Matthew Ledger wrote for Multiversity from January 2018 through January 2022 and continues to do great writing about comics at MattReadsComics.com
Like most people, my hobbies and interests go through cycles. One year I’m really into kayaking, the next it’s running. I’ve started and stopped playing tabletop RPGs at least five times. During the pandemic, I joined the glut of people who learned to bake bread from scratch. I haven’t baked a loaf in over a year. And for a hot second in 2020, I was really into the Pokemon Trading Card Game. (That was a weird one.)
There’s one big exception to the above, though: I’ll never stop reading comics.
Comics have been a big part of my life, and my primary hobby, for about as long as I can remember. Many of my first comics came from the pharmacy where my mother worked. When visiting my mother’s workplace, I would pick up an issue of “Batman” or “Nightwing” from the magazine rack and ask my mom to buy it. She’d usually say yes.
For a long time, I was primarily a superhero comics kid (with some “Calvin and Hobbes” on the side). Eventually, I branched out a bit, into manga, and then Vertigo books, and then Image books, and then everything else. It took me longer than I’d care to admit, but eventually, I figured out what I think is comics’ greatest strength. Comics can, almost literally, do anything. They can tell any story, in so many varied, exciting, and perhaps most importantly, accessible ways.
One of the reasons I enjoyed writing for Multiversity Comics during my brief tenure is that the site highlighted so many comics and artists that sometimes fly under other sites’ radar. Writing for Multiversity is how I learned about the Angoulême International Comics Festival and the Observer/Cape/Comica award. It gave me the opportunity to promote awesome kids’ comics (“InvestiGators” being a personal favorite). And it gave me an excuse to look at sweet artwork gathered from around the internet each week. In short, writing for Multiversity further expanded my conception of what comics are and can be, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.
At the same time, however, Multiversity also allowed me to indulge my inner superhero fan. For example, Multiversity is where I wrote what is still one of my favorite essays about Batman, taking an in-depth look at the themes of James Tynion IV’s “Detective Comics” run. I also got to interview the writer of “Batman” and the writer of “Detective Comics,” the latter in-person. If you told younger me that he’d get to sit down and chat with the writer of “Detective Comics” one day, in an official capacity, he probably would’ve given you some side-eye. But I did, thanks to Multiversity.
I fell off writing for Multiversity as a result of a cross-country move that happened to land right at the start of the pandemic. Things were a lot for quite a bit. I moved again, and then again, and only in the last year or so have I begun feeling re-settled. Over the last few months, while keeping up with Multiversity’s news and reviews and columns, I’ve considered going back to write for the site again. The fact that I’ll no longer be able to do so is a real shame. From working with some of the people most responsible for Multiversity’s existence, I can tell you this for certain: Multiversity was one of the good comics sites. We’re all going to be poorer for it, and the voices for which it provided a platform, not being around.
Comics, however, will do what they always do: they’ll survive. As will, no doubt, many of the writers whose work you’ve come to love as a result of this website. Comics will never die, and as a result, good comics journalism, reviews, and think pieces will never die either. Too many fans, critics, and journalists, myself included, love the medium too much for thoughtful conversation about comics to ever truly disappear. So if you find yourself missing Multiversity Comics, know that the site is not actually dead. The impact it had on its writers and its readers remains, and will certainly continue to shape those fans’ discussions for years to come.
