Blog@ Contributor No More!

Hi there loyal Every Day Is Like Wednesday reader. Have you noticed the content on this supposedly daily comics blog has been decidedly less daily than usual the last week or two? Have you also noticed that you haven't seen my byline on any posts at Blog@Newsarama.com (which I assume it's safe to assume that you're in the habit of visiting Monday through Friday for bonus, EDILW-like, Caleb-written content) in a while?

You have? My, but you're observant. Have you wondered why that might be? You have? Observant and inquisitive; you'll go far in life!

Well I've been feeling a bit ground down by the, um, grind of producing at least twelve posts about comics each and every week, seven of which I do for the sheer pleasure of hearing myself talk about comics, the other five of which I was doing for actual money (albeit a relatively small amount of money).

I honestly loved doing both, but changes in my professional life over the past year or so have eaten up a lot of my writing-about-comics-for-no-to-little-pay time. When I started this blog in 2006, I was 100% unemployed; when I started contributing to Blog@ in...whenever that was (2008? 2009? I honestly can't remember; it was a December, I know that much), I was working 20 hours a week at a job that allowed me to write while on the clock (which was pretty much the best job I've ever had, and was mighty disappointed to lose it). That hasn't been the case over the last seven months or so, and I just got a new-new day job, an event which seemed like a good time to make a change in my, uh, night job as well.

Because I am dumb and bad with money, I decided to quit doing the writing-online-about-comics gig for which I got paid, but to continue doing the one for which I do not. That is, I'm no longer going to be contributing to Blog@, but will continue writing here as per usual—and hopefully with renewed enthusiasm resulting in sharper, better content.

I could have probably continued doing both for a while longer, but it was increasingly apparent to me that I was phoning work for both venues in a little too often, and what I was giving Blog@ lately wasn't my best. While a little extra money to blow on comics each month is always welcome, I was beginning to feel a little bad about not giving them my best, and having my name attached to work I knew wasn't my best.

Additionally, if I had to choose between the two, and I sort of felt I did, I wanted to continue doing the one that was all mine, that I had the most control over (unless blogger or Google gets hacked or decides to eat my blog or something, I guess, since I'm still on a blogger blogspot blog because, again, I am dumb).

And that's pretty much all there is to it. I don't have any bad feelings about any of the folks I worked for or with there, and am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that Matt Brady, Troy Brownfield, Lucas Siegel and Mike Doran have given me over the years, which amounted to essentially doing whatever I wanted, so long as I did it once a day Monday through Friday, and then giving me some money for doing what I'd do for free anyway. The bosses at Blog@ couldn't really have been more hands-off, and I generally only heard form t hem when I had a question. I wish them all the best of success at Newsarama and/or whatever they all decide to do next (Brady, as you know, moved on a while ago).

I'll continue to read Blog@ just as I did before I started contributing, and I hope you will to (To be honest, I think it's gotten even better in the past few weeks once Graeme McMillan started contributing again and, a little before that, when Jill Pantozzi started contributing and Alan Kistler started talking about superhero costumes.

I'm sure—like, 100% positive—that I'll be contributing to another comics-focused site on the Internet in the very near future, although it will be on a more limited basis, which will allow me to focus on quality instead of quantity. Daily blogging is a lot of freaking work, even the extremely easy, low-thought sorts of posts I was doing (link-blogging, examinations of the weekly releases, straight reviews), that took me an awful lot of time, if not always a lot of creative thinking. And, ultimately, time spent reading every comics blog I could find for link fodder was time I wasn't spending doing my best work here, or reviewing comics at better-paying gigs, or, perhaps most importantly, making my own comics. (And if you've read that first one I made, then you probably know they need all the work they can get).

So that's that. I'll be sure to update you on any future developments regarding me-writing-about-comics-on-the-Interent. In the mean time, I've been recharging my batteries a bit, reading things that aren't comic books, and spending time with my friends: