Comic News is dead.
I wrote about it in 2014: Beats are 10 today! ! !
I wrote about it in 2015: Today’s beat is 11! It contains variations from each of these posts: “While I often feel like sh-t, I’m too stupid to quit, too stubborn to walk away.”
I wrote about it in 2016: Comic News: You get what you pay
I wrote about it in 2023: Layouts and a Bad Week in CBR
I wrote about it in 2024: I don’t think I’ll wear Eisner Awards again
I wrote about it in January: Women writing about comics (WWAC) is taking a break
I talked with Atom Freeman for two hours
I wrote it a few more times – probably once a year like clockwork! – But the posts are not marked correctly, I haven’t been digging them for a week, but rest assured, I say the same thing every time.
Like every other journalism industry, comic journalism is killed by social media, Google, Meta and the race that created the world made of AI Slop™.
But last week, I made a shocking discovery: the Internet Comics Community (ICC) is dead too! When I send the message, I realize that this is mostly closed. HiveWorks is a business that has attracted hundreds of online salespeople over the years, and returning to Day™ will send a series of tweets for at least a day or so. I would look at the slackness of the beat a few times over the course of the day and see someone saying, “Oh, my argument for XXX is starting!”
There is no more start.
The main reason is that we live in unprecedented Hellscape™ where a remake of the jojo rabbit or the episode of Black Mirror can explode in our living room at any time. This is distracting.
As I discussed with Atom, partly because Ousteriuse™ has moved to Reddit, it’s hard to get started, because (ironically) many sub-radarists prefer links to published stories – and Discord, which is Casper David Friedrich painting, which is a big secret mysterious land.
The creator’s newsletter has become quite enjoyable for me, but the nature of the natural promotional nature means you have to go through a lot of “this week!” experiences.
Of course, there are about 89 trillion YouTube channels, podcasts, and Tiktoks. But I still like to read something. I love being excited and excited by new ideas and people, and people who go somewhere to see things and share them with us. Like this Broken Border Report on the British Children’s Comics Expo: “It seeps out the spirit and fun of the comic community” – Comics! Prove that children can’t get enough comics
The week before, I was lucky enough to volunteer for the wonderful comics! – “Kids and Children’s Comics Expo”. Organized by comic advocate and educator Helen Jones and small news creators Hannah Lee Miller and Lauren O’Farrell (The Deadly Nitsched), it takes place at Stanley Arts in South Norwood, the site of South Norwood, the Southern London Comic & Zine Fair. Exhibitors range from A-List creators to local schools and community groups, with full-day workshop plans filled within minutes of booking play.
Live report on real-world events! So cool! I also like to discover or rediscover creators like this post by Trevor Van, AS Black Star: Through International Lens
Sometimes, the European comics world is ignored by the English-speaking world. Yes, many classic stories have been translated and celebrated. However, when you zoom in, you will notice a lot of comics that have not been translated yet. Alien books have been inserting holes in the catalogue of the late great Argentine artist Juan Giménez, known for his European works, e.g. metabarons With Alejandro Jodorowsky. Publisher recently published Me, dragonone of Giménez’s last works. Now they are going to go back to the earliest in 1979 Black Star – A rich rendering comic that will feel very familiar.
The beat also covers the stars of the black, by the way – Whaddaya knows that this is the first time English classic comic. Trend observers pay attention!
Another reason I like to write about comics, not about social media – social media is i. So many platforms are coming and going. In one of the articles I found while researching this process, I found the 2015 notes:
Priceless AI Created another clever Storify Twitter -do & nots for comic creators, instead of embedding here, just reading it. But here is the nut chart:
Become a person who provides/shares information and ideas that make people laugh, gets them thinking, and gets them in contact with perspectives they may not have considered before. Become friends and you will make friends – this is true in Twitter and “real life.”
Gone are Storify, but Deb is still priceless, she is right.
The Blues have become a bonfire for refugees, and several positions have been appreciated:
Comic Snowman, you rock!
Graphics policy also rocks, I don’t think Brett Schenker Get enough praise or attention. He is already like me and he should have received a lot of praise for his work.
In the article that started in 2016, I listed 11 comic-related patlins that I recommend people to support (including mine). Beats are the only website that is still going on. One has passed away, one is still writing, Alex Hoffman and Zainab Akhtar have transitioned to publishing – which is great. But 11’s 2 is the .182 hit average. Comics journalism is below the Mendoza line.
In response to the UFO above, some people mentioned other websites or writers worth watching, so here is the list, I threw some:
ICV2
Popular heifer
Shelfdust
Rob Salkowitz
Graphics strategy
Broken border
AIPT
comics
Fan Group Publishing House
Pages and panels
How to love comics
Skinny
From cover to cover
Comics Magazine
New! Solad
New! comicsxf
Some strange things:
I’m wondering what an old standby comic comic book.com is doing, they do have comic reports, but it’s not pretty.
Tiffany Babb The second issue of print-based comic express (YAY!) is being launched, but she also blogs about baseball in fan files, which I suggest, too. I told her she needs to study it in depth Jesse Winner.
In other media mentioned in the Bsky comments, the comic blogger is actually a small news publisher, I think? (Many people didn’t link to their website in their Bsky profile!) The delightful naming Hall H.com is a podcast. The unofficial blog of San Diego Comics has nothing to do with the comics themselves, but rather the S-layer.
Others are Podcasters or Bsky posters, or I don’t know what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter. But I just don’t have time to investigate.
I realized that if most people interested in comics get news and excitement from YouTube videos, then that’s where they’re going to go and information and excitement for new creators and books. This is also ironic™ Often someone reads a story online and comments on it. Just like AI: There must be some spark to make the fire shoot.
Yes, this spark is often called a “report.” Or maybe “knowledge”. There are so many things to do in this unprecedented Hellscape™ that I hardly know where to start. And I can’t just report what other people report because…everyone is reporting anything. Aside from following the consequences of diamond bankruptcy, I learned last week about important, urgent things about potential tariffs, why we won’t see foreign creators this year or maybe over the years, a lot of things about the Asian comics economy, and heard a lot of rumors about companies we’ve covered here a lot, and oh yes, even in 2025 there’s something about comics sold. If I could survive long enough, everything I would end up covering. I’m sure my journalist read this post (all 12 of you) and knew other things I didn’t know. There is a lot of news there. I think? Maybe no one really cares? That has never stopped me before.
Is comic news dead? Yes, a little bit. But this never really lived. It is always like a swamp thing, part curiosity, part love, part swamp.
Regardless, please keep these emails, DMS and phone calls (yes). Like I kept saying, I would stick with it until they dragged their bodies out of the sheets. But there may be/there will be some changes. I might switch to more video form reports: This is what everyone wants to watch, and as my two-hour podcast proves, I’m a bragging person who loves yap. Beats may set up more paywalls for a few things. Everyone else did it, and people kept telling me to do it for about ten years. When you give up on something, no one thinks they are valuable. I have more thoughts about all of this, a more pragmatic and optimistic nature, but let us keep this doom and melancholy.
Please consider supporting and complimenting my colleagues and listing them above and consider supporting their patreons. If you are really ambitious, consider starting your own blog or newsletter. I really believe that there are always new sound spaces in this curious love swamp and I look forward to discovering them.
