, I don’t have a lot of love for this blog. Most days, I really kinda hate it. It doesn’t have a lot of readers, which isn’t that surprising, because almost all I write about is comics reviews, and no one really enjoys comics reviews. The only reason I do them so much is because they’re easy, and it’s much faster to knock out a couple reviews every other day than to do something more complicated.

And even saying reviews can be done quickly, they can’t really be done quickly enough. Working on the blog generally takes a few hours of work, and those hours could’ve been used more productively. Every day that finishing a blog takes ’til bedtime, I have to consider all the projects I could’ve been doing in that time — writing on more fun or substantial projects, reading books, even working on household chores. Those all fall by the wayside because I spend too much time blogging.

It doesn’t mean that I’m not feeling some regret and trepidation about quitting it. I’ve been working on this thing since June 2007, and that seems like a pretty long time to keep a blog active. I’ve written a few things I’m quite proud of, and I’ve always liked the idea of having a platform online where I could break out a good rant if I felt the need. But I also feel that the downsides of working on the blog now outweigh the positives, and it’s time to bite the bullet and shut it down.

I don’t plan on completely shutting it down, honestly — I’ll stop writing on it, but I’ll maintain it. Keeping the domain name ain’t very expensive, and I’d like to keep the site around, partly so the few cool things I wrote will still be around, and partly because I may someday feel like ranting about something. It’s always possible I may want to start blogging again someday, although right now, that seems awfully unlikely.

It’s been interesting to look back and think how much the comics industry — or at least my reaction to the comics industry — has changed over the past eight-plus years. When I started out, I was a complete DC fanboy and read very few books by Marvel. Nowadays, I read relatively few DC books — I’ve still never gotten over the New 52 reboot, and I don’t think the quality of the comics has leveled up to what it used to be. And I read a lot more Marvel books now, because they’re doing a better job of creating the diverse storytelling background that all publishers are going to need going forward.

And it has been really great to see the comics industry catching on — with the occasional neanderthal backslide — that they need to have better female characters to appeal to women readers. It’s also been great to see male readers reading comics with those female characters — great comics are always worth reading, no matter who the stars are. Now hopefully, the industry will step up their game even more on the diversity front. There have been improvements everywhere, but we can’t afford to forget that comics readers come in all ethnicities, all sexual orientations, all gender types. There are ways that the comics industry is pulling the rest of the entertainment world along into the future — I hope they can maintain that march forward.

I will miss getting to read along with y’all as we watch the ongoing robo-tragedy in “The Vision.” I’ll miss reading with you as we follow the fun in “Unbeatable Squirrel Girl,” “Howard the Duck,” “Lumberjanes,” “Spidey,” and “Ms. Marvel.” I’ll miss getting to enjoy the creepy horrors with you in “Harrow County,” “Revival,” and “Alabaster.” I’ll miss discovering new wonders with you in the pages of “Silver Surfer,” “Astro City,” and “Atomic Robo.” I’ll miss following along with you as we learn what finally happens at the end of “Bitch Planet,” “Rat Queens,” and “The Wicked + the Divine.” I’ll miss discovering new and wonderful comics together with you, and watching where the comics industry may finally end up. But I reckon y’all are going to do fine without me reading reviews at you week after week.

So y’all keep spreading the good word about good comics. Read the new stuff, read the old stuff, read superhero comics, read all-ages comics and horror comics and fantasy comics, read literary comics and silly comics. Read comics you love, and evangelize about how great a good comic book is. You’ll be amazed who you can sometimes convert into a dedicated comics fan with the right bit of comics evangelization. But whatever you do, keep reading the good stuff, and don’t be afraid to have fun with your comics.

I’ll see y’all when I see y’all.