Not sure how noticeable it was, but this was the first year ComixTalk was just me. At the end of 2008, I decided to stop editing and "managing" contributors — not because it wasn’t interesting nor great for the site (the site had always had a group of contributors) but because I am overcommitted in life and was trying to rationalize my priorities to what I most wanted to spend time doing (I’m going through the same self-review end of this year too). I’m lucky and unlucky — for me it’s almost all about choosing between lots of things I want to do – but some of them are "squeakier wheels" than others. Soliciting, paying and working with materials from contributors was definitely a squeaky wheel. It was a tough choice though — I really liked the range of voices and interests that we had with that "magazine" approach to the site. Still with the auto-import of outside blogging this year we still had a great mix of voices on the frontpage of ComixTalk. (Thank you to everyone who agreed to that arrangement!).
Late in the year though I realized my hosting bills for 2008 were more than double (almost triple) what I thought I was paying so I have to figure out a better hosting arrangement for next year and think about what functions and content stays on the site and what goes. One immediate casuality until further notice is a lot of the auto-importing (because the way Media Temple charges, that was running up the bills). But there are other "squeaky wheels" that I think have run their course at the site — for example, there won’t be "cover" art for the site anymore next year.
What, if anything about ComixTalk this year do think I ought to keep? What do you care less if I ditch? I think there’s plenty of other people doing a great job rounding up the webcomic and comics tech stories of the day now so I’ve made less and less of an effort to "link-blog" here; I think I will move even farther towards only writing about something if I really have something to add. I may tinker with a blog or videocast (if I do, please be kind for at least while!); and I will push the calendar more next year. I’m also interested in ways to find webcomics – there’s so much out there that it ain’t easy to find what you’d really like. I hope to try out some experiments in that area too. If you can spare a few minutes to give me some feedback please do. Thanks and happy holidays!
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