20 Years Later: Comic Crusaders Told You We Were Changing. Here’s What Happened.

WEEEEEPAAAAA!!! Earlier this year, when Comic Crusaders officially entered our 20th anniversary, I told you things were changing, and I meant it. We had a new logo, new energy, new ideas, and a bigger vision for what Comic Crusaders could become after twenty years of doing this crazy thing we love. That wasn’t some anniversary speech I wrote and forgot about. We’ve been putting in the work, changing the site, growing the team, building new features, sharpening our coverage, and figuring out what the next era of Comic Crusaders should actually look like in practice.

If you’ve visited ComicCrusaders.com regularly over the last few months, you’ve probably noticed the place looks different, moves differently, and covers a hell of a lot more territory than it did when 2026 started. Some changes happened right in front of you, while others happened behind the curtain while I was probably somewhere yelling at WordPress and wondering why the hell something that worked yesterday suddenly decided not to work today.

Comic Crusaders in September 2026 isn’t the same Comic Crusaders that entered this anniversary year, and that’s exactly what I wanted. We didn’t hit twenty years so we could freeze the place in amber and admire what we used to be. Anybody who runs a website knows how insane it is to rebuild the house while you’re still living in it, because we didn’t shut Comic Crusaders down for six months and quietly redo everything. We kept publishing, reviewing, interviewing creators, producing podcasts, covering pop culture, and doing the daily work while rebuilding the foundation underneath it. The site received a major overhaul, including how you navigate Comics, Reviews, Pop Culture, and our Columns. We created better homes for movies, television, gaming, collectibles, wrestling, convention coverage, fashion, and technology instead of stuffing twenty years of growth into a structure that no longer represented everything we do.

We also worked on search, archives, pagination, related content, and internal links so stories don’t disappear into the void three days after we publish them. We’ve been going back into older content, cleaning up SEO, reconnecting articles, and making twenty years of Comic Crusaders history easier to discover instead of letting that archive sit there collecting digital dust. And yeah, we broke some shit along the way, because that’s what happens when you rebuild a twenty-year-old website while people are still using it every day. Then we fixed it, something else broke, we fixed that too, and every one of those fixes gets us closer to where I want this thing to be. One thing I really wanted this year was more original Comic Crusaders features, not another press release or another piece of content everybody else publishes at the same time. I wanted something that felt like ours, gave readers a reason to come back every week, and reflected what we actually care about.

That’s where the Comic Crusaders HOT List came in, and it has become part of our weekly rhythm. Every week, we look at the books getting our attention and give you ten comics worth having on your radar, then connect those titles back to reviews as our coverage rolls out. The HOT List works because it’s simple, useful, and built around what our readers actually come to us for. More importantly, it feels like Comic Crusaders, and that’s the type of original feature I want us doing more of as we keep growing.

Another major change has been the people behind the coverage, because I never wanted Comic Crusaders to become a site where everybody writes like Al Mega. One Al Mega is already enough trouble for everybody involved, so the goal has been to let every writer sound like themselves and bring their own personality to the table. Yeska Alvarez brings her love and knowledge of anime, manga, K-pop, fashion, and fandom culture. Gabe M. attacks gaming from the perspective of somebody who actually plays this stuff, notices the little details, and isn’t afraid to tell you when something is FUEGO or when it isn’t getting the job done. Chris Crash lives in that world where collectibles, sneakers, wrestling, toys, music, and being a real collector all collide. Daniel Black brings the perspective of a musician, former wrestler, and professional smartass who somehow found a sarcasm setting above ten, and that energy gives his work its own identity.

That’s only part of the crew, and the point is that I want you to know who you’re reading. You should understand their tastes, recognize their personalities, know what they care about, and sometimes completely disagree with them because that’s part of what makes this fun. Don’t get it twisted, comics are still home and they always will be. But look around pop culture in 2026 and tell me any of these worlds are actually separate anymore, because they’re crossing into each other constantly.

Comics touch movies, games touch anime, wrestling crosses into collectibles, music crosses into fashion, and creators jump between comics, television, film, podcasts, crowdfunding, games, and everything in between. We’re leaning into all of it with gaming, anime, manga, K-pop, music, wrestling, movies, television, collectibles, technology, fashion, convention coverage, crowdfunding, and plenty more coming. The name is Comic Crusaders, but the world around those comics has gotten enormous. We’re growing with it without forgetting where home is, and I think that balance matters more now than ever.

Then there’s my baby, the Comic Crusaders Podcast, which somehow keeps getting bigger while I keep telling myself I’ll slow down one day. Hundreds of episodes later, I’m still sitting down with creators and asking questions because I genuinely love hearing how people make things and what pushed them to create in the first place. Writers, artists, filmmakers, actors, musicians, game developers, publishers, entrepreneurs, and indie creators grinding away on something nobody knows about yet all have stories worth hearing. Those conversations matter to me, and that’s why I’ve already put the next ridiculous goal out into the universe: episode 1,000, because apparently hundreds of interviews weren’t enough for me.

Meanwhile, P3 keeps doing its thing across wrestling, toys, sneakers, movies, and whatever insanity we get into that week. K-Pop Cosmos gives that community its own voice, Music Crusaders keeps opening doors with musicians and artists, and our GeekFest specials have connected us with another group of incredible creators who deserve attention. Twenty years in, and somehow I’m doing more interviews than ever, which honestly makes perfect sense when I think about why Comic Crusaders started in the first place. I still love talking to creators, hearing the story behind the work, and giving people a platform to tell that story in their own words. Another thing I’ve wanted for years is a stronger direct connection with the people who actually follow Comic Crusaders, because depending completely on social media algorithms is a terrible long-term plan. Platforms change, reach changes, and one day everybody sees your post while the next day you swear you’re posting to yourself and three bots. That’s one of the reasons we pushed forward with the Comic Crusaders newsletter and started building another direct line to readers. ComicCrusaders.com is still home, but the newsletter gives us another way to keep the Crusade connected without putting every relationship in the hands of a platform that can change the rules overnight.

Now October is coming, and that means one of my favorite events of the year is almost here: New York Comic Con. This year feels different because NYCC is celebrating twenty years and Comic Crusaders is celebrating twenty years too, which is a pretty wild coincidence when you think about how much both have changed since those early days. Comic Crusaders will be at New York Comic Con 2026 from October 8 through October 11, and we’re already preparing coverage, interviews, meetings, photos, video, and plenty of convention madness. We want to make this year count, and that means getting organized now instead of trying to figure everything out once Javits turns into controlled chaos.

Creators, publishers, studios, PR teams, game developers, artists, writers, musicians, and anybody bringing something interesting to NYCC should reach out now if you want to sit down with Comic Crusaders for an onsite interview. Please don’t wait until Thursday morning at Javits and message me asking if I have ten minutes, because at NYCC ten minutes is basically a currency and everybody is trying to spend the same ten minutes at once. Our schedule fills up, meetings overlap, somebody is always on the opposite side of Javits when they’re supposed to be standing next to you, and lunch becomes something you vaguely remember eating in another life. Book ahead, tell us what you’re bringing to NYCC, tell us what you want to talk about, and let’s figure out a time to connect before the convention gets crazy. We want to meet the established names, the indie creators, the people launching their first comic at Artist Alley, and the veterans launching their fiftieth. That mix of people has always been a huge part of what Comic Crusaders is about, because discovery matters just as much to me as covering the names everybody already knows.

The funny part about writing this update is realizing we’re nowhere near finished, and I’m good with that. The first anniversary article was about where Comic Crusaders had been and where I wanted us to go, while this one is about showing you the work we’ve actually done since then. We changed the website, rebuilt the structure, launched new features, strengthened the team, expanded our coverage, grew the shows, launched the newsletter, cleaned up the archive, and kept hundreds of creator conversations moving through the podcast network. There are still things I want fixed, there are still ideas sitting in my head that the team hasn’t heard yet, and there are still parts of Comic Crusaders we’re rebuilding right now.

Twenty years doesn’t mean you finished building something, and I never want it to mean that for us. It means you were lucky enough, stubborn enough, and crazy enough to keep building it for twenty years and still wake up thinking about what comes next.

Thank you to everybody who has been reading, watching, listening, sharing, creating, contributing, arguing with our reviews, and riding with this crazy Crusade. NYCC is next, the work keeps moving, and the Crusade keeps pushing forward because we’ve got a whole lot more left to do.

WEPA! The Crusade Never Ends!