Related Article ? Comics Journalism: A Short History Online reporting about American comic books offers the same mixed bag of rewards and heartache as any journalistic endeavor with limited resources attempting to cover a criminally underreported and highly-marginalized industry.

(See Comics Journalism: A Short History)

Enter the Internet

Early Internet fan communities stumbled into industry news coverage ass-backwards. People in chat rooms were eager to talk with fellow comic book fans about anything comics-related, and in some cases happy to show off their 'insider' status. They began to post about news events as soon as they heard about them. If a fan-favorite died, fans knew about it in a minute, probably from competing persons. If a popular professional was replaced on a comic book assignment at one of the 'Big Two' publishers (Marvel Comics, home of Spider-Man and the X-Men and DC Comics, Superman and Batman's publisher), she might explain her side of the story in a supportive online forum.

Not only did all this chatting hammer at the exclusive access to news previously enjoyed by industry print magazines, it emboldened a wave of newsgatherers to look at the Internet as an impromptu publishing platform.

Many of today's more prominent online comics industry reporters originally posted reports in some form on public newsgroups. Rich Johnston, a Matt Drudge-style Internet gossip reporter, followed a similar career path.

'I've been doing the column under other names for about ten years now,' Johnston said. 'I originally just posted it to Usenet's rec.arts.comics.misc under the title 'Rich's Revelations' or something similar - it was then just reprinting stuff I read in the UK comics press for the US fans to read.'

'At the time, no one else was doing anything similar on the Internet so that makes me the longest serving Internet reporter on the comics industry,' he said. 'As a result, newsy bits and rumors started to be e-mailed to me direct so I printed them.'

From 1996 to 1998, comics sites on the Internet exploded into being, including several commercial start-ups and crossover ventures. All of the major companies - from the Big Two, to their closest competitors, the smaller, boutique-style 'alternative comics' publishers - launched Web sites. Subsidiary businesses such as Diamond Comic Distributors began to move at least some of their business online. Some comic book retailers hoped the Internet can expand their mail-order and storefront businesses.

And a few aggressive start-ups entered the fray suffering from Amazon.com fever at its contagious best. While many of these efforts were doomed by the fact that the American comics industry in the mid- to late-1990s was contracting with the speed of a collapsing star, the industry's expansion online did provide a place for the now 'name' online personalities, as well as writers crossing over from print. In the case of Indy Magazine, the shrinking market drove them from print altogether - paper was simply too expensive for such a small audience.

The last time the comics market had shrunk this much, in the late 1970s, the market sought non-newsstand, non-returnable markets that allowed for mimeographed fanzines to become magazines with little investment capital. This time, the even-cheaper threshold to participate in online media has led to another wave of publishing efforts

'I don't look at enough sites to know,' said Comics Journal Editor Gary Groth. 'When Marvel Comics held press conferences in the late '70s and early '80s, a surreal concept by today's standards, about 15 people attended from various fanzines, so by cross-referencing our collective experience, it looks like we have a digital version of the [early] '80s, which is an even more surreal concept.'

Survey Says

Defined generously, comics industry news can be found on dozens of Web sites. Most are perfunctorily rewritten news releases, hype-heavy personality-driven interviews, and personal opinion-mongering.

There are a few hidden gems. One comic site provides its best news not about the vagaries of the American comics market but about the continuing struggles of the former Yugoslavia. ComicStore.com, an online comic book retail service, established a relationship with Serbian cartoonist Sasa Rakezic and posted first-person accounts on events in his homeland, up to and including the recent constiutional crisis in Belgrade.

'While this is not news about the comics industry, they are reports from people who are either currently or formerly comics professionals,' said Paul Harrington, site editor. 'It is compelling to see how they view the events that newsmen often bland out of existence.'

Another column more entertaining than its immediate context comes from Johnston, the aforementioned industry rumor monger. His work can currently be found on the site of comics and hobbies retailer Silver Bullet Comics, surrounded by an undistinguished slate of new release coverage, interviews and how-to columns.

Johnston has suffered from venomous criticism through the years, and it's hard to defend him. His column carries an almost-buffoonish disclaimer on its opening page, and the prose hardly seems the result of ten years of regular writing.

But as similar sites covering film and politics have discovered, a track record of not revealing one's sources continues to bring the e-mailed rumors your way. Johnston can name a half-dozen business stories that were initially high-profile rumors in his column, and at least another half-dozen tales of backstage buffoonery that captured what he calls the zeitgeist of the comics industry.

'I have plenty of critics. Some criticize me for spreading false information. I respond by saying that the false information is already being spread amongst the industry, I just let the fans in on it,' Johnston said. 'Some call me a self-serving, self-seeking, gratification-seeking ne'er do well. I consider that fair comment.'

More cohesive and successful models - suites of columns worth reading, news worth hearing about - are much harder to find. Most writers working the comics beat feel that the gold standard is Newsarama, a comics industry newswire shared by Michael Doran and Matt Brady. They bring years of experience covering the industry to the endeavor currently hosted at Fandom.com - Doran online with the original Newsarama and Brady at various print magazines covering comics, many of which are now defunct. Unlike other sites Newsarama neither duplicates information or uses press releases to drive content, Brady said.

'Many fans still mistakenly classify us as a site that reprints press releases,' Brady said. 'While we still occasionally use a release as the basis for a story, most fans don't realize how few releases actually come out in this industry.'

But in addition to its headline-oriented news coverage - drenched in the latest scoops products from major superhero comics publishers to the exclusion of small publisher and arts comics news - Newsarama has a well-earned investigative reputation. In 1998, Newsarama broke a big publishing story when mid-major comics publisher Wildstorm was sold to Time-Warner subsidiary DC Comics.

Not only was the story big, it included a juicy angle on Wildstorm creator Alan Moore, a superstar who enjoyed a long-standing public dispute with DC, now being asked to return to his former nemesis.

'That really put us on the professional map, I think,' Brady said, 'and was a shot across the bow of Wizard, CBG [Comics Buyer's Guide], and even TCJ [the Comics Journal], showing that the Internet and Newsarama was going to be a contender in the world of comic book news.'

Similar industry connections allowed Doran and Brady to break a story on the 1999 attempt of the family of one of Superman's creators, writer Jerry Siegel, to seek action in order to regain Siegel's portion of the character's copyright. Fellow Internet reporter Rick Veitch was particularly impressed with that piece.

'Not only was this story an emotional nuke that exploded at the very center of the comics business and what it was built on, but Brady's reporting was top notch,' Veitch said.

The Siegel story was subsequently carried by news services nationwide.

Veitch should know something about Brady and Doran; one of Newsarama's stories led to his own contribution to comics industry reportage. Called Splash, it's a Walter Winchell-reminiscent dialogue about the news of the day between Veitch and his readers.

When Newsarama asked the well-respected cartoonist about the Wildstorm/DC transaction while it was still in progress, Veitch became intrigued by the power represented in immediate online dissemination of breaking news stories. He quickly added an already-planned news section to the Comicon.com small press site he had begun with cartoonist Steve Conley.

Splash mixes traditional reportage with news drawn from other sources, all commented on by Veitch, complete with full citation and link. Splash has the clearest advocacy position of all the major online news sources - pro-artist, in the sense a one professional comic book creator communicating with his fellow artists on issues he believes they should find important.

Veitch believes in the possibilities of online publishing, therefore Splash reports on e-books and Internet auctions in addition to the corporate machinations of comics industry businesses. Imagine it as a lively guild newsletter with active asides from the editor.

Like Newsarama, Splash has benefited from Veitch's connection to fellow freelance creators. When Marvel Comics' creditors began to subpoena freelancers to try and regain what they termed 'overpayments,' Veitch not only ran a story that drove the site's hits 'through the roof', but acted as a clearinghouse and advice central for everyone who received the summonses.

Closer to Newsarama's goal of a consumer-based news service than Splash's pro-artist activism, Comic Book Resources bears noting for its divergent regular content. CBR uses rotating columnists to achieve a unique effect: bland, fan-focused news interspersed with reasonably sophisticated insider commentary. The three CBR columnists who write traditional news and commentary column provide the kind of consumer information one might get from a major newspapers arts and entertainment writer - what's coming out, who's involved. The writer's sense of the content - the kind of reportage that's also available in less complete fashion at one of the many smaller sites described earlier.

But the key to CBR's contribution is that deeper and more considered reportage, at least in advocate-editorial mode, can be found in column contributions by two professional comics writers, Steven Grant and Warren Ellis. Both are skeptics who push their readers in the direction of sobering, realistic looks at the business end of the comics industry.

Ellis' recent analysis of Marvel Comics' continuing financial difficulties - although drawing heavily upon and citing Veitch's work in Splash - was as strong as anything on the situation published to date. And because Ellis fans clearly admire him, it may have been the most effective coverage.

Criticism and Conclusion

Not everyone is impressed with the current state of online comics news.

'My opinion of online comics journalism is probably not much lower than my opinion of print comics journalism, both being abysmal embarrassments to the honorable tradition,' Groth said. 'So I'm not sure if I care to split that particular hair.

'Considering that print journalism consists of crap like CBG, Wizard, and Comic Shop News, online journalism could, come to think of it, hardly be worse, and sometimes breaks an important story just because of the gossipy, irresponsible, sludge-like nature of the beast.'

John Miller, a CBG editor, singles out certain stories for praise but has ambivalent feelings about prominent practitioners.

'Splash both benefits and suffers, I think, from the one-man-band phenomenon - it tends to be reflective of what Rick [Veitch] thinks is important,' he said. 'So you see a lot of crusading for creators; he's certainly willing to dig farther into personal issues involving creators' compensation than most others will.'

Both TCJ and CBG recognize the need for online reportage. In fact, both sponsor online efforts of their own. CBG features perfunctory links to important news stories at its site, while TCJ has a spotty record for updating its usually more-substantive stories.

In addition, both magazines' online efforts exist to drive readers to the print version. The editors admit that the lack of resources is the main reason they haven't pursued more specific online strategies.

'First, there's my antediluvian reluctance to pour time and money into a digital version of the Journal,' Groth said. 'I'm coming around slowly, but my first priority is the print version. Second, we don't have the resources to allocate.'

'The Journal is a break-even proposition at best, and the Web site generates minimum income,' he said. 'It's difficult, therefore, to allocate x-amount of dollars per month to anything beyond minimum upkeep.'

Miller stressed that the amount of time and effort put into online efforts would be the decision of its publisher, the hobby magazine conglomerate Krause Publications, based on what would be cost-effective for the entirety of the massive Krause line.

Groth and Miller may not have the enthusiasm of their online counterparts - or their working models - but one thing they enjoy is decades-long publishing records. Given the marginalized natures of contrarian journalism, online publishing, and the comics medium itself, it's hard to predict where one might find comics industry news in five years if not from these traditional sources.

It can be argued that one-man shows like Veitch and Ellis might be distracted by their other professional interests, while several columnists have already moved from place to place in a way that suggests comics news reporting remain rootless for a reason - it doesn't put asses in seats. When you throw in the possibility that mainstream news sources may one day start to cover the comics industry - note Publisher's Weekly decision to hire Douglas Wolk, the only quality writer covering the comics beat for a major magazine other than a comics industry magazine - it is probably best to think of comics reportage not as a place for emerging institutions but as a breeding ground for niche reportage strategies.

Veitch already believes his sort of extended, immediate conversations with his readers a form of broadcast rather than publishing - the new decade's version of on-the-phone information-sharing that used to be common amongst cartoonist. The CBR editorialists probably don't consider their work newswriting at all.

This current run of online comics news magazines may one day be best remembered as a training center for those manning whatever online models finally take hold. As Miller said about this new generation of reporters and writers, 'an ace can always be used, even if it is just in another house of cards.'