One of the greatest things about being involved in comics for as long as I have is that it has enabled me to travel around the country and see places I normally would never go. Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, San Francisco, San Diego… I’ve been lucky enough to have visited all these great cities and more, and to have met so many different people, all as a direct result of being a writer/artist/editor/whatever. In many ways, it has made me appreciate my hometown of New York that much more. To an extent.

I’m a New Yorker through and through, and a part of me always will be. There are so many great things about this place that I enjoy, and I’m always finding new things to like as well. At the same time, however, there’s an awful lot about this town that I not only hate, but despise. As a result, I’ve had to question whether the former outweighs the latter. I’ve decided that it doesn’t.

Seeing other parts of the country (and other countries as well) has instilled in me a longing to travel more. As New Yorkers, we become so used to being the center of attention all the time and having so much of everything that it’s easy to forget sometimes that there are other places to live… and that while some of those places might not stack up to NYC in some aspects (and few do, let’s be honest), they have their own charms that make them just as worthy to settle down in.

At this point in my life, I need to live someplace smaller. Someplace that’s not as hectic and hostile and expensive. No place is perfect, I know that, but I need to see how other people live and try living differently, for awhile, at least… which is why I’m leaving NYC at the end of the month. I’m not ruling out the possibility of moving back one day – it’s certainly possible – but for now, I’m treating this like it’s permanent.

I thought about many different places to go to, but I finally settled on Columbus, Ohio. It’s a great comics town; I’ve been there before lots of times for both SPACE and the Mid-Ohio Con and I’ve made many friends there. It’s small enough to not be this great big monolith of a town like NYC, yet big enough that I wouldn’t be bored. They have a vital art community in general, in fact, and it has a growing reputation as a multicultural hub. This is exactly the kind of place I was looking for. It would be nice if it was closer to the east coast, but that’s the only drawback I can see (I’ll miss going to the beach in the summertime).

This is by no means an easy decision. I’m leaving my family and many of my friends behind, not to mention a lifetime of memories. It’ll be scary as hell. This is what I want to do, however.

I don’t expect this blog to be affected by the change. Jon and I have already talked about my move and he’s cool with it. Certainly I can still write about comics from Columbus as easily as from New York, and while I can’t guarantee that there’ll be as many comics-related events to go to over there, I expect to find new and different things to write about.

I’m looking forward to it.