Completely Futile

Though this blog is partly about comics, I don't intend to cover "current events" in the comics field. In this one case I'm making an exception, though: Gary Groth has fired Milo George as editor of The Comics Journal, replacing him with Dirk Deppey, who is consequently putting his blog iJournalista! on temporary hiatus. I don't know why Milo was fired, but for more details on iJournalista!'s fate, see here.

This news came as a shock to me. I had no idea there was any friction between Milo and Gary (not that I'm any kind of insider). Milo put out a good magazine; though I don't know of anybody better qualified to replace him than Dirk. But the loss of iJournalista!, even temporarily, will be keenly felt. Not only did Dirk keep track of news related to comics and cartooning, he was (and will be again, hopefully) a trusty guide to the best of the comics blogosphere, and added his own intelligent viewpoint.

I feel a bit of a personal connection to this story, since both Milo and Dirk have helped me with my "career," such as it is. Milo wasn't the first editor to publish my work, but he was the first paying editor to do so. Dirk was the first to link to this blog, afaik, and is responsible for most of what traffic I get; and his interest in my reviews/descriptions of Japanese-language manga encouraged me to keep doing them. The best of luck to both of them.