Not a Hoax! Not an Imaginary Story! Panel Patter is Back!

Not a hoax, but perhaps a bit of click bait
since I'm using the X-Men!

Almost 18 months ago, I posted that I was burnt out on reviewing comics and could barely even read a comic it had gotten so bad for me. Shortly thereafter, even though as most know I was not the sole contributor to the site, the site went dormant.

When I posted that piece, I figured I'd never want to go back to writing anything. I'd had my run, a really long one at that, and I felt like maybe it was time for others to pick up the baton. What more could I say about comics that I hadn't already said?

After taking the weight off my shoulders of needing to read "for the site" I finally got back to reading comics again. I started with the comfort food - my Marvel Unlimited subscription. I read some old favorites. I tried some new things. I finally finished Immortal Hulk, aka one of the best runs on a comic of all time. Heck, I even read the King in Black crossover because I wanted to keep an open mind. Then I started to pick other comics back up again. 

I'd say a little bit about some of them on Goodreads, not a lot, just a few impressions. Occasionally, I'd think about how I really would like to say more, like the old days. But nah, that was behind me, right?

Well...turns out it wasn't. One book--and I won't tell you which, but the review will be coming up at some point soon--caused me to write more than I had been writing. And before I knew it, I realized that it wasn't a Goodreads sized review. It was the kind of thing I used to do here, back when I didn't feel the pressure to produce regular writing to keep an Eisner-nominated site from falling into irrelevance.

And while I didn't do much after that for a bit, I saved the review in draft here. Because I knew the itch had returned. Though I said before I wasn't sure there was a need or a place for me in comics discussion anymore, I suddenly had the urge to talk again. To share my thinking. To just "patter on" as it were.

So here we are. Starting over, in some ways. I thought for a bit about maybe creating an entire new site, but this is my home. This is where I go to talk about comics. So I guess this is a soft reboot, not a remake. I guess that's what all the cool kids like Dan Ackroyd, CBS, and Marvel are doing, right?

(Oh man, I could barely type that without my hands shaking with laughter.)

So....

What should you expect from the not-really-new Panel Patter?

The answer is: I'm not sure yet.

One of the things that I think hurt me along the way, and I'm being as honest as I can here, was the pressure of trying to be "worthy" of being an Eisner-nominated site. I tried to do too much. I'd hoped to have a site that could keep on growing, and in the process I lost sight of why I'd had so much fun doing it in the first place. It became a lot of pressure to try to dedicate the time to being A Major Player (whatever the hell that meant!). As that pressure mounted, I just kept failing to meet it. And that, I think, led to the burnout.

I'm just one guy who enjoys telling people what he liked about a comic. Sometimes others came along to share their love of comics, too. (One of them should be back tomorrow!) And hopefully, some of the others, and perhaps some new folks, too, will want to do this with me again. 

This isn't my job. I love my job. And I love comics. And I want this to be fun again, not work.

So while I am aiming to keep to a regular posting schedule of at least 2 articles a week, that might not always happen. And while I want to do some recurring features again, they may be more sporadic than I'd planned. I don't know how often I'll cover stuff as it comes out, we'll have to see. I probably won't attend any big cons anymore, but who knows? I'd love to do smaller ones again, but I'm not on the East Coast anymore, so there just aren't as frequent here. Interviews? Maybe. I don't know if anyone will want to talk to me after being away for so long!

It's going to be a process of discovery, of stops and starts, and a lot of looking at really cool comics and why I pulled them out of my reading stack to talk about in detail versus a few sentences.

And maybe we'll have more dialogue, more back and forth, than we did before. I'd like that. There's nothing more fun than talking about comics. Comments on here didn't work great, but maybe we'll try again. Or if someone has a suggestion, I'm all ears. (Discord channel?) I'd love for Panel Patter to be a place where people can discuss comics and not feel like they have to wear a flak jacket. 

I hope you'll join me along the way. Maybe I can still help a few people find their next favorite creator or series. It's why I started this back in the day and I'd love nothing more than for it to be true again. 

See you out there in the internet.