Ifanboy.com

Josh Flanagan, Conor Kilpatrick, Ron Richards

This has certainly been a year of transition and change for iFanboy and that continues today as we, with heavy hearts, announce that we are scaling back operations; more specifically, after 13 years we are ceasing normal day-to-day operations at iFanboy.com.

This is not a decision that we have made lightly or impulsively, in fact it’s a discussion that we’ve been having internally for over a year now. There comes a time in every one’s life when you have to take a step back and take stock of things and having done that we’ve decided that our lives no longer support the time it takes to run iFanboy.com the way we want and the way that visitors to the site have come to expect and certainly deserve.

The simple fact is that our lives are much different now than they were even five years ago, and with families and day jobs and other opportunities all vying for our time and attention, iFanboy.com has been suffering for it and we couldn’t watch it suffer any longer. It hurts us to not be able to put our all into this place that we’ve spent so many years building into a vibrant and wonderful community. After five years spent running iFanboy.com as our primary jobs, we had to transition back to running iFanboy part time after Graphicly handed it back to us in February of this year, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day to focus on everything we need to focus on in the manner that it deserves to be.

So what happens next? We will continue to produce all the podcasts that we have before. That means that every Sunday you will still get a new episode of the iFanboy Pick of the Week Podcast. We will still produce the occasional Special Edition, Talksplode, and Booksplode podcast. All of those shows will still be found here at iFanboy.com, which will still exist, but will now serve solely to host our shows. The old content on the website will continue to exist as well, that’s not going anywhere, but there will be no new daily written content on iFanboy.com, there will be no new comics page, there will be no new written Pick of the Week review, there will only be new podcasts.

Running this website every day for the past 13 years has been an incredibly rewarding experience, and we are still struggling to come up with proper words to convey how much fun, frustrating, educational, insane, and revealing it has been. We’ve learned so much about ourselves, about running a business, about the comic book industry, and about all the crazy and wonderful people in it. It’s an experience that we’ll never forget and probably never replicate. That fact that our day-to-day lives as we’ve known them for almost a decade and a half are forever changing is something that hasn’t even really sunk in yet. Running this place as been as an important part of our lives as anything else. We’re extremely proud of it.

A wise man once said, “All things must pass.” And so it is with iFanboy.com.

Josh Flanagan & Paul Montgomery

We could not have found any of this success without a whole bevy of people. Most importantly, none of this would have happened without our fellow founder and partner-in-crime Ron Richards. We also want to thank all the people who have contributed to the website over the years: Dave Wiese, Jim Mroczkowski, Mike Romo, Sonia Harris, Tom Katers, Ryan Haupt, Molly McIsaac, Paul Dini, David Brothers, Chris Neseman, Ali Colluccio, Chris Arrant, Jonathan Hickman, Austin Hartman, John Siuntres, Jason Wood, Daniel Robert Epstein, Matt Adler, Jeff Reid, Josh Richardson, Timmy Wood, Josh Christie, Bon Alimagno, Gabe Roth, and Gordon the Intern.

But most importantly we want to thank the man who we’ve come to know as the glue that has held iFanboy.com together these last few years–Paul Montgomery. He journeyed from website commenter to columnist to editor to full-fledged iFanboy. Quite simply, this place would not be where it is today without him.

Of course we want to thank all of you wonderful people who have come to be known as the iFanbase. You came to this website every day and often spent all day hanging out and talking comics. And that’s exactly why we created this place 13 years ago—we wanted to build a cool place where cool people could hang out and talk about, and share their love of, comic books. More people came here to do just that than we would have ever imagined and it’s because of all of you people that we had, in our estimation, the best comic book community on the internet. You’ll never know just how grateful we are to each and every one of you.

– Conor Kilpatrick & Josh Flanagan

 

(Back, Left to Right): Jim Mroczkowski, Conor Kilpatrick, Jason Wood, Ron Richards, Molly McIsaac
(Front, Left to Right): Ali Colluccio, Chris Neseman, Josh Flanagan

And now, a few more final thoughts.

Paul Montgomery

Paul Montgomery

I found my way to iFanboy while still in college, when my tonsils had to go. I wanted to read comics again, do the recovery up right with soft serve and Spider-Man. iFanboy taught me how, pointed me in all the right directions, shaped my tastes as a returning reader. I wrote so much, so often, my surrogate big brothers boosted me up and gave me a chance to be right and wrong and everything in between.

I’ve spent countless hours staring at this website, soaking in its sanctuary glow, raging at its error messages, fumbling to articulate, hazarding upon insight. It has been my night light and my constant in times when I couldn’t brave rolling out of bed. More importantly, it introduced me to collaborators who continue to excite and challenge me. There’s a lot of me in this code. I got so much more back.

Thank you for reading, for giving a hoot here and there. Thank you for ensuring, early on, that a blinking cursor on a white screen is hardly a lonely prospect.

Jim Mroczkowski

When Josh offered me this job out of the clear blue sky five years ago (and that’s how you got hired by iFanboy, by the way, people who kept writing in gunning for my job: they’d see something in you they liked and come to you) I was very close to turning it down.

Ali Colluccio, Jim Mroczkowski, Timmy Wood

“There is no way, simply no way,” I said to my wife, “that I could possibly find something to say about comic books every single week.”

Five years, 411 articles, and one “oh my god, you navel-gazing imbecile, take the job” from my wife later, I have learned more than I ever could have imagined about comics, the internet and myself. About twice a day I wish could unknow a lot of the stuff about the internet, but the comics stuff was great. Conor, Josh, and Ron introduced me to a whole new world; I got to go to cons, meet some of my heroes in the biz, and blow off C-3PO. I got to raise ROM awareness. I got to appreciate my favorite medium with a new set of eyes and meet scores of people from around the country who are now dear friends, all from bloviating and making Deadpool jokes. I got to be on my favorite podcast sometimes; once, the host of it even bear-hugged me. That’s a surreal couple of years. I will painfully miss the camaraderie and the outlet for my creativity. Not to mention the free audience, the money, the gossip, the occasional freebies, and that sweet, sweet press pass, but I’m trying not to think about that part right now.

Now, I guess I’m off to raise my alpacas.

Mike Romo

Well, this is a piece that I have been putting off for awhile now. When talking about an end, where do you begin?

Ryan Haupt & Mike Romo

With gratitude, of course. It perhaps seems sentimental, but I truly do remember when Ron and Conor offered me a chance to write for the site, way back in 2008. We were getting lunch at King’s Road Cafe with my wife Whitney, and they were explaining how they wanted to bring in some new voices, and, well, they wanted to know if I wanted to get involved.

I jumped at the chance, spilling LA’s best coffee all over the place. I had been an avid listener of the show for several years by then, and to get a chance to contribute to something that had been a really positive part of my life — nothing but gratitude.

Together, you, me, the rest of the crew, we’ve lived through a lot when it comes to comics. For those of us lucky enough to attend the Isotope + iFanboy parties during WonderCon, we got a chance to meet our favorite creators and sample some of the finest Tiki bars in the city. Indeed, for those of us lucky to go to any of the conventions, getting a chance to hang out with Ron, Conor, Josh and the rest of the iFanboy community was truly one of the best aspects of being into comics.

Together, you, me, the rest of the crew, we’ve lived through a lot when it comes to comics. We saw the entire industry change, moving from print to finally embracing digital in a meaningful way. We’ve seen DC (not) reboot their universe, we’ve gone through a seemingly unending series of Big Important Events. And through it all, the columnists and readers at iFanboy have discussed, complained and championed different aspects of the ever changing universe that is comic books. My first article ever was an ode to an unread stack of books—who knew that, just a few years later, I wouldn’t be worried about physical stacks at all? Amazing, what we’ve seen.

Together, you, me, the rest of the crew—we’ve become a real community. And you know what? This community is going to change, but it’s not going to go away. We’ll still have the podcast, we’ll still have the conventions, we’ll still chime in on Twitter and Facebook…we have a history together, a truly great and vibrant history, and that bodes well for a great future as well. While you may not be getting a weekly columns from the writing staff (and let’s be clear, you haven’t been getting regular weekly columns from me lately as often as I would have liked), we’re still going to be around!

So, yes: this is big transition for iFanboy, but it’s a good one. It’s not the end, of course. The podcasts will still come out, and the writing you’ve enjoyed will stay on the site in the archives, which makes me happy — the conversations we’ve had about comics and comic book culture…they are important, they are part of our shared legacy, and should live on.

Conor Kilpatrick, Josh Flanagan, Ron Richards, Mike Romo

(long pause)

I guess this is it, then.

Here goes everything: thanks to all of you who have ever read one of my pieces. Thanks for putting up with my long winded analyses and tortured tirades about comic book trends and missed opportunities with favorite characters. Thanks for commenting, thanks for tweeting, thanks for emailing me when I had a typo—it’s impossible for you to know how much your support has meant to me over the years. I never, in a million years, thought I would write about anything, let alone something as near and dear to me as comics. Thanks to you, I can point to over five years of doing just that.

Thanks to my fellow writers, who showed me, week after week, a passion for this medium that never ceased to inspire me. I was a real honor, a true honor, to have a chance to be on your team.

And, thanks, finally, to Ron, Conor, and Josh, for providing all of us with a place to call “home” on the Internet; a place where the energy of the comic book convention, a place where we could just be ourselves and talk about the stuff we loved, was just a click away. And thank you for providing one of your fans an opportunity to be a part of something that was—and is— truly magic. I refuse to forget a moment of it.

Ryan Haupt

When I was told that my tenure as a weekly staff writer for iFanboy was coming to a close I was conflicted. Part of me was glad that I’d no longer have to come up with 1,000 words every week about something to do with comics, even during weeks when I felt like I truly had nothing to say. But that part was dwarfed by how sad I am to let this part of my life go. I wrote a piece of what iFanboy means to me when Ron took his job at Image, not knowing I’d have to write something like it again so soon.

Ryan Haupt & Molly McIsaac

I’ve been friends with the guys since before Ron moved to the Bay Area and I actually remember him telling me he was coming out my way before he even made the announcement public. Then one January night in 2010 we went to dinner at a sushi place near his apartment that he wanted to try even though he doesn’t eat sushi, and he asked me to come on board as a writer. My first column about the science of the X-Man Beast went up April 15, 2010 and I’ve strived to put out something worth reading every week since.

According to the site I’ve published a grand total of 225 items as of this writing, in addition to the times I’ve been on the various podcasts. It’s almost a little funny to feel sad about it all because it’s not like these people are going away. I’m sure we’ll be in touch less frequently, but my friendships with the whole staff here will stand the test of time. Meet Mike Romo just once and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

I’ll miss the column, I’ll miss hashing out the science of some whacky concept only to have it broken apart by a single clever comment, and I’ll miss the various features both past and current (remember VS? That was always a good time); but the iFanboy Pick of the Week Podcast will prevail. It remains one of the few podcasts I’m still eager to listen to when it’s released, and I expect that will only intensify as it becomes my primary connection to the guys and to this site.

I am indebted to them for the opportunity to contribute for all these years, and indebted to you all for reading what I had to say. While this feels like a goodbye (or an iFanbye, and I’ve taken to calling it), you can still find me doing my own podcast Science… sort of, writing now and again for Marvel.com, and hopefully back on an iFanboy podcast for the next meeting of the Animated Brain Trust, because someone has to tell Chris he’s being an overly critical cantankerous cartoon curmudgeon, right?

Chris Arrant

(Left to Right): Molly McIsaac, Mike Romo, Conor Kilpatrick, Gordon the Intern, Ryan Haupt

I’ve been writing for iFanboy since February 2011, and as the defacto “new guy” still to this day I can say that this site — and this editorial team — has been one of those most encouraging and rewarding experiences I’ve had. My CV has me writing for everyone from Marvel Comics to Publishers Weekly and other comics sites like Newsarama and CBR, but iFanboy has let me in many way do the kind of stories I’ve always wanted to as a fan and a writer.

Highlight up and coming artists with Tuesday’s iFanboy Upstarts. Dream-casting big screen adaptations of comics with Monday’s Comic Book Casting. Cutting to the core of character’s with “must read’ list of books with Thursday’s Where Do I Start?. And act like a comic book casting director by picking series, who should work on them, and why in the concluded Remake & Reboot. Between that and my frequent Top 5 posts and various general stories, I’ve been able to scratch almost every conceivable itch I’ve had — with iFanboy even going so far as to commission me to do a five-part retrospective on the career of Stuart Immonen once.

Although iFanboy as a comics news site may be reaching it’s end, iFanboy lives on in the thing that brought everyone here in the first place — the podcast. And maybe someday if everyone gets sick I can make my debut. Pardon the stuttering.

Timmy Wood

I will never forget when I stumbled upon the iFanboy podcast (Batman #663, The “Prose” issue. Conor’s Pick of the Week). I had jumped back into the world of comics four years prior but this was the first time I went searching for a podcast about them. I

Paul Montgomery & Timmy Wood

downloaded several and out of all of them, iFanboy was one of the few to stick around. I listened religiously for years and quickly became apart of the community. I know it’s all rose tinted glasses but the community of the iFanboy forums over at Revision3 was truly one of the best. This was before Twitter and before everyone was on Facebook.  The people who posted on those forums were some of the best people to talk about comics. It was big part of my comic reading ritual to head to those forums after I read my books and discuss them with dave-accampo, Gobo, Paper, Luthor, Kwok_Talk, piscespaul, Itsbecca, Kahuna_Blair, and of course the iFanboys themselves. Then several of those members were hired as writers and the website became even better. I was lucky enough to be hired in the third wave of writers with Jeff Reid and Josh Christie.

I am not trying to give a history lesson or bio on the site. I just want to say that one of the reasons it was so successful is due to the strong positive community it cultivated. We have Ron, Conor and Josh to thank for that. They started it and led by example showing that comic book fans don’t have to always be negative stereotypes. They can be normal people who celebrate comics as a wonderful medium.

I am going to miss the website and all of it’s regular content. All the writers here are tremendous and I consider them brothers and sisters. I also want to thank Ron, Conor and Josh for taking a chance on this goofy comedian. Those guys gave me outlet to write ridiculous articles about the Justice League’s Email Chains, Superhero Job Evaluations, and the character actors in The Dark Knight Rises. Thanks for memories guys! It’s been great.

Jeff Reid

For many readers, comics are a solitary experience. That’s been the case for me, anyway. For the majority of my life, there was no

Ali Colluccio, Jim Mroczkowski, Jeff Reid

one around me who shared my interest. Certainly there was no one who cared as much as I did about how the Crisis on Infinite Earths reshaped the DCU or could talk with me about which Captain Marvel was the best. Comics were an interior-only experience. That changed the day I first stumbled upon iFanboy and the community that was fostered on its website.

When I started commenting on, and then submitting bits and pieces to, iFanboy, it was a revelation. Here were interesting, knowledgeable, personable people who enjoyed comics in the same way I did. And those were just the commenters. Columnists like Paul, Jim, Ryan, Mike, and many others were writing pieces that forced me to reexamine how I looked at what I was reading. Josh, Conor, and Ron lead the way with vision and their podcasts were always something I enjoyed. iFanboy was exactly what I was looking for.

The fact that I was a writer on this website for nearly two years is something of which I’m extremely proud. Writing for iFanboy allowed me to share my fandom and focus it in a way that I didn’t know existed before. Now, my “interior-only experience” is long dead. It was forced out of me by the iFanboy community, its writers, and its founders. For that, I was always be thankful.

Josh Christie

Josh Christie

When I started reading comics in 2006 (like many people, I came to read Civil War), I thought I’d just read a series or two and be done with it. It’s thanks to iFanboy that I’m now a capital-letters Comics Reader.

My first brush with iFanboy was the Pick of the Week Podcast #71. I needed some audio to get me through a killer snowstorm that was messing with my radio, and the guys’ discussion of the death of Captain America fit the bill. As a fledgling comic fan with no local shop and no friends that read in issues, iFanboy was a lifeline of funny, smart discussion of comics. Without the iFanboy community, I’m not sure I would be a comic reader at all. I certainly wouldn’t be the fan I am now. I wouldn’t have discovered as many cool books, gone to as many neat events, or met as many fantastic people.

And that’s not to mention the great writing that has been on the site over the last few years. The whole staff haven’t just written interesting articles – they’ve helped me develop a smarter, sharper voice as a writer and a better critical vocabulary for comics. Like everyone else, I’m sad to see the written aspect of iFanboy come to an end. I’m also thrilled I got to (in a small way) be a part of this special site, and I’m looking forward to seeing the impact that iFanboy – and especially Ron, Conor, Josh and Paul – will undoubtedly have on comics in their future work.

Ali Colluccio

When I first started reading comics, I really only talked about them over email with a small group of friends. Anytime I tried to jump into the communities at CBR or Newsarama, I pretty much ran away screaming. I had heard from a friend about the iFanboy Pick of the Week Podcast, and since podcasts weren’t really my thing at the time, I figured I’d check to see if they had a website.

Ali Collucio & Josh Flanagan (and Bacon)

That was in 2008. And the truly amazing and wonderful iFanbase quickly became my home on the internet. Last week comicbookchris mentioned somewhere in the comments that the “live taping” of the Pick of the Week Podcast Episode #200 at Jim Hanley’s was how he met most of the people he knows now. That is not an exaggeration. A lot of my friends in New York (Chris included) are my friends because we met at that party. There were unofficial tweet-ups and NYCC parties and eventually just hanging out for the sake of hanging out. I go to a lot of comic conventions in a lot of different cities. And the reason I do it is to hang out with iFanbase friends from different cities, different countries even! I can call people as far away as Australia friends because of this site.

I guess this is just a very long-winded way of saying iFanboy.com is so much more than the place I go to make my pull list each week. It’s a place for comics and friendship. For enthusiasm and camaraderie and even comfort. It’s a home.

I cannot thank Josh, Conor, Ron and Paul for everything they’ve done here, for building this incredible community. I have nothing but best wishes and highest hopes for them, and for all my fellow iFanbase members, in the future.

Matt Adler

Matt Adler

Hey there. Mine is a name you haven’t seen around these parts in a while, for various reasons having to do with life, work, and other complications. Still, once upon a time, Matt Adler was a proud and active member of the iFanboy staff, and the proud part is still true. When Josh, Conor, and Paul let us know a few weeks ago that the time had come to bring this phase of iFanboy to a close, my initial reaction, as I’m sure was the rest of the staff’s, was sadness. Sadness that, as all good things must, this great fellowship was coming to an end, and sadness for what might have been. But I choose to look back on happier times, and think about some of my favorite work for the site.

(Back, Left to Right): Jamie McKelvie, Gordon the Intern, Josh Flanagan
(Front, Left to Right): Mike Romo & Conor Kilpatrick

The many interviews I did with my comic book idols; greats including J.M. DeMatteis, Bob Layton, Marc Silvestri, Brian K. Vaughan, Mark Waid, Mike Carey, Peter David, Kurt Busiek, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Paul Cornell, Roy Thomas, Cully Hamner, Cary Bates, Dan Jurgens, Paul Levitz, Jim Shooter, Neal Adams, Karl Kesel, Gail Simone, and more. The reviews that gave me the chance to highlight overlooked or under-appreciated comics, like Tony Puryear’s Concrete Park and Robert Love’s Number 13 from Dark Horse Presents. The fun columns I got to write, like the two-parter on some of the more notorious ne’er-do-wells of the comic book industry, the mini-feud between Jason Aaron and Alan Moore, or my stint on WANT where I discovered Ham Solo in Candybaronite. I was writing during an exciting time for the industry, and it gave me ample opportunity to indulge in my geekdom; when the Thor movie hit theaters, I relished the chance to do a breakdown of Marvel mythology vs. Norse mythology and highlight some of the surprising differences. The X-Men: First Class film offered the chance to take a look back at the some of the stories that revealed the characters’ backgrounds in the comics. I had the chance to cover some of the sad moments too, as when Wildstorm came to an end, or when legends like Dwayne McDuffie and Gene Colan passed away. And I have to thank Paul Montgomery for giving me a shot at filling in on an iFanboy podcast—even if it was to cover the Conan The Barbarian remake, a movie we agreed was lousy!

In summary, I want to say thank you to everyone I worked with, and to you, the audience. And if you like what I’ve written for iFanboy, you can still follow me over at Ain’t It Cool News where I continue to do interviews and reviews, as well as PopTardsGo.com, where I am part of a quartet of comic book reviewers who do a weekly, spoiler-heavy podcast. You can also friend me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, or reach me by e-mail with questions/comments. Peace and love, everyone.

You Might Have Some Questions; We Might Have Some Answers

What about the iFanboy Memberships?

We have reduced the iFanboy Memberships to $3/month for monthly members and $30/year for yearly members. These changes have been made automatically to existing members accounts. If you are not currently a member and would like to become one, just go to the Member Registration page.  If you are an existing iFanboy Member and no longer wish to be, then all you have to do is send an email to contact AT ifanboy DOT com and give us your name and the email address you used to sign up and we will cancel your membership straight away.

Why do you still need iFanboy Members?

While ending the day-to-day operation of the website greatly reduces our costs, there are still others costs, like maintaining the server to keep the website up and all of the old content accessible, hosting for the podcasts, and equipments costs (for example, Josh’s microphone broke right before we recorded episode 400). We still need the iFanboy Members to help us keep the lights on, even if the lights are now different. You can sign up for a membership at the Member Registration page.

What if I don’t want to sign up for a membership? Can I still help support iFanboy?

Yes, of course you can. There are two quick and easy ways you can help out. You can provide a one time donation to iFanboy, in any amount you like (every little bit counts), just go to the Support iFanboy page and click on the Donate button.  Or you can head over to Amazon by way of this handy link, where iFanboy gets a cut of your purchases.

What about all the old articles and all of those awesome comments I made?

Everything that we’ve published over the last ten years of iFanboy will still be accessible and your accounts will still be active. The only catch is that you will only be able to comment on the new content moving forward. The old content will have the comments locked.

What will I do all day now?

Live, dammit! You live! Barring that, hopefully you’ll come back here and discuss the latest podcast and the comics, industry issues, movies, philosophical quagmires, existential quandaries, dumb jokes, and Goodfellas references contained therein. It’ll still be fun.