Randy: Five years ago, Don and I embarked on our newest website, The Fourth Rail. Today, we're officially closing the doors.
Don: We've decided it's time to put the chairs up on the tables, dim the lights, douse the place with gasoline and collect the insurance money. Hmm? What? No insurance? Damn it.
I'm guessing that for longtime readers, this won't come as much of a surprise. The regularity of updates has gradually slowed over the past year or two, and of course, Randy "semi-retired" from the site a few months ago. The fact of the matter is that my life and Randy's life have changed radically in recent years -- for the better. Randy's got a beautiful daughter and new home, and I'm now living in sin after a lengthy long-term relationship. In other words, we're pretty happy, but those happiness-inducing elements have detracted from the time we've been able to devote to 4R.
Randy: So yes, we've decided to bring 4R to an end, but fear not. We'll be keeping the archives up until the end of the year (so save any articles you want before then!) and of course, neither Don nor I will be disappearing from the online landscape. Indeed, I'll be part of a new site launching this very week, and Don is still setting his plans in motion, but he'll be popping up again at a new home on the web very soon. But for today, we come not to praise The Fourth Rail, but to bury it. Although if any of you want to praise it, you have our e-mail addresses! But seriously, folks...
Don: Randy contacted me a couple of weeks ago, letting me know of his intent to step away completely from the site because he and some friends (whom he actually sees face to face) have opted to launch something new. He was worried about my reaction, but it turns out we were on the same wavelength. I also wanted to start fresh, change my format and brand, and in the process, renew the enthusiasm I have for the medium and my efforts to comment on comics.
Randy: The Fourth Rail was the culmination of a partnership going back 10 years now, when I first dropped Don a line, noticing a similarity in our tastes and asking if he wanted to collaborate on occasional reviews the way our Usenet colleagues Johanna Draper Carlson and Elayne Riggs did. We've been working together, at a variety of sites, for a long time. So why break up the band now? In a word: evolution.
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Photo by Jonah Weiland/cbr.cc |
When we started this site, I expressed that we'd mostly be doing weekly reviews, with a focus on Marvel, DC and Oni Press, and we both had the kind of free time to keep up that kind of commitment. But as time went on, our tastes changed, the industry changed and our free time definitely changed. Weekly reviews on the kind of time Don and I have now are pretty much impossible, and Two-in-One Reviews went by the wayside a long time back, when we realized that we rarely had the kind of synched-up schedules that allowed for collaboration. Technology moved on, too, adding RSS feeds and blogs and all that kind of thing. And we kept talking about a possible redesign, and shifted our formats, from the gradual (letting the weekly deadlines slip) to the more extreme (my semi-retirement this year).
Don: Hopefully by this point, it's clear that the end of The Fourth Rail is not the result of any kind of rift between Randy and me. We remain close friends, and I'm sure it won't be long before we hang out at another comic convention and split a bottle of rum while exchaning profundities on politics, relationships and Batman's boot size.
Randy: I still say it's an 11, and I'll fight any man who says different!
Don: Of all the online endeavors we've undertaken, I have to admit that The Fourth Rail was my favorite. Sure, writing for other sites in the past actually put money in our pockets, but 4R was ours and always will be. I also think that we reached our widest audience with our narrower focus on reviews.
Randy: I have to agree with you there. There was something very satisfying about working face-to-face with one of my best friends for the first time ever when we were in New York for Psycomic, and of course it was nice getting paid to do this full-time... but having something that we owned completely was nice. And the reaction to The Fourth Rail, from pros, fans and friends, was always gratifying.
Don: The most satisfying aspect of our work on The Fourth Rail had to be those moments when we felt our reviews made a small difference, that they opened readers' eyes to titles they might have otherwise missed. I honestly think we had a hand in getting the word out about projects that might have otherwise flown under people's radar altogether, such as Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man or Damon Hurd's small-press comics.
Randy: I like to think that we contributed to the buzz on some of those books, and many others besides, and I know from my reader mail that a lot of folks are reading Fables, Ex Machina, etc. because they read our reviews, picked up the books and found out how great they were. And that was always the best part of reviews for me.
Don: I've received a lot of similar e-mails as well. I've also received a lot of messages noting that readers found their tastes were more in line with mine than Randy's, or vice versa. I think another thing about the site that was special was the two voices we presented. Furthermore, I think that over the course of five years at 4R, our tastes changed as well. When we started, Randy and I tended to favor the same sorts of comics and creators, and over time, those tastes evolved in different directions. And that's a good thing. I always like it more when our reactions to the same comic were polarized rather than in synch. It makes for a more interesting discussion.
Randy: While writing this column, I realized there are a lot of similarities between one's "hello" column and one's "goodbye" column. One of those similarities is that you've got to give room to thank all the people who have made it possible. To every reader who has come to the site, whether weekly, daily, monthly or on a completely irregular schedule, thank you for spending some of your valuable time with us, and we hope it was worth it. To every pro who has had a kind word for us online or at conventions, thank you and I hope that our constructive criticism or praise was useful to you. I've also got to offer up a few specific thanks.
There are so many people I would like to thank by name that if I kept up with it, this column would be the longest one ever written on 4R. So I'll leave it at two, probably the most important two, without whom this site would never have worked. I really have to thank Suzanne for putting up with the many nights when I'd retire to my office to write reviews. She always understood, she never griped about why I was spending so much time on something I wasn't even being paid for and she was always supportive. And I have to thank Don for joining me in a partnership that turned what could have been a six-month whim into a 10-year plus calling that continues to reward and challenge me on a daily basis. I'll miss 4R, but as Don says, this is not even remotely goodbye... I look forward to drinking rum and cokes on the balcony of a hotel in San Diego with my good friend again very soon.
Don: It's a done deal, trust me.
Until that time, though, Randy and I will be keeping busy. I'm working on designing (or finding someone to help me design) a new solo review site. Yes, I plan to keep on reviewing comics, even posting occasional columns and features just like I did here on 4R. The main change is that I don't plan on being a slave to the calendar and release dates so much. Important note: to those who have sent me material for review that hasn't made it onto The Fourth Rail, don't worry. I will be posting reviews on the new site, to be announced later. And speaking of new sites...
Randy: I will be one of four voices on the new comic review site Comic Pants. Yes, you read that right. We wanted a name that indicated a bit of a sense of humor and was memorable, so... Comic Pants. Alongside Dave Farabee from Ain't It Cool News and two new reviewers from the world of comics retail, David Martindale and Nick Budd, I'll be providing new reviews, a weekly rundown of the new number one issues and plenty more. And don't worry, Down the Line will be moving over to Comic Pants as well. In fact, you can probably expect to see one in about a week's time. All of this comes with a new blog-style format and swanky up-to-date tech like RSS feeds. Comic Pants is staffed entirely out of Austin, Texas, and that geographic closeness should give us the ability to do some cool stuff, including but not limited to podcasts.
Addendum: Don's new site -- EyeonComics.com -- is now live.
Don: There are now front-page links to Comic Pants and Eye on Comics here on 4R. You'll also find links to my favorite reviews from the past five years, and a list of Randy's faves as well.
Again, thanks for reading, and we both hope you'll continue to follow us to our new online homes.
E-mail Randy and Don comments about this review.
