[...] might also want to check out the editor’s comments on what she’s looking, and not looking, [...]

As for “in-depth” reporting or “critical” reporting, oh dear, when you are publishing a speciality mag like these, with a revenue ratio of 60-70 percent coming from those game publishers you are covering, every, and i mean, EVERY critical review gets the EIC a call from the CEO, who in turn was called by the ad department which in turn was called by the PR and marketing departments of those game companies.

Ed, that’s how my view of magazines have changed as well. Unfortunately for video game mags, I don’t think they’ve trained their audiences to look for more than the latest pix and interviews about all the cool features. In depth coverage sounds good, but I don’t know if those magazines could find the audience interested in that — because they didn’t really court them when they had a real chance.

(Phil: I do want to know things like that, thanks. This post was posted and then edited. If it’s appearing more than twice, though, I don’t understand why. And I’ll keep that in mind in future.)

Phil

My first thought is of Waid’s Flash around issue #100, where Wally West knows he’s fated to join with the Speed Force and keeps that secret from his wife.

Not quite. In Terminal Velocity (the story that ended with #100) he told everyone right off the bat that he was doomed, and the story was mostly about setting up a successor in case they couldn’t prevent it. The secrets he kept were that Linda was also doomed (slightly less so — he believed she could be saved, but he himself couldn’t), and that while he’d publicly blessed Jesse Quick as his successor, he really wanted his cousin Bart to step up.

And you’re right — it didn’t end well. It completely destroyed his working relationships with Bart and Jesse for years, and it set up trust issues between him and Linda that another character used as a wedge in a later story — trying to convince Linda that, this time, he had known he wasn’t coming back, and hadn’t told her.

Now that I think about it, there’s a strong thread of honesty & trust = good, secrecy & deception = bad (except for maintaining a secret identity) in Waid’s work on both Flash and Impulse.

My conflict with magazines like The Comics Journal is that while it’s true most of the news items are a month old. However, the likelihood of me seeing ever single news item listed is pretty slim. Plus, having the news items in print make them much more archival friendly than trying to keep an electronic copy of every news item I think I might want for future reference. Plus, a news item that might have been considered a firestorm on the first of the month might die down to smoldering ashes by the end of the month and vice versa. This allows a print magazine to put news items into better perspective. So for me, the news section of The Comics Journal becomes less about getting the absolutely most current information and more about seeing what is still interesting or news worthy a month later.

I’ll admit the Internet has changed my view of magazines. I don’t read magazines to keep up on current events. The magazines I read now are ones that provide thoughtful analysis on various issues.