A Friend of The Enemy Will Always Be My Friend: A Short Goodbye.

I started this site 3/26/10 with a post about the band Jesus and The Mary Chain, of all things. This was followed closely by a review of my friend Allan Hayslip’s debut album, Thinktankubator, short pieces celebrating the poets Walt Whitman and Russell Edson, and a review of my friend Chris Howell’s documentary about amateur boxing, Sweet Science. 

My first comics review on this site was of Kill Shakespeare from IDW. 

Things kinda blew up from there. 

YCE became a dumping ground for things that caught my eye or ear -- endless chicken videos, too many posts about Lou Reed, Serbian choral music, Fliff Night -- things like that. It was an expression of my inner world while being punctuated by the reposting of writing I was doing about comics for other sites such as Pop Culture Zoo, Forces of Geek, Psycho Drive-In, and, most importantly, Comics Bulletin. 

It was during my tenure writing for Comics Bulletin that I found both my voice and my niche -- small press/self-published comics.

Once Comics Bulletin ran its course, I started to see Your Chicken Enemy as a venue to celebrate the art form that I love so much, and I began to recruit a number of amazing critics to write insightful things about spectacular works. It’s been mostly a self-funded labor of love since then, and, in its entirety, YCE can boast:

• Over 1800 posts
• With over 650 reviews of comics
• From 29 amazing contributors
• Leading to over 775,000 page views

Not bad, all in all.

And the time has come to move on. 

This will be the final post on Your Chicken Enemy (though the site will stay up in perpetuity, as there is so much wonderful content to be found here).

As you may or may not know, myself and fellow critics Alex Hoffman, Rob Clough, and Ryan Carey have established and launched a comics-centered non-profit corporation, FIELDMOUSE PRESS, to support the comics arts and shine a light on the work of so many talented cartoonists and critics. 

Our first venture is a criticism hub called SOLRAD, which is scheduled to launch on 01/01/20 (and which is currently seeking funding for its operating costs -- click here to learn about our goals and how you can participate).

I’ll be taking over the role of Editor-In-Chief of SOLRAD, and you’ll be able to find my writing there in the future, along with many of the voices I’ve been privileged to feature here on YCE.

Thank you so much for supporting me and YCE. If you’ve enjoyed Your Chicken Enemy, then you’re going to LOVE SOLRAD. 

I hope to see you there. Please feel free to contact me anytime at elkin@fieldmouse.press.

With Great Love and Appreciation,
Daniel Elkin