by What do they say about New York City? "Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do." No, the lyric before that, a generation or two before that. "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere." But what if you cannot make it in NYC? It's a tough city. Outrageously expensive. Outrageously demanding, as millions of ambitious and determined people bump up against each other day after day, dog eating dog, and making every day a battle. As someone working solo on the fringes, I've always had a curious eye on The Onion. Even more so when not long after I launched The Comic's Comic, The Onion rolled out a series of local city editions of its A.V. Club to cover local entertainment (first as something called Decider, then folded back into the main publication). Well, the funded publication announced today it's scaling back its operations.
Andy Battaglia sent out an email to associates saying it's his last day as city editor of NYC's A.V. Club, which is shutting down the local content entirely. Battaglia also just posted a public goodbye notice on the site.
Meanwhile, Kyle Ryan posted his own note to readers from his office in Chicago, reassuring everyone that the national print edition of The A.V. Club remains intact. He wrote, in part: "We will still be printed in eight cities (New York, D.C., Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Austin, and Denver/Boulder), and the national parts of The A.V. Club—in the paper and at avclub.com—won't be affected."
Still, as I told Ryan via email, it's one of those days in which I wonder if I need to switch the focus of The Comic's Comic to fart jokes, guys getting hit in the balls, kittens, and celebrities behaving badly. Oh, wait. That's the rest of the Internet. Don't worry. I'll continue on here, broke or barely broke, writing about comedy and comedians.
Just letting you know that out here in the sticks your work is appreciated.