Fantagraphics has had to let Dirk “¡Journalista!” Deppey go as they could no longer afford a fulltime blogger. Dirk takes the opportunity of his last column to look back:
In the last ten years, I’ve thrown away a career, assembled porn mailers, drew comics, wrote essays, raised money for a homeless cartoonist, organized Seattle’s worst benefit concert ever, digitized hundereds of hours of cassette tapes containing (I think) the largest oral history of comics in the United States, started a weblog, kick-started a blogosphere, attended a bunch of geek festivals (including four San Diego Comic-Cons in a row), edited a magazine, interviewed cartoonists whom I greatly admired, got quoted in major newspapers on topics in which I was often unqualified to hold a quoteworthy opinion, became several bibliography citations, became a footnote, became an Internet micro-celebrity, became a Wikipedia entry (it reads “mostly harmless”), helped facilitate a manga line and spent a full four years working from home in my living room, naked! And I got paid to do all of it.
It’s a real pity it had to come this far, but completely understandable that it had to happen. Comics being not the most stable or profitable business at the best of times, with the recession grinding on indeterminably in the US, it’s not surprising Fantagraphics was wanting to cut costs — and a fulltime blogger is a luxury that is easily cut… You could call it a small miracle that they had been able to keep Deppey employed for as long as they did.
Luxury or not, Deppey’s importance in developing a proper comix blogosphere is not easily overestimated. Just having somebody there day in, day out collating and reporting on all sorts of comix related stories, directing traffic to blogs or websites otherwise overlooked, has helped to mold the blogosphere. What’s more, Deppey also served as an example for other bloggers, again both by being there every day and through the quality of his blogging. Sure, most of it was link blogging, but he always managed to pick at least two-three, sometimes even five or six interesting or thoughtful links every day, which few people could’ve equalled over so long a period. And when he wrote longer posts, it was always interesting as well.
On a more personal level, ¡Journalista!, was one of the blogs that managed to suck me back into comix again. If only for that he will be missed.