In addition to other sources, MacDonald cites Popverse writer Trent Cannon’s Bluesky post, in which the columnist states that his latest PopJump piece (about the death of Optimus Prime voice acting legend Peter Cullen) published last Friday would be his last. Referencing his future at the site, which has been in business since 2022, Cannon adds of his column, “Just to note that it didn’t end because it ran its course or wasn’t successful. It was one of the most successful Member’s First columns we ran. Myself and the rest of the staff were all laid off so… that’s the end.”
According to MacDonald, Popverse’s traffic has been “great” and the decision to shut the comics-forward site down just weeks before the October 8 kickoff of New York Comic Con makes little sense. Of course, little sense is required for a parent company to decide that its carefully curated, written-by-humans news and analysis is suddenly redundant. Especially when MacDonald’s description of Popverse corporate overboss RELX (“a big multinational data/analytics company that owns various companies in the science, risk management and legal fields”) reads like a series of warning symbols spelling out “AI is cheaper and nobody cares anyway.”
MacDonald praises other comics-focused publications like her own The Beat, AIPT, Comic Book Club, Comicon, Graphic Policy and ICv2 as places that are holding the line as “daily sites that put out daily comics news with original reporting and content.”
As for the hard-working entertainment writers and editors over at popverse, all we here at The A.V. Club can say is we feel you, having known the sting of the cold, cold hand of corporate indifference and greed in the recent past. Hang in there.
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