Thoughts On MTV Geek

So, you've heard that MTV Geek is shutting its doors, right? Despite being a pop culture site, there was a very respectable amount of coverage there about comic books, due in large part to the various editors that have shepherded the site over the past few years.

I've been a columnist there since not-quite-the-beginning but played only a very small role compared to the output the team produced as a whole. Lots of talent there, both in terms of generating basic content, but generating interesting content that went well beyond press releases and fluff pieces that keep a lot of other sites going. I'm sure I have some bias here, but MTVG was doing, for my money, a better job covering comics than any other pop culture site, and better than most comics-only sites.

It would seem, though, that the money isn't there.

Or, rather, there's more money worth having elsewhere. My understanding is that all the full-time folks working on MTVG are being shuffled around in the MTV network, so it's only the freelancers who are taking any sort of financial hit. And I don't think MTVG was that significant source of income for any of us that you'll have to worry much. But that they're keeping all the full-time folks tells me that they're not losing money per se, just that they think they can make more profit by focusing those same resources elsewhere. (That's my guess, mind you; I don't have any real insider info there.)

I do, of course, appreciate getting paid for my writing, and I'm thankful they let me keep at it for three years. I would've thought for sure that I would've gotten sacked long before now. ("You write well enough, Sean, but nobody ever reads your columns! You're somehow even generating negative site traffic!") And while, like I said, they weren't my dominant source of income, they did provide me with the broadest platform and the widest reach. I'm very grateful for that.

I'm also grateful for the schedule. Having to write a column every week on webcomics and another one on fandom forced me to stay on my toes with those topics. And, given everything else I've had happening this year in particular, that was no easy task! My blog here does something of the same thing, but with a subject as broad as "comics" I can go all over the place. For as much as this blog was (in part) designed to help make me a better writer, MTVG did much the same but in a more targeted manner.

All in all, I enjoyed working on my small corner of MTV Geek and I am saddened to see it go. I'm told the site will stay up, with all the pieces I've written remaining intact if you want to refer to them again at some point, but there simply won't be any updates. I'm welcome to take "Kleefeld's Fanthropology" and/or "Top 5 Webcomics You Missed This Week" elsewhere to continue them, but their Friday updates won't be seen on MTVG.

As I do have a bit more free time on my hands suddenly, is anyone in the market for a comics or fandom columnist? I also do consulting work.

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