–30–

The final Blogathon 2013 total: $1121.00 raised for the Hero Initiative. Thanks to the following sponsors: Tim Callahan, Dan Billings, David Brown, Derek Handley, Patrick Ridings, Bradley Grehan, Scott Cederlund, Lee Merovitz, Nathan Bethell, Tucker Stone, Slava Savelev, Patrick Waton, Chris Johnson, Jeff Lester, Alec Berry, Shane Hagadorn, James Moore, Michelle Nevett, Greg Burgas, Sandy Nevett, Scott Cresswell, David Clarke, Enrique Treviño, Mike Loughlin, Justin Hugen, Shawn Starr, Ryan K. Lindsay, Rick Vance, Garth Holmes, and Christopher Keels. Thank you to all of the guest posters as well. This Blogathon was such an overwhelming success. I still can't believe it. And I can't think of a more fitting way to close shop.

I haven't been happy with my online presence for a while. Not happy with my writing or with the way I approach the online world. I decided that I need to tear it all down, destroy it, and, then, decide what I want, what I enjoy. People have asked why I'm not taking a break from GraphiContent and then returning instead of ending it, and the answer has always been obvious to me: for me to change what I'm doing, I have to leave it behind. Before you can begin something new, you have to leave the old behind. GraphiContent will remain here. All of the archives will remain. I am incredibly proud of the body of work that I built here. I'm less proud that certain areas are unfinished, but, hey, that's life.

I said a lot of what I meant to say here over the past few days -- in my responses to David and Tucker, in today's final Random Thoughts... When I began GraphiContent with Steve Higgins and some others, it was with the naive hope of 'raising the bar' as it were on comics discourse. The bar didn't need raising and we certainly didn't do it. But, I couldn't imagine everything that would come from that original grandoise, delusional call to arms. It took a while for me to find what I wanted to say, but, once I did, I went for it. I hope, in what I do next, it doesn't take me so many years to find what I'm looking for and that I can do better. Don't you see? The problem is that I stopped trying to do better. Never stop trying to do better.

Thanks to everyone who shared some kind words over the past while. It's nice to know that people dug what I did.

But, I'm done.

Tomorrow, I buy comics just for me, not for you. Ha. Yeah. Yeah!

Later

Chad Nevett
Just turned 30, listening to the Velvet Underground