Reports are coming in that ComicsAlliance, the comics and comics culture website, has been shut down today by AOL. We’ll tell you everything we know as soon as we know it.

The first suggestion came earlier today, as the site didn’t go ahead with the regular scheduled updates. Following came the news that the podcast hosted by the site, War Rocket Ajax, was going to move to an independent site free from ComicsAlliance proper. Then Moviefone editor Alex Suskin tweeted the following:

 

 

Breaking — Robot 6 have confirmed the news. ComicsAlliance was one of the top websites out there, run brilliantly by editors including Joe Hughes and Laura Hudson, and with one of the best, brightest, feistiest writing staffs online. Full reaction to come.

33 COMMENTS

  1. Define “shut down”. I was just there 2 minutes ago and it appeared to be up and running and fine.

    Does AOL own it?

  2. People will soon wonder what this means for comics. And frankly, it means nothing for comics. It sucks that the writers are out of work. But Comics Alliance, in the long run, really didn’t do much for the industry. There are other places with timelier news, more cogent analysis, and better bloggers. That gap is already filling as I type.

  3. Oh this is really sad. I didn’t always agree with a lot of their pieces, but I always read them and learned a lot about things I wouldn’t have known had they not featured them. I took issue with one of their pieces a couple of years ago via twitter and Laura Hudson seemed, while not to agree with my stance, very open to hear my criticism of it. To be honest, I was shocked she even addressed me to begin with. This is very bad news.

  4. FROM ROBOT 6 – ROBOT 6 has confirmed rumors circulating this weekend at Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo that parent company AOL has shut down the comics news site ComicsAlliance. The move came Friday amid the abrupt closings of AOL Music and several music news and video sites.

    Well…if they shut it down Friday someone did a poor job of it because the last article posted on the site is from today.

    http://www.comicsalliance.com/2013/04/29/link-ink-arkham-origins-screens-cyborg-superman-red-2/

    Interesting…

  5. WTF!?!

    Heidi, if there’s a quick/easy way to absorb/incorporate the Comics Alliance staff and stylings into The Beat, that would make for a powerful/one-stop pop culture [comix] website.

  6. It’s a shame their legacy will be “how much can we attack DC Comics” and not for anything more substantial. No great loss.

  7. Well, that’s disappointing. Here’s hoping all the writers there find new homes. And here’s hoping four years’ worth of articles don’t just vanish into the ether. I wonder who owns the existing articles: the authors, or AOL?

  8. that sucks. one of my daily reads. They always had fun features and stories. i’m sure the writers will all wind up on their feet.

  9. I read Comics Alliance for years and it never occurred to me that they were considered DC bashers. I just got the sense that they were a group of talented writers and comic fans, discussing comics.

    But maybe I’m just nuts.

  10. It was always entetaining to read CA, very funny people. I don’t think they were DC bashers because the criticsm they made was well deserved by DC, and I’d rather read a negative review I don’t agree with, than hundred others that only seem to want to be quoted on TPB covers.

    On the other hand, one has to wonder if Warner was happy with a site that hated Arrow, Smallville, Before Watchmen, and so on (and deservedly so, IMHO).

  11. I had stopped going there a while back because it had become too much of a Liberal soapbox and less of an objective comics news site.

  12. @Phil you can always go to CBR for the latest corporate sponsored news that you so eagerly want to read. CA had opinion, much like The Beat does, and wasn’t much of a Comics News site as it was an outlet for funny and poignant articles and weird stuff I had no idea existed. It’ll be missed, but I hope to see those writers at other websites like this one.

  13. @ Esteban
    Way to judge and not take a joke. I clearly follow the beat. I don’t read the big two, but I felt that CA over the last year or so had become pretty useless with few updates and few worthwhile reads. It’s my opinion that we are mourning the memory of a site that had become somewhat lazy and a tad overrated. I felt that most of the opinion lately was to snark and wallow at and within the big two. And if there is something I have less interest than the big two is complaining about the big two. Although I did discover Copra from the site. So there’s that.

  14. I felt the quality had dropped off recently, and, GOD, Chris Sims needs to put something in his head that’s aimed squarely at grown ups (and if you already do, Chris, I’m sorry. I want to be sorry!), but this is still awful news. Just awful. CA was the only populist comics site with a brain…and now it’s gone.

  15. Yeah, because this is exactly what a failing company like AOL needs. To get rid of something that’s actually working for them… Idiots…

  16. What make me really sad, is that no other site seem t engage in similar humorous stuff as CA did. I craved the humor part of their site more than anything(damn who will review comically the Mortal Kombat TV series?…Because sure as hell I don’t exper the boring guys at CBR doing that..they already give me a bone with bizarro back issue…) and othe rsite like Beat or bleeding cool do not have the comfortable easy format as CA had…AoL can go to hell and eat Jelly from piss of a rotten owl…

Comments are closed.