Senior Editor Caleb Goellner Leaves Comics Alliance To Save The Universe

Today is Caleb Goellner’s final shift as Senior Editor of ComicsAlliance. He leaves the site after five intense years of hard work, sacrifice and success for the great mysteries beyond comics blogging — specifically, comics making.

Many of you who follow the CA staff’s activities outside the site are already familiar with Caleb’s brilliant creations Mermaid Evolution, the story of a dude who got cut in half by a pirate, fell into the sea and evolved into a mermaid; and Task Force Rad Squad, his tribute to Power Rangers-style tokusatsu with Buster Moody. The good news is that stepping down from his full-time duties at CA will give Caleb more time to devote to these projects and even more to come, not to mention the good we know he'll do at his new position at Wacom, purveyors of fine digital comics making equipment.

The bad news is that we are saying goodbye to the daily contributions of an editor, writer and artist whose influence on ComicsAlliance cannot be overstated. Brought onboard by founder Laura Hudson not long after launching CA, Caleb has in many ways been the heart and soul of this website, infusing it with his singular style of wit, professionalism, kindness, irreverence, silliness, hilariously bad Photoshopping, and of course his passion for comics, toys, and cartoons of all kinds. There is no doubt in my mind that Caleb Goellner is hugely responsible for the resurgence of super sentai in the collective media consciousness we all inhabit, and his insights into the dramatic potential and innate radness, to use a Caleb-ism, of so many childhood entertainments like the Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers and Adventure Time has provided this site with some of its most enjoyable and endearing features.

While CA readers are familiar with Caleb from the pieces which carry his byline as well as his contributions to War Rocket Ajax and the ComicsAlliance Podcast, what many don’t realize is the role Caleb’s played behind the scenes. A media pro since right out of college, Caleb has served as CA’s own version of Lando Calrissian’s thankless cyborg sysop Lobot, always jacked into the matrix of schedules and stats as well as overseeing most of CA’s news content, making sure the trains run on time and the site stays online while the rest of us take our sweet time working on more personal long form content like the post you’re reading right now.

Indeed, there’s no one who’s benefited more from Caleb’s tireless work than me. For years Caleb has been my partner, friend and brother. We’ve been in constant communication for 8-12 hours a day nearly every day for the last four years. Much of that time was spent co-dictating the site together after Laura left, leading to all kinds of exhilarating strategy sessions, serious arguments, bitter resentments and euphoric ridiculousness. Together we’ve traversed the rifts between lowly AOL freelancers, Huffington Post staffers, masterless media ronin and Townsquare team players, and it's a set of experiences and bonds that I share with no one else. He’s been my roommate at conventions. He’s covered for me when I needed to take time off. He’s been a sounding board for all my thoughts and writing. As a freelancer he’s going to contribute work here and there, but we are just as a matter of course going to decouple our brains, and it’s just such a weird thing to imagine. I’m honestly not sure what I’m even going to do with myself when work begins again on Monday, but I know I’m going to miss my partner.

Caleb leaves ComicsAlliance with three Eisner nominations and record-breaking site traffic, but more importantly with the satisfaction of a job well done and the love of friends and colleagues who will have his back for life.