(To view a larger version of this chart, click here. Please note that this chart has been altered from the print version, after Lying in the Gutters' Rich Johnston successfully argued that he had in fact produced a detailed piece of journalism on Diamond's new cut-off terms. See sidebar, TCJ #273, page 30.)

The time has come to tote up the hard numbers, the pluses and minuses of what we know about the Internet and how much we can trust what it wants to tell us about the comics industry.

Even after eight installments, we haven't considered every Web journalist or would-be journalist, of course. But in Comicon.com's Rick Veitch, The Pulse's Jen Contino, Lying in the Gutters' Rich Johnston, The Comics Reporter (and The Pulse)'s Tom Spurgeon, The Beat's Heidi MacDonald, ICv2's Milton Griepp, Newsarama's Matt Brady and The Comic Wire's Jonah Weiland, we were able to assemble the most likely suspects, the comics-news reporters most commonly visited by other comics-news reporters. All but Brady and Weiland were kind enough to talk to the Journal about their aspirations, strengths and shortcomings. None, disappointingly, were willing to lay claim to practicing comics journalism.

Some (Veitch and Spurgeon) aspired to journalism and hoped to one day have the money and time to pursue it. Some (Contino and Griepp) acknowledged a calling to support and promote the industry. Most regarded themselves as entertainers and bloggers (MacDonald, Johnston, Contino, Veitch, Spurgeon) and some (MacDonald, Johnston) even argued that they adhered to standards that equaled or exceeded those of print journalism. But none were willing to accept the label of "journalist," let alone live up to the expectations by which such a role is measured. Johnston tried it on for six weeks, but decided it wasn't a comfortable fit.

With the exception of Veitch, who retired his Splash column in favor of his comics-creator and website-proprietor day jobs, all work hard to give their Web audience what they feel that audience is looking for. In order to determine exactly what the Internet is delivering to comics news patrons, the Journal spent a couple of months closely monitoring all the above sites. The resulting statistics are as suspect as any collection of statistics, based as they are on numerous judgment calls and calculations. But they are nonetheless instructive in several ways.

If, like the Journal, you visit these sites looking for comics news, you will probably come away with a few nuggets of news, after sifting through promotional press releases, reflections on He-Man action figures and the Star Wars franchise, and speculations about who should play the villain in the next Spider-Man movie. Unless we have a particular fondness for He-Man, say, we associate the site with the news nuggets we found and are only dimly aware of surrounding static. But by approaching the sites scientifically, categorizing and counting the many links to links to press releases about Superman action-figure retailer promotions, Q&As; with the editor of Vampirella, and Heidi's diary entries, we were made horribly conscious of what a vast array of nonjournalistic content regularly rolls out of comics news sites. It is not a pleasant task, as the Journal was informed by the staff members who were delegated to perform it, and readers are not advised to try it at home.

But the statistical pictures that emerged from this exercise tell us quite a bit about how each site differs in personality, orientation and ambition, as well as what each site apparently feels you want or need to know about the comics industry. If there is an ounce of journalistic methodology out there, the numbers should lead us to it. If not, they will at least let us count all the things that are wrong with comics news on the Web.

Aiming to gauge the degree to which the sites seek out, investigate and pursue news, our survey attempted to note the sources of each report -- whether it came from a private tip or a public press release or a report on another website. If the report came from a private tip was it followed up on or simply passed on to readers undigested? If from a press release, was the press release investigated further, paraphrased or simply reprinted verbatim? If the report came from a posting elsewhere on the Web, did the report expand upon the posting or simply link to it? At any point in the assembling of the story, did the reporter talk to anyone either in person or by phone or e-mail?

Also measured was the tendency of a site to focus on actual comics-related news as opposed to roaming willy-nilly among pop-culture and entertainment announcements having nothing to do with comics. Comics-related business news was allowed in this category, but after some deliberation, coverage of comics-related movies was not. Coverage of Smurfs collectibles or Clive Owens' hotness was not considered to be comics-related.

The survey also noted whenever a news story appeared to be primarily aimed at selling a product. This, as it turned out, was almost always. These stories are identified as "commerce" in the chart, which doesn't mean that any story about the economy or business of the comics industry is included. Stories that were primarily analytical about the comics marketplace were not identified as commerce. Likewise, stories about negative aspects of the comics marketplace, such as a publisher's bankruptcy, were not considered commerce. The stories that fell into this category were about announcing the presence of new products on the market and enumerating the product's selling points -- new comics titles, for example, and their creative teams. When a story simply passed on a press release about a particular comics creator signing an exclusive contract with Marvel or DC, it was considered commerce. For some sites, it was hard to find a story that did not fall into this category.

When a report ventured beyond a press release and involved communication between the reporter and a person in the news, the survey noted whether it was presented in the context of analysis and background or simply as a verbatim e-mail Q&A.;

When an item on a comics news site did not report any new information, but expressed the writer's opinion about some aspect of the industry, it was identified in the chart as "opinion." The vast majority of stories turned out to be the opposite of this category, passing on information -- usually from a press release or from another website's report of a press release -- without questioning, analyzing, criticizing or contextualizing the information. If a report did pause to think about the consequences or implications of the information being imparted, it was identified as "critical." Most were decidedly uncritical.

In all cases, the Journal categorized the reports based on its interpretation of what could be read on the site. When there was no indication of how a story was initiated, for example, the story was not categorized on the chart according to how it was initiated.

Considering the Web's infatuation with being the first to post new information, however unsubstantiated, it's not surprising that many stories on comics news sites are of a timely nature. A place was left on the chart for exceptions, such as feature stories examining issues in the industry from a broad perspective or historical essays about creators, publishers or movements. The category was interpreted so generously that a history of the Batmobile posted near the release of Batman Begins qualified, but, in spite of this, nontopical stories were found to be virtually nonexistent on the Web.

The most lonely category, however, was the Holy Grail of our series -- the place where stories that qualified as bona fide journalism were to be listed. Here's what we asked of a story in order to be considered journalism on our chart: 1) It should be about a newsworthy topic or issue -- not just selling a product or promoting a company. 2) The reporter should have asked questions of people, getting multiple perspectives on the story. 3) The sources of the story's perspectives and information should be identified. 4) The story should consider the context and implications of the information being reported and reflect the reporter's research into the story's background. Minimum standards, one would think, but after two months of scouring the Web for instances that qualified, the sad results are before us.

The Pulse generally manages to keep up a steady flow of news, logging a total of 362 items for the two months monitored by the Journal, despite the fact that the site was out of commission for roughly a week due to technical problems (and, even after it came back online on Aug. 21, all its links, no matter what the headline, went to the same story about Hercules actor Kevin Sorbo). If it is outpaced by Matt Brady's Newsarama, that is only because The Pulse rests on Sunday. The primary thing that characterizes The Pulse's coverage is its sunny disposition. Under Jen Contino's guidance, the site is relentlessly positive about the industry and happily passes on press release after press release. Of the 362 stories reported on The Pulse during the Journal's target period, a total of 310 were in the service of selling a product or promoting a company. The news here is so unmediated that more than half the site's stories -- a total of 215 -- were virtually no more than links to press releases or reports on other sites. Barely one-fifth of the stories involved follow-up or communication of any kind with the persons involved. Movie and comics studio 3 Boys Productions and the creator of the Action Philosophers comic book were each allowed to write glowing articles about themselves. Not a single story attempted to be reflective or historical about some aspect of the comics field. Every report was tied to a recent event, usually announced within the previous 24 hours.

And yet, comparatively speaking, The Pulse rated higher than any of the other sites when it came to generating stories that would meet the minimal standards necessary for them to classified as journalism. Two of the 362 reports showed a spark of critical analysis, including coverage of the resolution of a class-action suit filed by comics retailers against Marvel Comics. The class-action story was written by The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon but posted on The Pulse, which has hired Spurgeon to write hard news reports to supplement Contino's gloss on creator-team announcements and product news.

Thanks to Spurgeon, The Pulse had two stories that qualified as actual journalism, according to the Journal's standards. Both were related to Hurricane Katrina, which was one of those disaster events so monumental that every news venue, in the broadest sense of the word, desperately tried to find an angle of its own. If you published a magazine called, say, Car Restorers Digest, you ran articles about how to protect your car from floods and hurricanes. If you published Shuffleboarders Monthly, you ran articles about how long it would take to get New Orleans shuffleboard courts back in action. The online comics press was no exception, with most of the sites attempting to report on the status of any comics retailers or creators they could think of who might have been caught in the flood -- and if no comics connection to the disaster could be found, reports on "What You Can Do to Help" and various charity efforts were posted, even if they had nothing to do with comics. Spurgeon carried his reports to the level of journalism by actually contacting comics-related persons affected by the hurricane, including the staff of anime and manga producer ADV Films. The stories were not really issue-oriented or analytical, and the ADV story was only 12 sentences long, but an effort was made to gather information that was neither handed out via press release nor aimed at selling a product, and on that basis alone, these two stories stand out from the bulk of online comics news.

On Spurgeon's own site, The Comics Reporter, he is content, for the most part, to monitor reports on other people's sites and link to them when he finds something interesting. He is relatively new to the game, but, with a total of 715, he has outpaced the veterans with respect to the sheer volume of posts on his site, even taking into account the weeklong downtime suffered by The Beat and The Pulse. He accomplishes this by being the King of the Link-Onlys. An amazing 641 of his posts, all but a small fraction of the total, offer links to other sites without any comment to speak of. When he does comment, however, he is more apt to be critical or analytical than most of his colleagues. The Journal noted 44 such posts, and 24 that were outright opinion pieces. Small numbers considering his total output, but significantly more than Newsarama or Pulse.

Comics Reporter is a classic case of the Web's tendency to cannibalize itself, and there is no evidence of communication between Spurgeon and any of his news sources either in person, by phone or by exchange of e-mails. One tip was noted in the Journal's study, but neither the tip nor any of the press releases Spurgeon reported showed any sign of having been followed up with questions. Even Q&As; were nonexistent on his site. Essentially, The Comics Reporter reports on two things: information disseminated by the comics Web community and what Spurgeon thinks about that information. Any journalistic activity, Spurgeon evidently saves for The Pulse, which is willing to pay him for his efforts.

Heidi MacDonald's Beat makes no pretense of being an objective news source. MacDonald is the one who bragged to the Journal that "online journalism has been beating print for the last five years at least," but she sees The Beat as primarily a column reflecting her own interests and sensibilities and only secondarily a source of news. Since her viewpoint is a big part of the column, it's not surprising that the Journal recorded 30 instances of reports that reflected critically on the issues they raised -- or 10 times the number of critical stories found on The Pulse during the same period. Even so, that number is less than one-tenth of the 317 stories posted on The Beat during the two-month target period. A mere eight columns were found to be primarily expressions of MacDonald's opinion. Generally, her positions are far from antagonistic: Her Sept. 14 report on Diamond's new policy (which threatened to cancel orders for books that do not meet a set sales threshold) noted that Diamond couldn't be blamed for protecting its bottom line and expressed confidence that creativity in the comics field would probably not be destroyed by the policy.

Since the idea of The Beat is mostly to filter industry news through MacDonald's perspective, little attention is paid to breaking or investigating new stories. Most stories seem to come from things MacDonald has observed at conventions or on other websites. A total of 16 stories apparently came from private tips, but only two involved any follow-up by MacDonald. Only one Q&A; appeared on The Beat during the monitored period. Like Comics Reporter, The Beat is cannibalistic, drawing much of its content from the content of other sites. A total of 240 items on The Beat -- or more than two-thirds of the two-month total of 317 -- were nothing more than links to other sites.

MacDonald's column roams farther afield than most comics news sites, with a total of 88 reports having nothing to do with comics. Her column for Sept. 14, for example, included reports on anime, Star Trek, an upcoming Beowulf movie and the body-odor problems experienced by the cast of Lost. A report on Sept. 9 focused on the complaints of a friend of MacDonald's concerning the poor fashion sense seen at conventions. Only one story during the two months reflected on anything other than current events. None could be described as journalism by any reasonable definition.

Matt Brady's Newsarama was perhaps the Journal's biggest disappointment, not just because he declined to be interviewed on the record, but because his occasional pursuit of serious news coverage had given the Journal a better impression than the statistics bore out. We remembered the Newsarama reports that were meritorious; monitoring everything on the site day after day reminded us of the many, many Newsarama reports that were not. Its output is second only to The Comics Reporter's, with a total of 433, though The Beat and The Pulse might have caught up to it if not for their server problems. Among those 433 posts, journalistic gems were not easy to find. The vast majority, a total of 352, were all about selling products.

Ten out of a total of 42 press-release-based stories were followed up with additional questions by a Newsarama reporter, usually Brady. That's a slightly better record than Newsarama's fellow comics-news sites, which tend not to follow up on press releases at all. On the other hand, Newsarama ran another 59 press releases verbatim, with virtually no comment, let alone follow-up. Newsarama racked up a total 128 contacts with news sources, largely due to its fondness for Q&As.; This would be more beneficial if some of the Qs were tougher and the As followed up. Only nine stories showed any kind of analysis or critical reflection on the content of the report.

A single story came close to the Newsarama that we remember. Diamond's newly revealed policy by which comics that don't achieve a required dollar amount in sales are subject to have their orders canceled was arguably the biggest story in the comics industry during the two-month period of the Journal's website study. It was a story that Brady could sink his teeth into, and he did -- up to a point. The complexities of Diamond's terms of trade with retailers and publishers are not as likely to catch the interest of most Web-surfing comics fans as, say, news that Eliza Dushku may play Wonder Woman in the next Joss Whedon movie, but Brady took the time to dig into the details of the distributor's policy and rationale, interviewing Diamond Comics Purchasing Manager Jim Kuhoric at some length. Unfortunately, Diamond's viewpoint was the only one articulated in the report. Instead of interviewing affected publishers and retailers, Brady acknowledged other perspectives by simply linking to The Engine, an Internet message board. His report was so sympathetic to Diamond that the distributor used it as a handout to retailers. A math mistake by Brady obscured the fact that Diamond had just raised the sales target it required of the comics it distributed. The report was later revised to correct the mistake after it was pointed out by Lying in the Gutters' Johnston.

Overall then, it wasn't a very strong piece of journalism. It contained factual inaccuracies, failed to get multiple points of view and sucked up to its corporate subject. But it did ask questions and present information about an important issue not derived from a press release and therefore qualified, however minimally, as journalism. Nothing else came close at Newsarama during the entire two months.

Jonah Weiland's The Comic Wire at Comic Book Resources reports comics news at a fairly steady pace six days a week, but its total for the two months of 119 represents a comparative trickle, compared to the likes of The Pulse and Newsarama. One thing that may slow Weiland and the other Comic Wire reporters down is their habit of contacting people for comment. The Journal noted 70 stories in which contact was apparently made between Comic Wire and news sources. Out of 119 stories reported by Comic Wire during the two months, that was a better ratio than was seen at any of the other comics news sites. And while the total numbers for most of the other sites were inflated by the large number of posts that were no more than links to someone else's report or press release, Comic Wire featured no links at all except as supplements to its own coverage of a given story.

But when faced with a press release, the Wire was more likely than not to simply reproduce it verbatim and without comment. A total of 20 stories were apparently rephrased from press releases -- three of them including follow-up information that went beyond the press releases. Another 40 posts were nothing more than press releases quoted word-for-word.

And while Comic Wire wasn't entirely reliant on press releases, the reports it put together are generally positive and promotional enough to be the envy of PR copywriters. Only one story during the entire two months showed a trace of critical analysis. For the most part, Comic Wire is all about selling products, with 108 of its stories falling into that category during the two months. But it does have the virtue, at least, of focusing on comics-related products. While stories unrelated to comics were commonplace at most of the other comics news sites, only one such story appeared on The Comic Wire during the two-month period. (It may be aided in its focus by the fact that it shares its space at the Comic Book Resources site with The Comic Reel, which takes jurisdiction over all comics-and-movies news.) Overall, the site's softball treatment of its subjects, its inability to tackle controversial issues or ask tough questions meant that none of its stories during the two months could be called journalism.

Milton Griepp's ICv2 is a spin-off of the consultation business he has operated since selling Capital City Distribution, the comics distributing company he co-owned, to Diamond. As such, it is aimed more at industry professionals -- retailers and publishers -- than at comics readers. This means it traffics in less fanboy fluff than is normally found at comics news sites, but it is no less concerned with selling products. In fact, ICv2 is undoubtedly the most product-minded of the comics news sites under consideration: Of its total of 201 reports, 188 were in the service of selling something. Nor does the something have to be comics-related. Given the growing importance of anime and collectible toys to retailers, there were more than twice as many stories on the site not related to comics (140) than were related to comics. On Sept. 14, for example, ICv2 posts included reports on anime, a Nancy Drew movie and Hasbro games.

Anyone who has spoken with Griepp knows that he is highly plugged into the industry and has many contacts at all levels of the business, but he hasn't gotten to that position by sharing confidences with the general public. Only one story on the site apparently originated with a private tip to Griepp, and only four stories seemed to involve direct contact between Griepp and a news source. The vast majority of the stories (184) were simply reworkings of press releases. Rarely were press releases presented verbatim without comment (five times), but they were also rarely followed up with additional investigation (twice). No stories consisted of a link only; any links were in the context of coverage presented by ICv2.

There is no better comics news site in terms of concision and accuracy, but let the buyer beware, because ICv2 has the best interests of the seller at heart. A total of 10 ICv2 stories qualified as analytical during the two months, but because Griepp's first aim is to support those who are in the business of comics and not to inform the public, the practice of probing, skeptical journalism is not something that comes naturally to the site. Nothing that qualified as journalism was spotted at ICv2 during the two months.

Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters updates only once a week, so its output is naturally slower than the other sites, with a total of 86 reports. It is also unique among the news sites under consideration in that it presents itself not as a news site, but as a rumor column -- although it takes considerable pride in breaking stories missed by ordinary news sites. Rumors are reported alongside stoplight icons indicating the reliability of the information on a scale of red, yellow and green. Its rumor concept would suggest that Lying in the Gutters would have no use for press releases, and that virtually all its stories would originate from private tips. Based on the Journal's study, that is not quite the case, though the site's total of 30 tip-initiated stories outnumbered all the other comics news sites in that category. Gauging the actual sources of LitG's reports, however, is dicey due to the measures Johnston takes to disguise their identities. As he told the Journal, "I often obfuscate sources to hide their identity -- even deny that a story has sources on many occasion." (We can assume that Johnston was in contact with news sources more often than the five instances noted on the chart, but due to the cloudy circumstances surrounding the sources of his stories, there are only a handful of cases where Johnston can clearly be seen to be making contact with an individual.)

With Johnston's sources shrouded in secrecy, there's no real place for Q&As; on his site. The format does encourage a critical approach, however. Because the stories are leaked rather than announced, they tend to be about negative aspects of the industry -- unpaid creators, censored books -- rather than the stuff of press releases. As a percentage of total output, the number of Johnston's reports (20) that were identified as critical or analytical was greater than for any of the other sites. As a result, Johnston's site is able to take more of a consistent philosophical stance in relation to issues in the industry. It probably also accounts for his site's ability to focus on comics as a subject. Only five stories strayed into areas unrelated to comics -- fewer than any other site in the study.

Ultimately, though, Johnston's role is as passive or reactive as the press-release wrangling of the other sites. As with the other sites, the stories come to Johnston, and though he has maintained that he regularly checks out the veracity of the information he passes on, only two of the 30 tip-initiated stories and six of the 15 press-release inspired stories showed signs of having been followed up. (That may be due to the source-obfuscation factor again, though. It may be that there is a lot of investigation going on that is invisible to the naked eye behind the scenes of Lying in the Gutters.) Sources, of course, have their reasons for sharing a story, whether in the form of a press release or an anonymous tip. Unpaid creators, for instance, leak information because they hope it will help them get paid. And as with the other news sites, some information (creator assignments, for example) is leaked, because the source hopes it will sell a product. Thus even in as seemingly adversarial a venue as Lying in the Gutters, a total of 49 reports (more than half Johnston's total output for the two months) were in the service of selling products.

At least in the case of the press-release-inspired stories of the other news sites, a reader knows where he or she stands. The source is clearly identified and motivations are generally self-evident. Because sources are often not identified in Johnston's rumor column, readers are in the position of having to accept on faith the reliability of the information as rated by the site's stoplight system. It is a tenet of good journalism that information be attributed to identified sources or corroborated. The Journal found no stories that qualified as journalism on Lying in the Gutters during the two months.

All in all, this is not a good report card. And these, remember, are at the head of the Internet class. They are the seven most promising pracititioners of comics news on the Web. So it's disappointing to see them each deserving of an individually labeled dunce cap: Tom Spurgeon, the Link-Only King, constantly passing notes in class. Heidi MacDonald, Class Clown. Jen Contino and Jonah Weiland, Teacher's Pets. Matt Brady, Underachiever. Rich Johnston, Class Gossip. Milton Griepp, Inattentive to the Subject at Hand.

What is wrong with online comics news? Let us count the ways:

1. For the content of their news, online reporters have learned to rely on press releases to such a degree that they have essentially become a promotional arm of the companies and creators they cover.
2. The kind of solidarity that grows out of loyalty to an art form is a fine thing, but not if it erases a reporter's healthy skepticism or renders a reporter incapable of asking hard questions.
3. As often as not, information presented on the Web comes out of a cloud of unattributed sources. If a reporter is going to disseminate data indiscriminately, at least give readers a chance to judge the veracity of its sources.
4. Online stories commonly consist of nothing but links to other sites that link to other sites, etc., so that the Web becomes a kind of hall of mirrors reflecting nothing but themselves. If French critic André Gide had ever seen the Internet, he would have called it a mise-en-abyme, an image of infinitely regressive reduplication.
5. Enlisted by companies (and consumers) in the service of cataloging products for sale, online comics news frequently fails to even stick to the subject of comics-related products, hawking anime, toys, non-comics movies and cigarette lighters in the guise of reporting news.
6. The comics industry is a relatively small place and reporters are typically friendly with the people they cover. That becomes a conflict of interest, when, as is often the case in the world of online comics news, the reporter's relationship with a pro is more important than the reporter's relationship with the truth.
7. Because the comics industry is such a small place and because online reporting pays so poorly, online comics reporters would almost all like to have jobs with the companies they are reporting on. Not a situation conducive to hard-nosed journalism.
8. The Web's obsession with immediacy leads to shallow reiteration, that rarely takes the time to reflect on the context or implications of the news.
9. The rush to post on online comics news sites leads to inaccuracies. The sites correct their mistakes as they go along, but that's not much help to readers who only see the initial post.
10. Online reporters (and print reporters to a slightly lesser extent) have grown overly reliant on e-mail as a means of communicating with news sources. The trouble with e-mail interviews is that it requires an extra diligence on the part of the reporter to follow up on evasive, unclear or suggestive replies. That level of diligence is rarely seen in online comics news, where we are lucky to see evidence of any kind of communication with a news source. As Brian Michael Bendis once told the Journal (to its face): "[An e-mail interview] is not an interview. It's an essay test."

We could go on, but this is a good time to interject a caveat: Of course, none of the online reporters under review (except, perhaps, Brady) ever promised to provide anything other than what they are in fact providing. Nor is there anything wrong with what they're providing, as far as it goes. Links are good things. Entertainment is good. Griepp's number-crunching performs a much-needed service to his professional audience. Nobody manages comics-industry rumors as well as Johnston. Even the sites' catalog function of notifying fans of the latest products in the marketplace is a useful service. On the face of it, the Internet would seem to be the perfect medium for news, because it is ideally designed to feed the Web audience's presumed craving for news, delivered instantaneously and in vast quantities.

But the roles and limitations of these sites are also Web-induced habits. One after the other, the online reporters who spoke with the Journal in this series described the Web as an insatiable appetite that compelled them to maintain a constant stream of data, with little time for investigation, reflection or even verification. Gathering comics news for the Web has become a series of reflexes -- skim other sites, skim press releases, cut, paste, paraphrase, repeat. At its worst, online comics news has become a vast echo chamber, a chain of links, with nothing, finally, at the other end but a corporate PR department.

Given the limitless space and time of the World Wide Web, there should be room and time somewhere for news coverage of depth and research, stories in which reporters talk to the people who affect and are affected by events in the art and industry of comics. As a practical matter, websites that want to deliver a steady stream of eyes for its banner ads must update frequently and regularly, but why not add into the mix, say once or twice a week, a more substantial report that asks tough questions and explores the ramifications of what all those press releases are telling us and not telling us?

Comicon.com co-proprietor Rick Veitch would seem to have high journalistic standards, based on his message-board comments, but in the sites he oversees, Heidi MacDonald, Jen Contino and Tom Spurgeon have racked up three strikes against those standards. Hiring Spurgeon to pursue more thorough reports alongside the stream of news blurbs and press releases that make most of The Pulse sounded like the right idea. As an alumnus of the esteemed Comics Journal, Spurgeon brought a discerning intelligence and wide experience of the industry to the job. But in the end, at least as far as can be gleaned from the results of our two-month study, the pressures and habits of the Web have overtaken him on The Pulse as well as his own site.

Does online comics news exist? Yes -- weakly, rarely, tentatively, Spurgeon and Brady have demonstrated its possibility. But precisely because the Web has become such a ubiquitous and essential source of information in the 21st century, we can only hope that the reporters of that information will learn to adhere to a higher standard than their audiences have come to demand.

Veitch, Spurgeon, Brady, Contino, MacDonald, Griepp, Johnston and Weiland are all invited to have the last word on this subject in TCJ #273. Whether they wish to rebut our criticisms, defend the Internet, cop to the charges and/or promise to do better, the Journal looks forward to hearing from them, because it relishes every personal contact in this cold, electronic age.

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