Last week on the site, we put out a week-long call for people to participate in a survey to help us analyze our content. It was something that was very important to me, personally, as the site has changed so much in the past few months, let alone the past five years. We’ve seen a massive increase in traffic and stature, certainly to the point where we’ve become a place where we now get associated with sites much bigger than ours for better or worse, and as such, it felt time to reach out to the readers, the community that has embraced us, and find out what we can do for you. That felt like a fair exchange.
I won’t go into breakdowns of numbers or anything of that sort (unless there’s a big call for it, I suppose) as it’s a bit “inside baseball” at best, and a bit dull for readers at worst. However, I’m happy to report that the survey was a massive success at least by my own standards.
There were so many great things said in the survey and we’ve already had internal discussions and rumblings about how we want to respond to commentary from you on us in order to make the site better. While there were some negative criticism, it was nothing if not fair; I don’t believe anything submitted to us under the blanket veil of anonymity was done in order to insult us, but rather as a way to help make sure we improve. That’s how I’m choosing to take it, at least, and while there are certainly very many differing opinions on how comics journalism should be done (I’ll relent that I don’t believe there is a singular, right answer to the question), we’re certainly carving out our corner — but there’s always room to change and approach certain aspects and discussions in newer ways.
Now, as it so happens, we have had something in place for July for a good long while. I suppose it’s just timing that has worked out for us, but the next month of content is to an extent pre-planned; we know what our focus is, and we hope you’ll enjoy it. It’s something that is very near and dear to our hearts, something that I believe expresses the site’s mission statement, and we’ve certainly put a lot of time into hopefully making it a successful and enjoyable endeavor for everyone.
That said, given the timing of everything — the survey, a month in which we’ve already pre-planned content — we seem to have found ourselves in a unique opportunity for change.
So while we have July set, we are going to use this time to also really work on and improve certain aspects of the site in the background. We can certainly take the things that were put into the suggestion box in last week’s survey and find out how to work that into the site without making it incredibly distracting, which is nice, and hopefully our readers will find this appealing and a good form of growth.
Over the next month or so, you’ll see some changes at Multiversity. While there may be some new faces at the site over the coming weeks and months, we also have plans to change a few things in daily operations, such as how we cover certain events, how we approach different tasks and even smaller changes that probably won’t be picked up on immediately. You may have even noticed some of the changes in play already, in fact, and as the year goes on, hopefully you’ll start seeing a new and improved iteration of the site that continues to appeal to you. We certainly have long-term plans and goals that we’re going to work hard towards.
However, one thing that I would like to address that was brought up in the survey is the site’s identity. I don’t think we’ve ever shied away from having a site mission statement (“By people who love comics, for people who love comics”) or even from being totally upfront about what we’re doing and why (because we love comics), but a point brought up by several people is that we sometimes do not clearly express ourselves or our personalities. That we have been seen somewhat as collective identity is something that’s fair, even when I personally think we’ve made conscious efforts to really allow the different authors to speak with their unique voices, but it’s certainly something we are looking to improve on.
Continued belowAnd in the process of doing so, I’d like to share something that I said in our Office (ie, the main e-mail thread we share in which every facet of the site is discussed ad nauseam).
When the site began expanding from its original existence as a blog into a full-fledged site and started pulling in other writers besides myself, the initial idea was to develop a space where we could all talk about comics — the things we like, the things we didn’t, all in an attempt to share our views of this medium of choice and make that the modus operandi to the site. I do not feel the need to tell other people how to run their comic websites, but we certainly have our own optimistic belief system in play here.
As such, I’d honestly like to believe that Multiversity Comics is not Just Another Comics Website, but rather something more akin to a writing community, a group of likeminded individuals who banded together to do the site that speaks to us. That, to us, is the reason the site works and why we continue working on it everyday.
We consider our group pretty close, even with so many people involved, and we all want the same things at the end of the day. And, honestly, a lot of that is essentially based on us having built this place to a level in which we can do so on our terms, sharing content with our readers that excites us and hopefully interests or inspires you; we have things that we like in comics, and we want to share with you.
So expect some changes from Multiversity coming, and we hope that you find these changes agreeable. They’re things that we are certainly excited for.
At the very least, we are all very much looking forward to what you think of what’s coming from Multiversity this July, and the eventual months to follow.
