AOL Shutters Comics Alliance; (Re)Watch Them Beat Us at WonderCon 2011

ifanboy-comicsalliance

Robot6 confirmed what had been speculated about this weekend: along with closing many of their music sites, AOL also shuttered Comics Alliance.

This is sad news for those who have lost their jobs, for the comic book industry who has lost (for now) a unique voice, and for us as we are personal friends with the many of the talented people who ran and wrote for Comics Alliance. We wish them luck and know that people that talented won’t remain on the dole for long.

As a way of honoring Comics Alliance, we thought that the best thing to do would be to swallow our pride and re-post the video from out infamous “iFanboy vs. Comics Alliance” panel from WonderCon 2011 in which we were thoroughly beaten. Below you will find the original post (for context) and video.

In the meantime, so long, Comics Alliance. We’ll drink one for you tonight.


As some of you may have heard, back at WonderCon earlier this month, we squared off against our pals from the website Comics Alliance in a no-holds-barred battle of the comics sites. Ryan (@Agent_M) Penagos from Marvel hosted the panel and Rick Remender even made a cameo appearance.

And now, in conjunction with Comics Alliance, we present to you the complete and unedited video of the panel for you to enjoy:

(Total running time: 52 minutes)

Now as you can see, iFanboy did fall to Comics Alliance (thanks to some dubious scoring) but it was all in fun and we had a great time. A big thanks goes out to Rick Remender and Ryan Penagos for giving some of their time at a very busy con, as well as friend of iFanboy, Ash Aiwase for taping the entire panel and of course we couldn’t have had such a fun time without Laura Hudson, David Brothers and Andy Khouri from Comics Alliance.

But the biggest thank you goes out to all the great folks who attended the panel in person and to you for watching this video now. The whole reason why iFanboy and Comics Alliance exist is for you, to help spread the good word about comics and have fun while doing it, which I think this video captures perfectly.


Comments

  1. Sad news, iFanboy and Comics Alliance are the only two sites I check for comic news and opinion pieces.

    • Same here. I do enjoy Chris Sims particular brand of humor, and I enjoy seeing what drama gets stirred up over there from time to time, then come here for the reality check. 😉

      Very sad to see them shuttered though, but I’m hopeful that they form something new out of the ashes…No death in comics is forever!

  2. A damn shame.. I didn’t frequent the site but every time I visited CA there always was a fun thing to read.

  3. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    I remember that day, viscerally. I was home on the east coast, living vicariously through tweets. Was hoping I could be there for a rematch.

    The Comics Alliance crew did so many great things. Like everyone else, I can’t wait to see what they do next, as a group or individually.

  4. Man, that sucks. I didn’t frequent the site, but I would pop in from time to time. I definitely liked it far more than I do a few other larger comics sites out there. Hopefully these writers can find gigs or get their voices out elsewhere.

  5. Of the several comic sites I frequent, there’s always a good bit of repeat information (such is the nature of subject-specific journalism), but I always felt like CA stood out as a place that would cover topics not encountered elsewhere. The niche that they filled will be sorely missed. It felt terrible to delete them from the panoply of icons on my bookmark bar. Hopefully other sites will snatch those guys up; there was a lot of talent in the ranks.

  6. This is very sad news. And right in the middle of their Fighting Game Based Movie retrospective!

    I am severely bummed. If only there was another progressive, intelligent comics website around to snatch some of those writers up…

  7. Hire them as staff writers!

  8. Real bummer. I always thought that CA and iFanboy complemented each other nicely in the way they covered the industry. Hopefully the staff will find a new place to voice their thoughts, opinions, etc elsewhere on the web, hopefully still all together!

    • Yup, I don’t like the everything in the universe ever sites that seriously kowtow to Marvel and DC, I would go to CA for opinion and pieces and commentary on the issues and iFanboy would usually offer a more just the facts based approach to a lot of contentious issues while also remaining very even handed. Both sites complemented each other well I thought and are always well curated and feel like REAL PEOPLE are actually writing and have a distinct voice and care about the topics they are covering. Plus iFanboy and CA have the best comment threads BY FAR.

  9. This is a real shocker.

    Apart from iFanboy and Bleeding Cool I get a lot of my news (and solicitations info) from Comics Alliance. That and their commentary articles on bad superhero movies were always a riot. I hope these guys and gals get some work and I’m sure they will. Just makes no sense for AOL to do this.

  10. UGH! This is depressing.

    CA and ifanboy are my two most clicked sites….christ G4tv, now CA….

    “DAMN, IT’S HEART-BREAK HOTEL UP IN HERE! ELVIS LEAVE US ALONE!” – Regge

  11. This is a huge bummer. Amongst all the cries of “let’s stop getting angry” that permeate the comics industry I really appreciated a site that would actually take a stand and get angry about representations of women, LGBT and race in comics. I hope something new pops up to fill this void soon.

  12. Chris Sims put up a post regarding the closure. Seems they were as suprised as we are.

    http://www.the-isb.com/

  13. UPDATE: It’s back? Another company bought them, and hired back most of the original staff…Looks like they are back.