Editorial: The Long Goodbye
Jonathan Ellis and Ed Mathews

In the next month or so, PopImage is going to undergo a transformation. In the meanwhile, we welcome Brian Domingos as acting Editor in Chief. We do this because after much discussion, we are leaving the site. Rather than go into all the reasons, we'll hit you with the main one: we just don't have the time. When we decided to be co-Editors it was because we both knew that neither of us had the time to do the job alone. Today, that time is even more limited due to constraints in our personal and professional lives. In essence, it's time for us to go. - Ed.

This past October the First marked the 8th birthday of the official launch of PopImage.com. 8 years. That alone is rough to get my head around. A lot has changed since then, with the site, its original staff, our friends, the comics and graphic novel medium itself. Ed is absolutely right, time is a huge factor, even now he and I are stretching to get our farewell written up (and the difficulty of finding the right thing to say after years of involvement only adds to that), but also (and I’m speaking for myself here), passion. I still love the medium just in a different way then years ago. It’s difficult to say goodbye, there were a few things I would’ve liked to have done before leaving but I’m proud of a lot of the work I’ve done for the site, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with several people whose work inspires and entertains me and I’m grateful for the numerous and amazing friends I’ve made through my commitment here. - Jonathan.

There are so many people we'd like to thank for their tireless contributions to the site. Jonathan Ellis has been with the site from the beginning in 1999; Ed Mathews since 2000. In that time frame, the support network of contributors and editors has been vast. - Ed.

No kidding, the contributors in our first year alone are too numerous to account here. Rather then go on and on name dropping [I'll say my personal Thank You's in person or in e-mail later] I'd like to thank all our contributors, editors, creators, writers, artists, readers - in general, everyone who ever came to the site, helped us out, enjoyed what we did and more - Thank You Dearly and I hope you enjoyed your time with us as much as we enjoyed having you here.

Cheers.- Jonathan.

In those eight years, PopImage has been home to some of the best interviews, insider industrial pieces, and in my humble opinion, web comics available... and all for free. It was our honor to have you visit the site and we hope you'll continue to do so and give Brian Domingos and Scott Grunewald the same level of loyalty and support that you've shown all of us over the years. Let me echo Jonathan's sentiments and thank you all, especially the loyal PopImage audience. You trusted us to report the news, to put the spotlight on some of the best comics available, and try to push the envelope as far as a mainstream comics journalism site could go. I hope you found that trust was rewarded.- Ed.

I second that, on the bright side, one of the good things about stepping down is that I'm looking forward to seeing what Brian does as he moves forward. As we've dredged along with new content for a while as both Ed and I struggled to simply do even something small Brian has been there, week in, week out, never missing a step [Although I don't think anyone will ever know exactly how much time and energy Ed has put into the site over the years - The guy's got like 4 jobs]. As for what the future may hold for us... well... maybe something, maybe not right away, but something - I believe we'll both be around in some fashion or another, here or elsewhere. I for one look forward to, hopefully, sitting down and making a very tiny dent in a very large pile of reading that's been sitting to the sides for far too long.

In the meantime I'll be keeping my PopImage e-mail so you can continue to contact me at ellis@popimage.com until further notice, or contact me through my MySpace or Livejournal accounts [Sorry, no Facebook - Just those two is plenty as is]. That seems to be it from me except to say once more, Thanks, Cheers, I Love Ya all and I'll be seeing you around. Ed?- Jonathan.

I'm going to be around. Sort of. The creative bug bit me and I know it's not really the popular route, but I feel that you can't be an effective journalist and turn into your own subject matter. Meanwhile, e-mail me at ed@popimage.com. I have nothing special to announce yet, but if I do I hope that PopImage will cover it. How's that for cryptic, Jonathan? There's several ways this paragraph can end. I'm going with a quote from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. "You stay classy, San Diego!" Stay classy indeed.- Ed.

Jonathan Ellis and Ed Mathews have been Co-Editors in Chief for several years now and are moving on. Please continue to enjoy PopImage.


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