Running the blog isn’t a cheap endeavour for FPI – all in, costs are well in excess of £20K ($30K) and I’m coming to that point in the year, at our annual review in January, where I have to justify that expenditure to the rest of the FPI board, some of whom are sceptical to the value generated by the money spent. We will go through the same old arguments about “what do we get for our money”, “can’t you do more selling of product from it”, “why not cover it in advertising” etc that we do every year. All of those are good questions – we almost completely shy away from using the blog as a selling tool, or a place to turn into a bordello of flashing adverts selling you insurance and other services – but what are the answers? Until this year the answer was the prominence of the blog amongst its peers and generally (being picked 34th most influential blog in the UK back in 2008 being the unexpected high point). That it was reaching people who may or may not be paying customers, but that just the reaching of them was enough to make it worthwhile. Any reader potentially stores FPI away in their brain as somewhere they might at some point buy a comic.

So I have a request of you – it isn’t too onerous I don’t think – and it would make a difference to us and help us maintain our commitment to the blog and the excellent work that Joe, Richard , Wim and others put into it. What’s been most noticeable this past year is that whilst the number of unique readers has increased the comments and links generated by all readers has diminished quite sharply. It’s been noticeable that many links we give to other sites don’t generate reciprocal links. That stories which have originated on our blog are featured elsewhere and don’t link back to the source. That many people comment directly to myself or Joe or Richard rather than put their comment direct on the site. All of these things are seeing us miss linkages which would improve our standings and make the blog even more prominent. So all I’d ask of you is that if you have a comment you post it and perhaps we get a discussion going. That if we have featured your work you give a link back to us on your site, if you liked it, maybe stick us in your links or favourites list. If you quote material from one of our stories that you mention where it came from. We understand that people have lots to do with their lives and careers and that stuff like this just doesn’t always dawn on them or might slip their mind or get put off until they abandon it – believe me I do all 3 myself – but if you could see your way to doing some of those things in 2011, we will be very grateful.

Running pro’ blogs is something that fewer and fewer people are doing, most blogs aren’t held to the standards we try to hold ourselves too, although I’m sure there are times we fall short of that mark. The Comics Journal just laid off Dirk Deppey who has been Journalista for years now throwing doubt on whether it will continue, Heidi McDonald took her blog ‘The Beat‘ private after it was let go by Publisher Weekly. Others like Tom Spurgeon’s excellent ‘The Comics Reporter‘ continue to provide their best efforts and there is still a coherent little cadre of class reportage sites which I would include us amongst. If you could all find your way clear to give us this small bit of help in the New Year you would have our affection and gratitude. Right now, get back to the Turkey Twizzlers and Iceland party food like we’re doing in my house. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to come.

Kenny

I’m pretty sure most of you who regularly read this blog will also follow Dirk Deppey’s Journalista blog from Fantagraphics. Well, sadly, we wont be able to any more. From Dirk’s Twitter yesterday:

“I’ve been laid off from Fantagraphics. Wednesday will be my last day as The Comics Journal’s newsblogger.”

This is frankly bloody awful news. Dirk’s Journalista and Tom Spurgeon’s Comics Reporter are the two places I visit every single day. Dirk was responsible for some great coverage of comics beyond the narrow realms of Marvel/DC and big budget movies. His round up of everything comics related, together with a legendary line of snark and a willingness to say what was on his mind will be missed greatly.

That 2011 will, unless something surprising happens in the meantime, be Journalista-less makes the comics journalism field a lot bleaker.

We wish him well in whatever he decides to do in the future.

I imagine many of you will have Dirk Deppey’s !Journalista! blog as one of the must read daily blogs (Tom Spurgeon’s Comic Reporter would be another, and hopefully the FPI blog!), so I imagine Dirk Deppey interviewed by Tucker Stone at Comixology will be of interest.

Especially when it’s full of the sort of snark mixed with a general common sense approach to comics that we’ve come to expect from him:

“Take a look at bookstores: YA series like Harry Potter and Twilight might be serious blockbusters … but bookstores don’t devote their entire sales strategy towards teenage fantasy novels. A good chunk of sales come from new books and perennial sellers in a wide range of genres and interest topics, which is why a wide range of consumers still shop in such places.

The Direct Market doesn’t have this advantage. Thanks to the various sales and distribution fiascos of the 1990s, comics shops have pretty much been reduced to hardcore superhero fans and a smaller collection of art-comics readers for their bread-and-butter, which effectively cuts off the oxygen for publishers of most other kinds of books. And “most other kinds of books” is what most other people in North America tend to read. “