The Nib, the brilliant political comics portal founded by Matt Bors, has found a new home at First Look Media, a new media incubator founded by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar.
“Joining First Look Media is a fantastic evolution for The Nib, ” said Bors. “We’re going to expand our lineup and offerings. The Nib won’t be confined to just one online destination, but will deliver comics where readers want to see them – whether through our re-launched website, on social media or in their inboxes every morning.”
First Look Media is a new-model media company devoted to supporting independent voices across all platforms, from fearless investigative journalism and documentary filmmaking to smart, provocative entertainment. Launched in 2013 by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, First Look operates as both a studio and digital media company.
The Nib will relaunch over the summer as a dilay website and a newsletter, similar to how it ran at Medium.
Bors started the site for previous mdeia incubator Medium back in 2013, and proceeded to publish some of the most thought provoking and essential comics of the era, including Ron Wimberly’s “Lighten Up” and many more. It was dissolved as part of Medium’s retrenchment, but not without Kickstarting a brilliant print book collecting some of the best comics from its run.
First Look Media publishes The Intercept slowly added staff and published irregularly at first and a short film unit called Field of Vision. If you think that spells possibly expanding the Nib to more animated offerings, you’re on the money:
Adam Pincus, First Look’s executive VP of programming and content, told Re/code in a phone interview that he has “been thinking a lot about editorial cartooning” as a way for First Look to get more wrapped up in short-form video content — basically, stuff you might share on social media.
“The Nib works as it is and in its current form [as a website],” Pincus said. “But the digital experience can be improved upon. … We’re definitely looking at it as a source of material we can … turn into video storytelling.”
While First Look may be best known for The Intercept and the exploits of co-founders Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the company is doing what basically every other major media business is doing right now: Focusing on producing lots and lots of video. There are plans to launch a “media platform” that will publish content to services like Hulu, Netflix and HBO, and First Look President Michael Bloom told Poynter in December that there are plans for more podcasts, feature films and TV shows.
Tweets indicated that associate editor Eleri Mai Harris has joined Bors for the new venture.
https://twitter.com/MattBors/status/699123274718916608
