I take a little vacation from all things online and come back to find the comics blogging world turned upside down! I wish much luck to Dirk Deppey with his new role, and hope he doesn't leave all the kids unsupervised for too long. I also hope that his experiences with The Comics Journal website help him take the journal to new places. I'd love to see him think beyond it being just a magazine, but his first goal should be to keep the quality there before trying anything new and crazy.

Seeing this a few days removed, however, does make me appreciate the enthusiasm and ability of lots of the other participants in this online medium. I have no doubt that there are enough quality voices out there to keep things interesting.

Thinking about what it would take to fill Dirk's online shoes, though, leads to a pretty overwhelming list:

• Updates everyday
• Original research as needed (accounting principles for comic book stores)
• Meme creation (boobsocks)
• Well-written opinion pieces (too many to choose from!)
• Attention to stories that other comic sites don't seem to care about (editorial cartoonist legal troubles)
• A healthy dose of personality and humor to keep it all very entertaining

Maybe it needs to be a rotating responsibility. We'll see how this week treats us.