It was quite a busy day for news yesterday, so lost in the shuffle was the news that another comics institution was shutting down – although not entirely. Women Write About Comics, an Eisner Award winning site of comics news and criticism, is ending as a website. Publisher Kate Tanski delivered the news, citing changes in culture:
I still believe that WWAC is something special, but since that time, there have been cultural changes that have made me question whether WWAC has served its purpose. I’ve questioned whether it is time to shut down the site and go the way other sites that were around when WWAC was getting started. The way we consume criticism has changed, and a website like this is not reflective of those changes. The website’s tagline used to be, “Criticism doesn’t fit into a box. Neither do we.” It’s time to reimagine what WWAC can be, outside of the box, once again.
A few pieces that were in the works will continue, and the site will remain up indefinitely (it is archived at the Library of Congress, as is The Beat.) But Tanski and the rest of the WWAC board hope to return in a different format:
When WWAC does reopen its doors, it will be in a radically different form as a non-profit organization. What that organization might look like is still uncertain, but the editors and I are committed to only reopening the site if we can create a sustainable paid model for contributors. This will necessarily mean fewer articles being published and the schedule for publishing to be drastically reduced to 1-2 articles weekly, or even monthly. The types of articles WWAC publishes may also change. For the past 10 years WWAC has prided itself on its variety of articles, including long-form criticism, roundtables, comics-themed drink recipes, columns, reviews, investigative reports, exclusives, interviews, con diaries, award-winning public comics scholarship, and our #1 article of all time, Top 10 Redheads in Comics.
There’s nothing too surprising about the reasons to end a website of personal essays and criticism. Google has ruthlessly shot down independent sites while promoting AI content, all the while gaslighting creators by claiming they are pushing human-first content. People watch videos to get information now, even simple things that could be explained in a short blog post. It was tough to even find links to the things I just mentioned, although they are complained about endlessly on Reddit and X. The Beat struggles with everything Tanski mentioned and more.
The web is dying.
WWAC was an essential site, presenting strong writing and opinions by women and other marginalized genders. Despite being exactly what every loudmouth on social media platforms said they wanted – viewpoints long missing in comics discourse, insightful reviews, and occasional fearless reporting – WWAC struggled to reach its Patreon goals. This disconnect (to put it kindly) or hypocrisy (to put it bluntly) always distressed me. If there was any site that deserved support from every level of the industry, it was WWAC. Unfortunately it’s a particularly stark example of the low value of writing about comics. You people just don’t want to pay for it. I get it. Believe me I get it.
Coming back as a non-profit may mean that WWAC 2.0 CAN get more support from every level of the industry – and now in a tax deductible way. There is still important work to be done and I hope to be able to support the new mission.
WWAC won the Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism for THREE STRAIGHT YEARS, from 2020-2022. It was well deserved. That award has once again been removed from the Eisner Award categories for 2025, although there is a “Best comics-related publication (book or periodical about comics),” which seems a reasonable catch-all. But it’s part of the malaise we’re all struggling with here.
I usually end these stories with a “But The Beat will still be there!” proclamation…and we plan to. But we are going to have to change some of our business model, and if that doesn’t work…Well, we had a 20 year run and that’s all you can ask for really.
PSYCH. I think.
Anyway this shouldn’t be about me. Raise a glass to Tanski and all the other great writers who made a mark at WWAC over the years, like Nola Pfau, Wendy Brown, Kayleigh Hearn, Corinne McCreery, and The Beat’s own Masha Zhdanova (take it as the highest compliment that I would so often try to get WWAC writers to do some work for the Beat.) And so many great names from the past…but so many of them no longer writing about comics.
I’ll say it one more time: if you like reading good writing about comics, you have to support it directly and financially. No one else is going to if you won’t.