Hi there. Hello.

My name is Brandon Schatz. If you’re coming to this site for the first time today, chances are you just saw me on the television. I’m sorry about that, but in time, the pain will subside. In the meantime, I thought it might be pertinent to talk about the site, and what we do here.

Or at least it is in theory. When we started this site, we had a simple goal: to talk about comics and pop culture in a positive and constructive light. Pop culture sites are filled to the brim with people who want to dismantle or shrug at the things that they love, and we wanted something different. We talk about the things we love and we talk about ways the industry and pop culture in general could build instead of rend. We push inclusion, rather than exclusion. We want everyone to be able to enjoy the things that they like without judgement, because their opinions are valid and they matter.

But mostly, it’s a blog about comics.

It wasn’t mentioned on the CTV broadcast, but I will be leaving my job as manager at Wizard’s Comics on December 31st for bigger and better things. While I’ve loved my time there, a couple of great opportunities came up that I couldn’t pass up. One of them involves writing a whole lot more, and getting paid to do so. Some of that writing will be here. Some of it’s going to be elsewhere. All of it is going to be tailored to give people a better understanding of comics and the comic book industry in general.

To that effect, we’re starting up a series of newsletters here at the site:

• The Mostly Weekly - released most Tuesdays, this clues you into books hitting stands that week
• The Monthly Magazine - released on the first Friday of each month, the magazine will show you amazing books hitting stands in the near future
• The Almost Daily - a micro-newsletter that will feature a quick shot of content to wake you up in the morning!

All of these start tomorrow, so if you want to dig your heels in deep into comic culture, you can subscribe to one or all of our newsletters here.

If you’re interested in getting into comics, or if you want to buy a comic for someone and don’t know where to start, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m always available to make recommendations @soupytoasterson on Twitter - or if you’re more of the e-mail type, you can send an inquiry off to bschatz-at-comicstheblog.com. I promise I’ll find you something that’s going to be loved, either by yourself or someone else.

Again, thank you for coming to the site. Feel free to poke around, there’s over four years worth of content to explore - and please come back through-out the week.

I mean, seriously.

01. You probably noticed the new site design by now, didn’t you? Isn’t it swanky? I like how the header has a Sam Humphries afro.

02. That was a pleasant surprise, actually! Around here, I basically handle zero of the technical aspects that aren’t the podcast, and my responsibility with the site design is basically forgetting to answer Brandon’s texts and direct messages about the latest work-in-progress version of a new site design. I actually think Twitter has had more of a role with this than I have, actually; the last time we redesigned the site, our followers gave feedback to Brandon on the colours when mine was basically, “It’s pretty good.” I’m not always this lazy, I swear.

But that is a good example of how the site works. Brandon wrangles the tech stuff. I try to make sure posts have the same tags and formatting so that the site doesn’t feel as slapdash as it absolutely is, and so that the whole thing feels like the continuous thing I want it to be. Sometimes I silently debate murdering Brandon over saying shit like “kind’ve” and then realize that I don’t really want to have to start doing my own WordPress tech support and write everything. That’s friendship, I guess.

Hey everyone, and welcome to the brand new look for Comics! The Blog! We’ve been preparing this slowly in the background for a couple of months now, and we’re really proud of the look.

With the new site, comes a new format. We have a better layout for displaying our main features, and a nicer blog format to help facilitate shorter posts like this. What does it all mean? Whelp, a better looking site, with more content. What’s not to love?