Friday, October 20, 2023

That was information



For some reason I never really understand, an old blog post on this site suddenly started doing some serious numbers last week. It was one where I rejected the moaning journalism about comic books had died, and talked about how much information there was about the medium available, and now it seems hopelessly naive, because a bunch of great things that I linked to are all fucking gone.

So much for all that information.

My stupid blog is still there, talking about stuff that doesn't exist. The original writers might have their words saved on a hard drive somewhere, but they're gone from the wider web. Maybe I could dredge them up on the wayback machine or something, but that always feels like way more trouble than it's really worth.

I have some Wizard magazines from the early 2000s that I bought a couple of years ago and I thought I'd just get them for a laugh, but they are now physical evidence of all sorts of things that you can't find anywhere else. When all advertising and promotion went online, it was bloody useful at the time, but inevitably caved into entropy. 

Now I have fanzines from the 80s that tell me useful things like what Grant Morrison drank at the pub, but finding anything out about a comic published in 2007 is ridiculously hard.

Unfortunately, while my innate optimism assures me that there is still good comics journalism going on out there, I don't know where to find it anymore. There's still some obviously good stuff, like the eternal TCJ, and the deeply appreciated Gutter Review, and I love them both, but those links probably won't work in another five years.

But it's just a little depressing that a shitty little blog like this soldiers on - at least until some tech genius decides that blogger ain't worth it anymore - while work by writers and journalists I deeply respect turns to vapour. We all deserve better.

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