As impossible as it sounds, on July 1st, 2024, this site will have been running for 20 years!
That’s twenty years of daily reporting on the world of comics, more than 50,000 posts, more than 20,000 by me, 2 1/2 owners, scores of conventions, hundreds of writers and uncounted cups of coffee.
To celebrate, we have a lot of special events planned, kicking off with a panel at WonderCon and continuing on through the year. There will be some startling surprises and big changes along the way…starting with our 20th Anniversary logo, designed by The Beat’s good pal Richard Starkings of Comicraft.
Getting this far as a small operation owned by one person is pretty astonishing, if I can give myself a wee pat on the back. The Beat launched in the “Golden Age of Blogging” as it was known, as a blog on Comicon.com. The world was full of bedroom bloggers writing about every subject possible. Some were wildly successful – the most famous was Boing Boing, and one link from that site could, and did, overload many a server, including The Beat’s back in the day.
As the years went on, most of my compatriots did one of two things: they drifted away to other pursuits or cashed in. In both cases, the sites generally speaking, aren’t around any more. Once social media came along, people’s energy went towards posting where everyone could see it on MySpace. Those who sold their sites to larger entities generally found them absorbed into bigger media which, in many cases, went out of business.
I had several opportunities to cash in along the way, but being allergic to money, I decided against selling out. When I say 2 1/2 owners, the 1/2 is Publishers Weekly, which hosted this site from 2006-2010. It wasn’t really an ownership deal, so I was able to move (most) of my archives to the comicsbeat.com site that you still see. In 2017, I sold the site to Lion Forge/Polarity but when that didn’t work out, they very generously gave me back all my content and I was back to going solo in 2020. Just in time for you know what.
It seems that I had inadvertently hit on what tech types call the POSSE system: Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere. Blogging pionner/author Cory Doctorow has more about that here. All the opportunities to sell my site over the years seemed shrouded in the knowledge that I wouldn’t be able to do what I liked doing any more eventually – and that didn’t make sense to me.
I know we live in a world where the whole economy is based on creating something cool, selling it, watching it get destroyed, and moving on the next thing.
That idea doesn’t appeal to me. And it doesn’t make sense for the mission at The Beat either. I’ve mentioned this many times before, but the history of comics, as told on the web, is highly ephemeral. The 00s have been particularly hard hit. Newsarama’s archives are long gone. CBR’s exist but are hard to find. The Comics Reporter stands as an archive, thank God, but most of my other contemporaries are gone: Journalista, Comics Bulletin, and so on. (I keep an old RSS feed aggregator to jog my memory about the many comrades lost along the way.)
I’ve gone to great personal expense (financial and energy-wise) to keep the Beat online, at least from 2006 on. (The first few years are gone, alas, but archived on my personal backup drives, in patchy form.) The effect is often embarrassing (personal growth and tolerance are part of the lesson around here) but it’s a rolling record I’m very proud of. I believe there’s something of value in what we do here, so POSSE always made sense to me.
There will be more looks back, and celebration of all the great collaborators and contributors The Beat has had over the years, but for now, I’m more grateful than ever that I stuck with POSSE. The media has undergone a gruesome culling of late, and there’s really no end – or solution – in sight. Household names like Pitchfork, Vice and Sports Illustrated are not just circling the drain but going down the drain with a dire slooping sound.
Somehow a scrappy little indie like The Beat struggled through the storm. Will we make it through the current hail and rain and pivoting?
The thing is, The Beat never really pivoted. We’re just a blog, featuring good writing, passionate writers and readers and a little ad money thrown in along the way. And somehow, for 20 years, it’s worked. I think it will continue to work. And there’s even talk of a comeback for blogging.
As we kick off our 20th Anniversary, I want to thank the current editorial crew: Avery Kaplan, Deanna Destito, Rebecca Oliver Kaplan, Taimur Dar, Zack Quaintance, Deb Aoki, and Christian Angeles. They literally keep this site running daily – and we’ll have some additions there as the year progresses.
I also want to thank the Beat’s Patreon supporters, who’ve stuck with us.
And of course, our readers…you’re the most important person of all and we do it all for you.
If you’ve made it this far, here’s some bonus content: with the 2024 edition of MoCCA coming this very weekend, here’s the SECOND POST EVER on the Beat from July 1, 2004. The wukka wukka of those floors haunts me to this day…..
MOCCA’S STICKY SITUATION
This year’s MOCCA fest is history, but it won’t soon be forgotten. Expanding to two days for the first time, the show had some growing pains while still spotlighting the best in independent comics. Everyone from celebs to art directors to grandmas trekked over to New York’s Puck Building over the weekend to pick up such books as SALMON DOUBTS, END TIMES, and the debut of 6-year-old cartoonist Alexa Kitchen.
Celeb sightings included Moby, a well-documented comics fan; director Michel Gondry, whose 13-year-old son Paul was selling a rather surreal mini-comic (guess it runs in the family); and most excitingly of all, Ted Lange who played “Isaac the Bartender” on THE LOVE BOAT. TEEN BOAT’S enterprising Dave Roman and John Green, spotting Lange walking by, quickly snagged him for a promo photo holding TEEN BOAT #5, creating perhaps the single greatest moment in comics history.
Comics celebdom almost reached the tipping point, as the Triumvirate of Comics’ Mightiest Slebs were all in the building; sadly, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller and Art Spiegelman were never in the same room at the same time, so critical mass was never quite reached.
On day 1 of MOCCA, comedy was in the air, when a wild party at the facility the night before left the hardwood floors coated with a sticky substance believed (somewhat optimistically) to be alcoholic residue. (The party-thrower was either “someone who is on the Conan O’Brien Show” or “a Danish guy” depending on who you asked, but all witnesses agreed that the party included tons of free alcohol and girls who were naked save for body paint running around; sadly, this was not an officially sanctioned MOCCA event.)
With the sticky substance thickest nearest the bathrooms, new arrivals at the show found themselves initially embarrassed by the “wukka wukka” sounds they made as they tried to buy their comics, then astounded to hear the entire crowd going “wukka wukka” as they walked, with some unlucky souls even leaving their flip flops behind in the mire.
Sadly for the mirth factor, the floor was mopped over Saturday night. Nonetheless, The Beat had a hard time not calling this report “MOCCA is tacky”.
Still, all sorts of questions hung over this MOCCA. Would two days be worth it? Would the Harveys be worth it?
On the first question, the matter remains somewhat open. As one wag described the first day: “Sales were bad, but fun was had.” Although as expected such groovy items as the new JIMBO IN PURGATORY sold out within minutes, and no one seemed to be doing downright crappy, sales for the two day show were about the same as the one day show–for twice the expense to exhibitors.
Was having the anxious throng of yesteryear broken up into a more aesthetic and manageable crowd this year worth the price? Most people seemed to think 2 days is a necessity, and next year’s date is set for two days.
The Harveys were a bit more problematic. While the room was gorgeous, the food was unexpectedly yummy, and Neil Gaiman’s keynote speech was expectedly inspiring, the whole concept ran into some snags along the way.
Without going into all the nasty details, (and there are plenty), it seems that some of the most nominated publishers–publishers who, say, had to be bailed out by grassroots campaigns of late–were highly nonplussed at the idea of paying four figure$ for a table at the Harveys. While one can’t help but admire the naive pluckiness of the attitude that $60 is a lot for dinner and drinks in NYC, you also can’t get blood from a stone, a turnip or [redacted].
The reality is, as lovely as it may be, and as ennobling for comics as a whole to have a fancy awards show, it doesn’t come cheap. While it’s sad to think comics can’t afford one banquet, the idea that indie comics can is just not gonna happen.
Nonetheless, The Harveys were, a few overlong speeches aside, still a fine night for comics. The big win for Chester Brown and Craig Thompson were popular and well-deserved, and D&Q;’s Peggy Burns was delighted to be carrying around a stack of boxes. If there was one thing at the Harvey’s that was a big hit, it had to be the open bar and fancy sakitinis. As MC Evan Dorkin — who had entirely lost his voice due to a weeklong cold — put it the next day “We didn’t know all the alcohol was going to turn it into a ‘club’ atmosphere.” While the more stentorian in the audience suggested that a shorter open bar might behoove a sense of decorum in the future, others suggested it was the only way to survive.
For more MOCCA issues and anecdotes, check out Dave Roman’s sterling report. Yes, next year it must not be against the Mermaid Parade and Gay Pride Weekend. Yes, they must mop the floors. Yes, advertising should be better and organization can always be improved. But as one person in the know put it (and The Beat honestly doesn’t remember who because it all became a blur after a while) “The reality is, this show is going to happen no matter what.” After only three years, the idea of summer in New York without a MOCCA festival is already unthinkable.
