Tom Spurgeon's Web site of comics news, reviews, interviews and commentary











September 5, 2018


FPI Blog Calls It A Day

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The FPI blog has finally closed up shop as its main motivating force Joe Gordon (with Kenny Penman) announced several days ago. The idea seems to be that site resources will move towards driving people to the physical store and to purchasing more directly than a community-service style content site and indirect tools of reviews and coverage.

The final two posts are appropriately from their most consistent, quality critic, Richard Bruton, and the final from Gordon himself. Gordon's piece is gracious and goes over the main names and achievements with credible aplomb.

I will miss the site. Some sites are tanks, with a lot of consistent posts and a broad understanding of their mission. This was one of those blogs for me. Sites like that have a place even for those that might be more directly interested in the editorial tastes of another site, or specific writers, perhaps even a few that stand in contrarian disagreement with the general take of the bigger sites.

A couple of things spring to mind. First is that these kinds of stories always represent a human cost. I hope everyone involved finds what they need to replace or even improve upon what working on the site brought them. If you're a hiring person moving into the comics space, please consider people with a proven track record like those here.

The other thing is that I've been in comics long enough to see a lot of things run from beginning to end. I think we're in a stage as an industry where these cycles are shrinking, where stores close down before the owners' hair turns gray, where publishing initiatives and even great characters and work can't match Superman when it comes to extended longevity. It'll be a defining factor of the industry as it moves forward. Tomorrow, though, it will move forward without one of its main blogs of the last decade and a half. Congrats to them, and best of luck in the future.
 
posted 5:35 pm PST | Permalink
 

 
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