Tag Archives: biting the hand

TCJ MB: R.I.P.

Posted on by

HERE COMES THE SHAFT AGAIN

Not even with a whimper, much less a bang, The Comics Journal message board was closed off Monday, March 7th of 2011. It was the final stage in a slow strangulation; the previous when — during the premiere of the much-ballyhooed original online version of the magazine — the message board was rendered inaccessible for a seeming eternity, and most of its remaining participants gave up and went elsewhere.

No wonder that David Recine wondered, in one of the last few posts to appear, “So is this board back in limbo again? … Have we gotten the shaft again?”

Yes, again. Still, what a ride it was! While the current incarnation of the message board dated from August of 2006, its liveliest years — a whole decade’s worth — were lost in the ether due to that redesign, and only exist in some of our memories, a few saved fragments. At least we are promised this last incarnation will remain archived and online. (Crosses fingers.)

Neither the genteel comics-lit salon some would have preferred, nor the eye-gouging Old West tavern brawl all too many perceived, the TCJ message board began in 1996, eventually sapping the mojo from the magazine’s famously combative letter column, the appropriately named Blood & Thunder.

B&T benefited from the limits imposed by page-space, and that old-fashioned letter-writing encouraged greater thinking about the words one was about to release upon the world. Non-celebrities were not shut out, but commentary by “names” received proportionately far more prominence. Thus, Harvey Pekar slamming Maus, Jim Woodring inveighing  against James Kochalka’s “Craft is the enemy” commentary were Big News in the alt-comics world at the time.

In contrast to this gated community exclusivity, the TCJ message board offered anyone the chance to pop up with a comment, start a thread about an amazingly illustrated old book they’d discovered (and post scans), ask about a strange comic they dimly remembered, and so forth.

What did this lead to? Indeed, as in other places on the Web, a certain proportion of misbehavior. Though others familiar with many other locations on that realm have asserted that there was far worse stuff going on elsewhere, you’d think the TCJ message board was a behavioral sink, displaying the nadir of human iniquity. It would’ve helped if there had been consistent effort in enforcing discipline; alas, this was not to be the case, despite suggestions offered in the Let’s give fascism a chance! thread and elsewhere. The idea that volunteer administrators could help police the joint was likewise ignored.

THREAT OR MENACE?

“A snake pit,” said one prominent alt-comics talent; Kim Thompson on one thread ignored the well-behaved great majority, and focusing solely on the few who incurred his ire, proceeded to revile the whole bunch. In his write-up about it, Tom Spurgeon moaned,

I’m happy to see the message board gone. I feel much more responsible for the dark side of comics culture that festered there than I do any sense of community it may have fostered, more than I do whatever exposure to little-known works it may have facilitated. It was a place that had some virtues but mostly, I think, it was a place where unhappy people went to be even less happy.

Um? I feel the disconnect one does when hearing a Fox News commentator describing liberals as America-hating extremist feminists who want to impose Sharia law upon us all, abolish capitalism, force our kids into the horror of same-sex-marriage, end technological civilization and return us to the Stone Age.

Sean T. Collins wrote,

If you’ve never been there, I can hear you asking already: Was it really that bad? In a word, yes. Actually, in another word: worse. The fact that I’m saying this despite the formative role that board played in getting me thinking and writing seriously about comics, and despite the lasting friendships I formed there…should tell you something. The sheer volume of nastiness and trollery was unrivaled, and all the more disconcerting given that this wasn’t some battle board where Thor and Superman fans were duking it out for supremacy and where you’d therefore expect some smackdowns, but a place that could otherwise have been utilized for intelligent discussion of The ACME Novelty Library and what have you…

Intelligent discussion of The ACME Novelty Library whilst sipping Earl Gray, pinky up in the air, no doubt. (Though Collins’ characterization of the message board as “Mos Eisley-esque” is delightful.) And when The Comics Journal bigwigs kvetched about the nastiness and lack of civility supposedly prevailing at its message board: pot, meet kettle. Which magazine became infamous amongst the mainstream comics industry for slamming most of its creators as hacks cranking out meretricious product, was seen as focusing on negativity, inspired outrage with Gary Groth’s comments about the deceased Carol Kalish? And, look at Peter Bagge’s portrayal of Messrs. Groth and Thompson in Prisoners of Hate Island: gloomy, sour, cynical pessimists. Is Fantagraphics thus “a place where unhappy people went to be even less happy”? What does it say that Groth & co. like to shoot and blow up stuff for recreation?

THE UNSCARRED SIDE OF THE COIN

If you see that view of The Comics Journal and its creators as one-sidedly negative — as I do — it’s worth considering that the magazine’s message board was likewise unfairly maligned. And worth remembering the countless pleasures, interactions, and discoveries it contained. (Not to mention that it twice served to spread the word about Fantagraphics’ dire financial emergencies, and inspired outpourings of financial and less-tangible support.)

Don’t just take my word for it; check out the frozen-in-amber threads at the archived message board and see whether fairly civil discussions don’t infinitely outweigh the snark, trollery, and poop-slinging.

The Comics Journal message board was:

– A source for researchers, where those writing an article or dissertation, wondering What’s the longest unbroken continuity in Peanuts?, When did ‘comics shops’ as we know them start?, or asking for Any articles on the use of comics by political parties? or info on Ames lettering guides could count on help. Where erudite suggestions or answers to the most esoteric questions would pop up with amazing rapidity. In the case of a chap wondering, “I recall seeing, in an issue of the New Yorker around late 2004 or early 2005, a back page cartoon of – I think – four panels, featuring caricatures of stereotypical Republican (GOP) politicians (“I believe in a woman’s right – to bare arms!” etc.)…Can anyone name this cartoonist?”, somebody (ahem!) dug up and posted the actual page in question.

– A place to publicize efforts — calling for contributors to the Shiot Crock books, fr’ instance — and new publications, or ask for info about them: Will Fantagraphics publish the complete Krazy Kat dailies?; Boom! Studios to publish Peanuts comics; The Ink Panthers Show!…

– Where one could engage in prolonged debates with other just-as-serious folks about the definition of “comics,”aesthetics, philosophy; being free to research and post links, appropriate imagery…

– A means for turning others on to exciting discoveries, old favorites, or asking about good comics to read. I.e., what are some cool (and consistent) webcomics you follow??!?; Favorite minicomics of 2010?; WW II Photo-Comics from “LIFE”; H.M. Bateman; Mary Fleener’s Life of the Party; They Call Him…MILQUETOAST!!!; Horrors of the B&W Glut…

– A gathering of tips for creators, and place to ask for such. Artistic, technical, legal: Best Colourists and their color composition techniques; inking on Moleskins; The Perils of Celebrity Likenesses in Cartoons; publishers to stay away from; tips on printing my mini/home-made comic; questions about scanning comics…

–  “…the genesis of social media for our community,” as Ian Harker put it. “That’s something that we take for granted in the age of Facebook and Twitter…To whatever extent the message board laid the groundwork for the alt-comics-osphere itself I feel that that’s a good thing.” And you could show off stuff like your original comic art collection, too; ask for others’ thoughts about Ethics: ‘Making Fun’ & ‘Wrong’ jokes, or that wacko new Neal Adams Batman mini-series…

– A place where one could post essays at will, when one felt like it, for those not interested in the commitment of regularly producing a blog: 20 French Cartoonists Who Dragged Eurocomics into Adulthood (by Kim Thompson!); a comprehensive detailing of the pro-Che distortions and propagandistic whitewashing in Spain’s Che: A Graphic Biography – a readers’ discussion…

– Where one could bump up against and talk with creators such as James Kochalka, Tony Millionaire, Danny Hellman, Eddie Campbell, Mary Fleener, and countless others. Even Dave Sim, who was said to have inspired more threads than any other creator, visited the TCJ message board in 2008 as part of his “internet tour” publicizing his new Judenhass and Glamourpuss titles. And, mirabile dictu, the questions and comments focused on his work as a gifted comics creator, rather than his widely derided personal beliefs.

Andrei Molotiu has also provided a substantial accounting of the positive aspects of theTCJ message board . Among which, mentioning that it was

…an early, and extremely important, forum for debating the very idea of abstract comics, a place for me to get feedback on my first tentative attempts at the genre, and a way to contact like-minded folks, some of which…ended up in the anthology.” He also noted how “…it was the earlier years when the board was at its best (despite the trolls and the jokers that make some people claim the board was worthless). There were more intellectually-involved, critically complex discussions there than on, say, the comix scholars listserv. At the time I suggested that everything should be archived, but the suggestion was summarily dismissed by a number of then current and former TCJ administrators. I remember one of them claiming there was absolutely nothing worth saving there. But he was wrong, wrong, wrong: the loss of the 1996-2006 archives is a serious loss to future historians of alternative comics…

TALKING COMICS ALONE IN AMERICA

On the launch of the new The Comics Journal website, its editors, Tim Hodler and Dan Nadel, were interviewed and said that

…we are taking down the message board. Its day — and that of message boards in general, frankly — seems to be done. However, most of our posts will have comments enabled (depending on the author). For the most part, the [Comics Comics] comments threads have fostered lively and valuable discussions, so we’re hoping that that will continue. On-line comments threads can provide a really good forum to discuss issues, and at CC at least we’ve been lucky enough to have artists and historians engage with their readers. If we can continue that, we think we can make a contribution to how comics are discussed in general.

Among the responses to Hodler’s Welcome to the New Comics Journal at TCJ.com was:

UlandK:
I do think this whole idea that messageboards are outmoded is pretty silly. Message-boards are blank slates. What is facebook, if not a bunch of individualized messageboards? … One important function the board served was in keeping in touch with this idea of fandom. Are those days over?…

Individualized message boards are a sad come-down from a boisterous, wide-open public space where one could regularly encounter new people with new ideas. The fragmentation of society continues; we may not be talking about comics to ourselves (unlike “Bowling Alone”), but the groups are far smaller, restricted, therefore more likely to be homogeneous. In the way many of a certain attitude reject mainstream news shows for Fox, which reflects and reinforces their ideology; some Christians turn away from the greater society, preferring “cocooning” among their own group instead. Personally, I found the extremely wide variety of “types,” preferences, and attitudes at the TCJ message board one of its greatest charms.

When one can only post comments to a blog or online article — assuming that its author chooses to allow you to do it — the power to start a discussion or thread is lost. Virtually all are relegated to providing feedback to what one of the Chosen Few has written. That feedback may be substantial in its own right, yet is a reactive rather than proactive position.

A late comment on the TCJ message board:

Dominick Grace:
Argh. This is the only comics-related board I visit regularly. I can’t imagine there’s another one with a comparably diverse discussion–or is there? Anyone have one to recommend?

Can’t think of anything remotely as diverse. Nor does it seem likely there will ever be again. The passing of The Comics Journal message board is a significant loss, whether we’re aware of it or not…

Not the Best

Posted on by

Suat pointed me to the Comics Reporter, where Tom Spurgeon interviews Ben Schwartz about his new book Best American Comics Criticism.

I’m hoping to do a review of the book itself at some point in the medium term, so I don’t want to shoot my mouth off too much. But I did want to highlight this interesting exchange:

SPURGEON: You touch on Europe’s concurrent literary comics movement through a few piece, but the pieces that engage manga are limited to I think a single interview with Yoshihiro Tatsumi and I didn’t see anything that dealt with an on-line comic. Do you think that’s a weakness of the book? Was that about the kind of work or about the writing you encountered? How would you describe their omission to someone who really values those kinds of work and thinks they’re as much a part of the modern comics movement as anything? Is there something qualitatively different about the writing done on those works?

SCHWARTZ: It’s not an omission. It’s just not the book they want to read. Tatsumi is not there to represent manga, but gekiga, the Japanese version of lit comics. His choice to break with manga is as big as Eisner’s in splitting with the superheroes, so that’s why he’s in it. I’m going by his definition there. As for on-line comics, I never came across a piece or interview about them that stood out like that. Do you feel, between 2000-2008, that a great piece of writing was done on on-line lit comics that I missed? Lit comics and it’s post 2000 arrival in the mainstream lit world is what the book covers. I just didn’t find anything on them that relates to the book — or 2000-2008 Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, etc. So, it’s not a weakness of the book. It’s the point of the book. I’m a huge BPRD fan, but that’s not in here. Except for Pete Bagge on Ditko’s Spider-Man and John Hodgman on Kirby or Gerard Jones on Siegel and Shuster and the first wave of fans — not much.

Schwartz is clear about this in his introduction too — his book is focused specifically on the rise of literary comics between 2000-2008. That’s his topic. He has a strong narrative, focusing on the emergence of literary comics, and he chose pieces based on how well they fit into that narrative. The best piece of criticism ever may have been about manga, or on-line comics, or mainstream comics, or may have been written, for that matter, in 1968 — but none of those pieces are eligible to go in this book, because this book focuses on criticism about literary comics between 2000-2008.

Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not a fan of the literary end of comics, as regular readers will know, but I have no objection to someone who is a fan putting together a book to cover the phenomena. It’s obviously a big deal over the last decade. I don’t think it’s unworthy of attention.

My one objection, though, is…well the title of the book. Here’s the cover.

If you’ll look closely, you’ll see it’s not called, “Literary Comics, Literary Criticism, 2000-2008.” Hell, it’s not even called, “Best American Comics Criticism, 2000-2008.” It’s called, and I quote, “Best American Comics Criticism.” Period. No dates. No caveats. Just “Best American Comics Criticism.”

Now, if you title a book “Best American Comics Criticism,” I think your readers are entitled to assume that it is a book comprising the best comics criticism written in america. Not the best comics criticism written about the comics you happen to think are important. Not the best comics criticism written between 2000-2008. Just the best american comics criticism. Because that’s what it says on the title, you know?

Of course, I understand how these things happen. Schwartz and/or Fanta wanted to create a book focusing on the lit comics revolution they care about, without having to think about manga or on-line comics or random comics criticism written 50 years ago by god knows who and lord knows who holds the rights. But they figured that a book called “Literary Comics, Literary Criticism, 2000-2008” would sound like it was created by a bunch of boring, insular stuffed shirts who rarely peer over the towering castle walls of the luxurious Fanta compound. So they figured, “you know, if we call this Best American Comics,” it’ll sound like all those other “Best American” books, and people will buy it because they like Best American things — and, what the hell, literary comics are the best anyway, and only the best people write about them, so it isn’t like we’re lying really.”

I mean, I don’t begrudge Schwartz and Fantagraphics trying to sell books. Capitalism is capitalism, and you do what you have to. But given Gary’s longstanding insistence that commercial crap is evil because it is commercial, and his further longstanding belief that literary comics are the antidote to said commercial crap, the fact that this valedictory love letter to all things Grothian is making its way into the world festooned with the most cynical brand of marketing doubletalk is pretty amusing. If one were as uncharitable as Gary can be about such things, you might even call it contemptible.

______________________
Update: Speaking of marketing, Fanta apparently has a big 30-50% off sale on TCJ back issues. So check it out and maybe support the company that supports us (even if they occasionally regret it.)

Utilitarian Review 2/19/10

Posted on by

TCJ.com/fail

Much of the blogging this week was devoted to sneering and snarking at our host, TCJ.com. I started things off by noting that, after two months, the site still sucks. Suat concurred, only moreso. In comments, former TCJ editor Robert Boyd also agreed. Bill Randall, somewhat despite himself, did a guest post offering tcj.com his professional advice as a web marketer.

A number of folks also weighed in from around the blogosphere, including Johanna Draper Carlson, Heidi at the Beat (Update: and Heidi again, even nastier this time) and Sean Colllins.

In coincidental eat-your-hear-out-news, Comics Comics got a lovely redesign and Fantagraphics publisher had a major article analyzing the direct market and book market which he wrote for…the Comics Reporter. (Both links and schadenfreude courtesy of that Sean Collins link above.)

And also coincidentally — while we were all sneering, tcj.com had what was probably it’s best week thus far, at least in terms of content. They posted a brand spanking new knock down drag out Kevin O’Neil interview conducted by Douglas Wolk; a monumental three part history of the Direct Market from the archives courtesy of Michael, Dirk, and Gary; a short but very good essay by Dirk about the shake-up at DC; and a timely essay on the Captain America vs. tea partiers brou-ha-ha, which even energized the comments for a moment there.

On the one hand, this hits a lot of the things I said I’d like to see more of on tcj.com: interviews, a greater presence from editorial; and more creative use of the archives (I don’t know if I said that last one, but I should have.)

On the other hand…it’s when the content is going great guns that you really feel the crappiness of the site design. The direct market essays have already disappeared down the pooper shoot. Sticking the O’Neill interview to the top of the page seems like a good move given the options — but it still looks amateurish, and results in everything else essentially being invisible for the entire week. And there are still those what-the-fuck moments, this week provided by Ken Smith, who, love him or hate him, needs to be moved to his own blog.

Still, improvement is improvement. I feel more hopeful about tcj.com’s future than I did when I wrote my post at the beginning of the week, and I am duly grateful.

Update: Gary Groth responds with a bunch of good news, including a new staffer, plans for a news feed, and plans to do some more redesign. All of which makes me cautiously optimistic that this may be the last edition of tcj.com/fail.

Also on HU

Our new blogger Caroline Small (better known as Caro if you read our comments sections) started out with a bang, reviewing The Bun Field and discussing copyright and free culture.

Richard Cook reviewed the Planet Hulk DVD.

And I did a short review of the comic about copyright, “Bound By Law?”

Also, inspired by all the web design talk, I added a couple of features to the sidebar there, including a search function and a Recent Comments section. Let me know if the changes work for you all, or if there’s something else I should try to put over there. My wordpress skills are pretty lame…but I can always give it a try.

And no download this week…because I’m busy working on my essay for our Ariel Schrag roundtable, which will start tomorrow. We are focusing on her last book, Likewise, and Ariel herself is going to guest post (probably at the end of the week.) Critic Jason Thompson is also going to do a guest post, so there’ll be a lot of activity here. We’re starting tomorrow, so click back.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I explained why indie rockers Untied States can’t get out of the avant garde alive:

Not that Untied States has just one influence. “Not Fences, Mere Masks,” has a few bars lifted from the Beatles to break up the Sonic Youth. “These Dead Birds” sounds like Sonic Youth pretending to be the Beatles until it shifts into just sounding like Sonic Youth. And “Grey Tangerines” sounds like Robyn Hitchcock fronting Sonic Youth.

Other Links

I liked this discussion of the politics of yaoi.

I liked these awesome Japanese gag cartoons.

And though I maligned him earlier in the week, I nonetheless liked this essay on abstract comics by Kent Worcester.

Bill Randall Provides Free Professional Advice for TCJ.com

Posted on by

I still haven’t reconciled myself to Bill Randall’s departure from this blog…so I’m going to pretend he’s still here by stealing his comment from an earlier thread and making it into a post against his will.

Especially since I occasionally hope that someone form tcj.com reads this site, and I wanted to put this where they’d see it, just in case.

So here’s Bill:

My quips aside, here’s an online marketer’s perspective, since I do that in real life. And I am snowbound & procrastinating, unlike Vancouver.

(My first draft turned into an online business plan. Split-testing, Crazy Egg, conversions. Madness! If you’re interested, drop me a line and I’ll have you selling acai berry in an hour.)

Short version: the design gaffes suck, mainly for framing the launch as TCJ/Fail. Yet they can be fixed… install the Disqus comments manager here, move the RSS feed to the top there. “Continuous muddling” becomes “continuous improvement,” as Toyota would have it.

The big problem?

The “interminable stream of content” favors clicks, while TCJ is (and should be) written for readers.

For clicks, sell ad space. Split articles up over multiple pages. Tell advertisers you get X unique visitors and X^2 pageviews. Put the ads in the hotspots for ads.

For readers, find out what they want, watch what they do. Give them free stuff (essays, TCJ-Date, Krypto-Revolution of the Age with tween trolling & RickRolling in the comments) and they give you time & attention, eventually as a reflex. Everyone reading this has sites you check 5 times a day, and TCJ’s main page is not one of them. HU might be.

Right now TCJ’s design favors clicks over readers. Johanna Draper has pointed out it needs just a few small fixes– the commenting thing is the main one, easily fixed with a plugin like Commentluv or Disqus. Read her post, though, for her accurate take on the mismatch in Gary Groth’s opening shot and the reality of the site’s execution.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned since Noah invited me to HU, since I left, and from hanging out, is the very real degree to which the internet is about conversation. Its whole damn architecture favors conversation. Whoever fosters that will thrive, whoever stomps it out or ignores it will fade. Noah’s very, very good at fostering it. TCJ was when people wrote letters. If it can translate the spirit of the old Blood & Thunder into curated blog comments, six months from now everyone will be reading it first thing in the morning for the spit & gristle.

And buying acai berry from their email list.

And here’s a question: what are some sites to model?

PS
I left out the best thing.

__________

Update: And while we’re on the subject: why the hell is Eric Reynolds writing this for the Comics Reporter rather than TCJ.com? (Link by Sean Collins.

Update 2: Just to be clear; there’s nothing against Eric. It’s a fascinating essay, and Tom’s to be congratulated for getting it and putting it up. But it just seems like gross negligence that tcj.com can’t even get important news features and scoops from Fantagraphics own publishers.

TCJ.com/fail/update: A Comment

Posted on by

(Part of an impromptu mini-roundtable on the failure of TCJ.com)

A few days ago, Noah wrote to me about a critical endeavor that he is planning for the HU site. By the by, I mentioned that TCJ.com deserved another “kick in the butt” now that it had enough time to improve itself to which he responded that he was planning a little something on Sunday (read here).

Noah’s complaints are not the voice of a single cranky individual, they are merely some of the unvoiced grievances of a number of online reviewers and comics enthusiasts. Noah, as well as I, can point to a number of seasoned reviewers and bloggers who find the new TCJ.com a mess.

Continue reading →

TCJ.com/fail/Update

Posted on by

It’s been more than two months since I wrote this post discussing some of the problems on TCJ.com. I wanted to do another go round — though I think this time there’ll be a good bit less fire and brimstone. In part that’s because there have been improvements to the site. Mostly, though, it’s because my initial disbelief and panic has largely given way to resignation. This is the tcj.com we’re going to have; best to get used to it.

Let’s start with the positive though. The site design has been improved. Clear visual boundaries have been added at the bottom of each post, and the “Read More” links have been made clearer and more attractive. Some (though not all) posts now have brief summaries on the main page rather than just starting in with text, so the posts no longer ends in the middle of a sentence. The Comments links on individual posts are also easier to find. And helpful blue tags (“Review” “News” “Blog” etc.) have been added to each post. All of this may seem like small beer, but the cumulative effect is noticeable. The site still isn’t particularly appealing, and the flashing ads on the side remain distracting and ugly. But it’s no longer a chore just to look at the content.

TCJ has also added a box of links to “Top TCJ” stories in the sidebar. Again, it’s not a huge change, but it’s definitely a good idea — and will hopefully give new users a good introduction to recent content. Individual posts now have social networking links available, which seems like a good move. And the link to the message board is now better marked, which is helpful (though it may be too little too late at this point.) Finally, TCJ is now down with those newfangled social networking sites. (Though one of the first Twitter posts is a Ken Smith link? Why?)

So that’s the good.

The bad is that TCJ’s content has been unsettlingly erratic, to put it mildly. There remains a lot of good writing, from Shaenon Garrity, Matthias Wivel, Tom Crippen, and many others.

But there’s also been David Ritchie posting random tchotchkes, Dave Pifer posting even more random snapshots and
Kent Worcester posting his course syllabus, complete with advice on writing style quoted from Strunk and White. And while these are particularly egregious examples, they aren’t aberrations. You don’t get through a week on tcj.com without at least a post or two that makes you think, “what the fuck?” And not in a good way.

The problem here isn’t that posting random photos or random crap or your syllabus is necessarily wrong. My very strong preference would be not to look at any of those things…but probably someone out there is interested, and what the hell…more power to them. I mean, I keep posting these music downloads even though it’s fairly clear nobody really wants them. But, damn it, it’s my blog, and my readers can l scroll past it once a week if they want to get to the comics criticism.

That’s kind of the thing though; it’s my blog. With tcj, it often feels like there’s nobody at the helm. To pick on poor Dave Pifer again — who is he? Why am I looking at this snapshot he posted, anyway? TCJ.com has managed to get a blog’s randomness without the blog’s personal touch. Thus, for example, R. Fiore’s one-liners come across not as charming eccentricities, but as half-assed fuck-yous by somebody who’s posting because he’s supposed to, rather than because he’s actually committed to being there.

The sense that no one gives a crap is only accentuated by the fact that so many of the supposedly regular bloggers are already AWOL. Where did Anne Ishii go? Eric Millikan, one of the most interesting promised bloggers, barely even got started. There are some constants; Shaenon has been a rock; R.C. Harvey pops up consistently to talk about the comics pages; Rob Clough has been blogging his heart out. But overall…well, on February 10, there were 7 posts, one of which was an HU link, and one of which was Journalista. So you’ve got like 20 writers listed on the side there and effectively five posts. One of which, as it happens, was a review by me.

Meanwhile, on the same day, Tom Spurgeon had 17 posts. Sure, some of them are just individual images…but many of them were substantial. With its layout problems, the one thing tcj.com had going for it was the promise of constant, high-quality content…and yet its team of dozens is getting its ass kicked by one guy. Because that one guy actually cares. And caring, as it turns out, really matters.

I’m being somewhat inconsistent here; in my earlier post I said there was too much content; now I’m saying there’s too little. But, alas, I think the site has managed to have both problems at once. Because there’s no sense of why what’s being posted is being posted, the site feels both overwhelming and insubstantial. The whole thing has an air of despairing malaise — the toilet paper spools and spools, and you can hear the creaking and the distant flush. Who are we talking to? Do they want to hear tit jokes? Do they care what happens at the Hooded Utilitarian, and if so do they really want those damned desperately “controversial” updates every day? The comments sections positively echo; the message board has been rendered almost mute; it’s like everyone’s sitting around with their mouths slowly sagging, waiting for the drool to plop out and ruin their laptop so they can get up and burn their longboxes in despair .

I’ve made suggestions before about what the site should do, and I guess I still have ideas about what I’d change if I were king of the world. But at this point it mostly feels like rearranging the deck chairs, etc. — or, to pick a more poignant metaphor, like adjusting the format of your magazine for the fifth time while the industry goes belly-up. I think tcj.com’s main problem is simple, and perhaps unfixable — there’s no sense of editorial guidance. I have the highest regard for Gary, Michael Dean, Kristy Valenti, and Dirk. Individually and together, they know a ton about the industry, a ton about the internet, and a ton about putting a magazine together. For whatever reason, though, all that talent, knowledge, and dedication has so far added up to a site which seems to be running on autopilot. I mean…why not have themed weeks? Why not have roundtables? Why not have new interviews, for god’s sake — that’s what the Journal is known for, right? (And when you do have an interview why not include a paragraph or two of introduction so that people who don’t already know the interview subjects have some incentive to wade into the four part video?) Why not have Gary dive into that rolodex and get some creators to write pieces? Why not do something to make it seem like the energy that went into so many issues of the journal is being put into tcj.com? Everybody involved knows that a successful magazine needs enthusiasm, heart, and genius if anyone is going to want to read it, but nobody seems to have noticed that a successful website needs the same thing. The cosmetic changes are helpful and appreciated, but until and unless someone decides to treat this site as a personal labor of love, it’s not going to be worth the bytes it’s printed on. And bytes aren’t worth a hell of a lot.

_______________

Update: Suat has an even more brutal take here

Update 2: And Johanna Draper Carlson weighs in.

Just in case anyone thinks that this particular snarkfest brings me joy, I thought I’d mention that reading Suat and Johanna on tcj.com, as well as many of the comments here, makes me feel vaguely sick. I would like tcj.com to succeed anyway, but having tied my fortune to their wagon…well, let’s just say I keep hoping that things aren’t as bad as I think they are. Being continually disabused of that hope by a long line of folks whose opinion I value is not especially pleasant.

Update: And Heidi weighs in.

Fantagraphics Sale

Posted on by

You can help keep HU’s benefactors running and get a deal on exciting comics as well by participating in Fantagraphics’ 20% off everything on the website sale.

Not to harp on this, but…I had to find out about this sale from Tom Spurgeon’s website, and there’s no mention of it on the Tcj.com page either. I understand the impulse to separate editorial and marketing, I guess, and maybe it’s just because it’s early days, but…you do realize that the way you make money from a web presence is through sales right? Not through advertising? Tell me you know that, please?

Update: With remarkable restraint, Eric Reynolds tells me he knows that in comments.