Part 2: From Blog to Pulse

This is the second of a series of reports on the state of comics journalism on the Web. The first part appeared in issue #264 and featured a Q&A session with Comicon.com proprietor and editor Rick Veitch.

If the comics industry and the Internet keep a close eye on one another, it may be, as Scott McCloud has suggested, because the comics medium sees its future in the Net or it may because they share the same mostly young, mostly white, mostly male demographic. But for whatever reason, comics have been a topic of conversation and reportage almost from the day the first computer bulletin boards went online, and by now a chain of comics-themed blogs stretches into the virtual horizon as far as the eye can see. Bloggers can't be called professional journalists, but they form the hub of an immense network, tirelessly processing a stream of announcements, comments and gossip.

Though forcibly retired from his own ¡Journalista! blogging activities as a result of taking on the managing editorship of The Comics Journal, Dirk Deppey supplied the following snapshot of some of the daily rounds a Web-surfing comics reader might make in order to keep as up-to-date as possible regarding developments in the comics industry: Tom Spurgeon's Comics Reporter; Graeme McMillan's Fanboy Rampage; Kevin Melrose's Thought Balloons; NeilAlien; Egon; Heidi MacDonald's The Beat; Max Douglas' Sequential (Canadian cartooning); Daryl Cagle (editorial cartooning); Pata's Irresponsible Pictures (manga and anime); 24 Hour Pixel People (webcomics).

More than anything else, blogs resemble the self-published comics fanzines of three decades ago, which formed the roots of the comics press. In a similar trajectory, the proliferation of fan sites has been condensing since the mid '90s into a handful of at least semi-professional comics-news websites. In many ways, these sites are only barely distinguishable from the blog sites. They qualify as professional entities at least insofar as they maintain paid editorial staffs, though the pay and the staff are both minimal.

But the shift from amateur status to professional is more than just a matter of a paycheck. As a site evolves from fan soapbox to professional news site, we expect it to leave behind the fan's uncritical celebration of his or her subject. At first, that adulation becomes tempered by a wide range of opinions as the bloggers or fanzine editors begin to comment on things they don't like as well as the things they love. The final shift from expressing opinion to reporting facts is the most difficult -- not because facts are hard to come by but because, once a medium reaches this stage, facts come prepackaged and delivered to the budding journalist's door. As soon as comics publishers noticed the emergence of a fan press, they recognized its potential as a marketing conduit. Fanzines and fan sites were essentially escorted to their new role as news reporters by the publishers they covered.

There are a hundred ways for journalism to be compromised and few of them are unique to the comics field. But while PR agents, marketing departments and spin doctors routinely manipulate coverage in every medium from local daily newspapers to network broadcasts, the relatively small size of the comics industry and the fan community make comics journalism especially vulnerable to compromise. The parameters of the field are so intimate that Marvel's Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada were able to hold monthly conference calls that included representatives of virtually every print and online comics news source. On the one hand, this allows for efficiently disseminated information and, in the case of Marvel's telephone press conferences, the kind of access to high-ranking newsmakers that most reporters outside the comics field would envy. On the other hand, that access is highly controlled from the top down. A Joe Quesada or a Paul Levitz essentially dole out news to the reporters who wait beneath their balconies. There are layers of information handlers between reporters and the sources of the news. Creators and editorial staff at Marvel and DC are required to sign nondisclosure documents promising never to say negative or critical things about the publishers to the press. Journalists are to have access to Marvel and DC comics creators only by going through PR channels.

The struggle, then, for any website that seeks to cover the comics field is to find a way to serve its readers without becoming a mere tool of the major comics publishers. There can be no doubt that readers are being served. The Pulse's ad meter recorded 50,531 visits from unique IP addresses between Nov. 25 and Dec. 2, traffic which Comicon.com co-owner and Webmaster Steve Conley said was slower than usual due to the holidays. The actual number of individual visitors is presumably much higher, since a single IP address can contain multiple users. Conley said, "I would conservatively estimate that Comicon.com has well more than a quarter million viewers in any given month."

Probably the most visited comics news site on the Web, The Pulse has been nominated for a number of industry awards. In the last issue of The Comics Journal, Rick Veitch, co-founder with Conley of Comicon.com, talked about The Pulse's precursor, Splash. Where Splash had been aimed more at pros and other people who follow the business of comics and animated cartoons, Veitch said The Pulse, which was added to Comicon.com in 2002, is designed for "fans who like comics as entertainment and never think much about things like distribution or creators' rights."

To edit such a site, Veitch turned to Jennifer Contino, a contributor to the Sequential Tart comics fan site, and Heidi MacDonald, a former Disney Magazine editor. MacDonald later withdrew from editing to focus on her own Comicon.com column The Beat. As editor, head writer and all-around workhorse, Contino continues to be the principal life force and sensibility behind The Pulse. Born in 1972, she describes herself as having been a superhero fan all her life, first encountering them at a formative age, not in the pages of comics but in the form of Saturday morning cartoons and a proliferation of toy products.

"There was something about heroes that I really found so intriguing," she told the Journal. "When I was in kindergarten I discovered comic books through the hardcover Batman From the '30s to the '70s, but had no idea they still made comic books. I thought it was something from the past until my dad told me of the wondrous things called 'newsstands' and took me to one when I was 7 or 8. He bought me a ton of comics and brought me back two times a week every week until a comic-book store opened when I was 14 or 15. I read thousands of comics and used to dream about writing comics when I grew up. I became a pretty regular letter hack and had dozens of letters appear in DC comics. As soon as I got online [circa 1996], I discovered the AOL DC Comics chats and it was like magic meeting and talking to not just other comic fans, but also comic creators. I hosted my own chats for a while and contacted Wizard Online's Buddy Scalera (circa 1998) about working with Wizard. He let me write for the online site and, sometime after that, I discovered Sequential Tart through inker John Dell, who believed I would fit in well with that volunteer organization. I asked about writing and they were kind enough to let me work with them and invited me to join the staff."

The concept behind Sequential Tart, where Contino still serves as volunteer sales manager and contributing writer, lies not so much in what it covers as in who is doing the covering. In 1998, comics news sites, like much of the industry, were largely a boys' club. Sequential Tart was intended to provide a female perspective on the industry and a place where female readers could express their opinions and ideas about comics. "It's important to remember that there was an alienation that many female comic-book fans felt during that time," Contino said, "and rather than complain, we felt the need to address [it] by taking up the pen (virtually, in this case) and creating content that we could relate to. After all, as they say, unless you're contributing, you don't have a right to complain."

Not that the contributors to Sequential Tart did much complaining about sexism in the industry. Like other fans sites it was mostly there to pay homage to the comics and creators its unpaid contributors loved. Its content consisted almost entirely of essays and interviews, with little or no attention devoted to coverage of industry news. That was left to other sites like Splash, Newsarama, Silver Bullet and, eventually, Pulse. Contino wrote off and on for some of these sites, as well, including Wizard Online and Mania Online. She also became a published writer in such print magazines as Wizard, Wizard companion Anime Insider and the short-lived Power. Writing, however, remained a part-time avocation for Contino. "I was working full-time 40+ hours a week with abused children," she said. "I have a degree in Elementary Education and was working at a residential treatment facility with abused 5-11-year-olds mainly -- as you can probably imagine my love of comics and cartoons and toys made me very popular with the children. I loved working there."

Gradually, however, her freelance writing venues increased, eventually including such disparate print publications as Publishers Weekly and the manga-focused Newtype USA, and Contino decided to leave her day job and write full-time. Fortuitously, Veitch and Conley chose that moment to offer an editorial position on Pulse alongside MacDonald. "I didn't really have a lot of journalism experience when I started writing online," Contino told the Journal. "I wrote very much like a fangirl, because I was a fangirl. I truly love comics and just wanted to try to let more people know about the industry and the cool people working in it. What I lacked in skills originally I think I made up for in enthusiasm. But writing online has very much been a learning curve and I'm working hard to continue to learn and improve. I had no clue the amount of work involved in working for a daily site. Sequentialtart.com is monthly and the other assignments I'd done freelance weren't on a daily basis, but one or two pieces here and there with a very clear deadline. This was a lot to take in. But I tried really hard to do my best and immediately gained a newfound respect for the sites that had been doing this for years."

Almost immediately after taking on The Pulse gig, however, Contino was struck by a bout of ill health that lasted for nearly a year and a half. A six-month illness led to surgery, which she hadn't quite recovered from when she fell ill a second time with a mysterious malady that took doctors several months and "many uncomfortable tests" to diagnose. More surgery followed. "I was on several medications, I was bedridden, I was getting more than a little depressed, and I didn't know if I was going to get better," Contino said. "The second illness was misdiagnosed and I had several doctors telling me I was imagining all the pain and nothing was wrong with me. That was a little upsetting and I know the stories I wrote during that time weren't as good as they could have been because I had so many problems I was trying to deal with. Another obstacle was insecurity. I just really wasn't sure if I could do something like this and second-guessed myself a lot. As time passed, I gained more confidence and began trying to do more."

In spite of all this, Contino had been shepherding a constant flow of news to The Pulse site, something in the neighborhood of 3,000 news pieces. Now out of the sick bed, her schedule calls for writing between two and four stories a day, between 10 and 20 stories a week, as well as posting seemingly every press release that comes her way. "On a given day, I receive between 100 and 200 e-mails from individuals talking about comics or who would like to be covered or see a friend covered on Pulse," she told the Journal. "In terms of covering one story, it depends. If it's a mainstream (Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, etc.) story, I'm usually in contact with two or four people to get one story up on the site. One specific person at most of those companies handles the art, one handles getting us e-mail or phone numbers for creators, the creator him or herself, and, sometimes, a final approval process from an editor. If it's an independent comics creator, I usually just have to talk to one person. On a given day, I like to try to send out two or three sets of interview questions or talk to at least one person about getting a preview of his or her comic up on The Pulse."

As Veitch commented, "That's an incredible amount of work."

Unlike Sequential Tart, Pulse pays Contino a salary. Her full-time paycheck comes out of income from banner advertisements on the site. Contino writes the vast majority of the stories that appear on the site, but she is supplemented by unpaid columnists such as, MacDonald, Warren Ellis, Jai Nitz, Lee Barnett, Marc Oliver Frisch, Paul O'Brien and Jesse Blaze. Steve Chung, Steve Bunche and Rick Taylor write occasional news pieces and reviews. Chris Weston conducts interviews with foreign comics creators. And various reporters, including some of Contino's companions from Sequential Tart, contribute convention and other event coverage. Only Contino is paid.

Asked the multiple-choice question of whether Pulse is A) a cash cow for Comicon.com, B) a solid moneymaker, C) self-supporting with minimal overhead, or D) a loss leader, Veitch selected C and confirmed that the budget allows for no more than one full-time reporter.

According to Veitch, he and Conley oversee the site, but do not edit Pulse closely. Contino said, "Because I don't have a formal background in journalism, I run some pieces by Steve and Rick for their editorial input if I am unsure of how to proceed. The recent bankruptcy of CrossGen was a new situation for me. I asked a lot of questions of Rick and Steve because I wanted to make sure that in our coverage we were open and clear about the fact that Comicon.com was an unsecured creditor in the case."

Neither Veitch nor Conley have any more of a formal background in journalism than Contino, but in the world of the Internet, they are what pass for grizzled veterans. According to Contino, only some items that appear on the site are expected to be run by Veitch or Conley for approval. But asked to name some of Pulse's mistakes, Veitch referred the Journal to a story on Bulldog Comics "that somehow got put up without Steve or I having a chance to edit it," implying that the story had sidestepped normal procedure. Veitch said he had the story, which was about a dispute between DC and Bulldog over Bulldog's unauthorized redistribution of DC comics, taken down and rewritten so that it led with hard facts rather than with unconfirmed rumors. More recently, Contino and Pulse fell for a prank message-board post by Sock Monkey and Maakies creator Tony Millionaire claiming that Millionaire had been censored by the FCC. Millionaire was called but responded to Contino's questions with a straight face. Contino wrote up the report, as she does the hundreds of press releases, announcements and tips that come to her, but after readers informed her that Millionaire had been joking, the story was removed from the site.

These incidents are not so much indicative of Contino's editorial weaknesses as they are illustrative of the tendency of Web-news sites to report news on the fly, relying on the fact that inaccuracies can be erased and rewritten as they are discovered. But such revisions do little to correct the misimpressions left in the many readers who see the first report and fail to revisit the story after it's corrected or erased. That tendency is one of the pitfalls of online journalism that Contino is trying to learn how to dodge.

Asked about her goals for Pulse, Contino said, "My goals are to try to be fair and cover as many different things from the comics industry as possible on The Pulse. I know I've made some mistakes along the way, but try to learn from each one and move on. My goals are to also provide comics news as close to its happening as possible. With the immediacy of the Internet, we have the chance to share information almost instantaneously instead of being confined by the limits of what one might face on a weekly or monthly offline publication. As for The Pulse's mandate, I would say it's to provide coverage of the entire comics industry as best we can from the homegrown stapled minicomics to the independents to the mainstream to the foreign comic-book market. We also try to cover some of the related topics like toys, video games, games, books, cartoons and anything else that we think might be of interest to our readers. On the weekends, traditionally a slow time for comics news -- outside of convention coverage -- we try to run a few fun things like DVD boxed-set reviews, movie reviews, and some other fringe-type pieces. I'm always pleased with our comic-convention coverage, because we have so many great people who help us at conventions and try to pitch in."

For Contino, news coverage constitutes a kind of warm embrace. If she could, she would single-handedly elevate every corner of the comics industry to a higher level of popularity. She is equally generous in her assessment of her fellow online journalists. Asked to identify stand-out comics news sites, she said, "I think almost every site covering comics is doing an exceptional job and working very hard to provide fair coverage. I think one of the best comics journalists out there is Matt Brady from Newsarama. He's got years of experience and an insight that few can match. I also think Kate Keller from Sequential Tart has an insight and style that is fantastic and wish she had more time to write. She provides very witty, thought-provoking, straightforward pieces that shouldn't be missed. In fact, Sequential Tart has a variety of talented writers who make me proud to be involved with that group and comics in general. I like almost everything I read at Ninth Art, Comic Book Resources and Silver Bullet. Of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my own partner in crime, The Pulse's sister, The Beat and Heidi MacDonald. Heidi's been in the game longer than most of us and her years of experience shine through in each and every piece she writes."

So wide is Contino's embrace that she has effectively embodied comics Web-news, its strengths and its weaknesses. With the tireless devotion and endless curiosity of a true fan, she seems ideally suited to carry out one of the important roles of any news source: to keep its audience abreast of everything that happens within its purview. It's hard to imagine a journalist who could more faithfully fulfill that function with respect to the many artist and writer changes, start-up titles, cancellations, award announcements, movie deals and toy releases that make the commercial world of comics go 'round.

But journalism has another role, which is to inform its audience of the controversial things that happen that no one wants to announce, the things that won't necessarily boost sales or enhance the public image of comics. Sooner or later, among the 200 e-mails sent to Contino each day, there will be a news tip of this nature and, from time to time, those stories will appear on The Pulse site amid the flood of press releases and promotional announcements. Contino, with her many contacts throughout the industry is, in fact, well situated to be the first to catch every leaked scandal. But there is the catch: If Contino were in the habit of pursuing such scandals, she would not have easy access to so many contacts in the first place. While controversial stories are not apparently shirked as they come to The Pulse, Contino has little time to seek out or follow up on them. And tellingly, the elements of Pulse that she is most proud of (the speed and breadth of coverage, the convention reports) do not fall in that category.

When asked why he was content to have Pulse cater to fans, while largely ignoring the kind of issue-oriented business news that Splash used to occasionally indulge in, Veitch acknowledged, "Jen's perfect for Pulse, but she's not really the muckraking type of personality a Splash needs." Veitch regards Pulse as less-muckraking than Splash and his stated aspirations for Splash were no greater than that of a blog. "I never held The Splash up to the same journalistic yardstick that applies to print organizations," he told the Journal. "The Splash was a blog, although the concept hadn't been named when we launched it. The Splash was personal, and humorous and sometimes ludicrous. It wasn't meant to flesh stories out as much as to generate discussion about certain subjects in the community."

The Pulse, therefore -- like The Splash -- is what it is. It knows what its audience expects and it serves that audience while scarcely pausing to take a breath. Those who look for more are simply applying the wrong yardstick. But with such clear inclinations and disavowals expressed by both Veitch and Contino, if we were to ask of Pulse the question that heads this series, the answer would have to be: Not here.

In upcoming issues of the Journal, we will keep looking for our quarry, with the help of The Beat's Heidi MacDonald, Lying In the Gutters' Rich Johnston, Newsarama's Matt Brady and others.

All site contents are © 2002