Dear WWAC fam,
A few years ago I took on the responsibility of being the publisher of WWAC. I believed that WWAC still provided something special, something important, to the world of pop culture criticism and journalism, and comics criticism and journalism specifically, and I wanted to keep the lights on, and the doors open, while also making plans for the future. At the time that I took on the role of publisher, there was no reason to think that how WWAC operated needed to change.
I still believe that WWAC is something special, but since that time, there have been cultural changes that have made me question whether WWAC has served its purpose. I’ve questioned whether it is time to shut down the site and go the way other sites that were around when WWAC was getting started. The way we consume criticism has changed, and a website like this is not reflective of those changes. The website’s tagline used to be, “Criticism doesn’t fit into a box. Neither do we.” It’s time to reimagine what WWAC can be, outside of the box, once again.
The editorial board and I are united in the need to temporarily shut down WWAC in order to pause, reflect, and plan for radical change. While a few articles we previously had scheduled will continue to roll out for the month of January, starting in February, we will be unpublishing our Creator page on Patreon to pause all memberships indefinitely. The WWAC website will remain live for as long as we have funding to do so (since it is being archived by the Library of Congress).
When WWAC does reopen its doors, it will be in a radically different form as a non-profit organization. What that organization might look like is still uncertain, but the editors and I are committed to only reopening the site if we can create a sustainable paid model for contributors. This will necessarily mean fewer articles being published and the schedule for publishing to be drastically reduced to 1-2 articles weekly, or even monthly. The types of articles WWAC publishes may also change. For the past 10 years WWAC has prided itself on its variety of articles, including long-form criticism, roundtables, comics-themed drink recipes, columns, reviews, investigative reports, exclusives, interviews, con diaries, award-winning public comics scholarship, and our #1 article of all time, Top 10 Redheads in Comics.
It’s been quite a ride. I don’t know when WWAC will be back, but I want to say thank you to everyone who has been a WWAC Patreon and kept WWAC going in the past few years. You’ve donated thousands of dollars at a time when every dollar matters. Supporting the arts is a luxury that few of us can truly afford. Thank you for choosing to spend some of those dollars supporting WWAC and its mission. We hope to see you all again soon.
