So one of the tasks for myself during my self-imposed summer vacation from Comixpedia is to think about how the various "parts" of Comixpedia are doing and how to best match resources to parts.
The "magazine" part of Comixpedia are the longer features, reviews, interviews and columns from creators and it's been a monthly (really weekly for most of the time) part of the site from Day 1. However it is resource intensive – magazine pieces get read and edited; they need art clipped or created for them; contributors need to be rounded up (especially for features and reviews) and for the last couple of years we've paid those contributors. All of which would be fine if it was the heart of the site in terms of what gets read and how people use the site. I don't think that's the case. Apart from certain individual contributors and certain articles, many magazine articles are no more widely read or commented on then many of the daily news&views posts I put up.
All of which isn't to say we don't want reviews, interviews and other features on the site it's just that perhaps in terms of presenting those on the site online I am pondering how to pull those out of the artificial "magazine" construct and simply make them part of the ongoing daily site. That might mean less polish on those pieces, but it might not, especially if I can make it easier for contributors to put their reviews, interviews, etc., directly on the site (right now I edit, format, etc all of the magazine articles).
Along with this sort of out loud thinking I'll admit there is a big part of me that would like to put Comixpedia in print (if for no other reason then to get reviewed by Tom Spurgeon!). Depending on the work required it would be something like a quarterly or twice a year endeavor. I don't know how many people would be interested in such a project let alone whether I could figure out how to do it financially (Although on the finances front I'm more worried about not losing money then actually making anything so it's not a huge obstacle). The longer timeframe for each issue and just the "on-paper" idea right now seems like a better home then the website for the kind of edited and longer articles we've strived for in the online "magazine". I'm kind of assuming there would be some overlap in content between the site and paper version although the paper version would have to have original stuff though.
If anyone has any thoughts on this please fire away here.
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