Be Excellent to Each Other: Your Editor in Chief Bids You the Fondest Farewell

The time has come, to talk of many things.

It is with indescribable sorrow I make my official goodbye post on the site I have come to love as if it were an extension of my body. In August of 2011 Susana Polo, founder of The Mary Sue, took a shot in the dark to reach out to “The Nerdy Bird” on Twitter when she expressed interest in a full time writing gig. The Nerdy Bird was (is) me. She said “Hmm, you have piqued my interest! Going to DM you!” And life was never the same again.

That remains true to this day.

Where do I even start? This bittersweet type of post has become too familiar as of late. I once sat in the Manhattan offices of Abrams Media (our one and only owner since the site’s inception) thinking I hit the jackpot. “You want me to write about Harry Potter? And you’ll pay me for it? What is life???” I was hired not just for my writing talent and knowledge of all things geek but my name recognition and the following I had built for myself. I went to work telling everyone I knew they needed to start reading The Mary Sue immediately if they weren’t already. I still have notes I took during my first week, jotting down our Twitter follower count — 3,873 — and thinking, “Oh no, we can do much better than that.” And we did.

With Susana and the lovely lady who knows funny, Jamie Frevele, we started the uphill climb to where we are today. Jamie eventually bid us adieu and The Pun-inator Rebecca Pahle hopped on board the train and had to listen to Susana and I discuss the Batfamily on a daily basis. It was the best of times.

And as content with that as I was, I also realized I’d never be the one running the site because Susana started it, Susana was awesome, and our mutual love of Batman and his ethics code stopped me from bumping her off. I knew I’d eventually have to move on if I wanted to go bigger. But life never does quite what you expect and a short while before our merger with fellow Abrams nerd site Geekosystem one year ago (it has without a doubt, felt like five years), I found myself in charge.

To put it bluntly, being Editor in Chief was overwhelming (and never stopped being overwhelming). I was managing eight staffers, the merger (something we’d been super nervous but very excited about) didn’t go over well with our readers, San Diego Comic-Con was right around the corner (I was also attending it that year), and then we had a tragic loss in my family. It was a challenging time to be sure, but I’d never once shied away from a challenge in my life and I wasn’t about to now. I continued the tenure-long process of helping the site grow and it made me supremely happy to see new fans finding us each and every day. Of course with bigger fame and exposure also comes bigger hate and well, you’ve all been here to see how that goes. But we’ve had an amazing ride from meetups, to our own merch, Geek Girl Headquarters, surprise superhero dildo deliveries, photoshop madness, and internal company GIF wars.

Above all, getting to talk about the media I love, getting to do so honestly, and opening the eyes of others is not something I’d trade for anything in the world. That’s The Mary Sue. That’s always been The Mary Sue.

Now it’s time to thank everyone.

Thank you to Abrams Media for giving a home to geek content when it wasn’t as fashionable as it is today, and for the entire company staff who didn’t vocalize their annoyance when we started talking nerdy out loud at the office (on those rare occasions we looked up from our computers).

To Susana… my badass Lady Bane, my partner in superheroics, and the best Chipotle savior in town – thank you. None of us would be here without you. Jamie, my love! We were never funnier than when we had you. Rebecca… Totes McGoats! Your puns and Rock GIFs will live on in infamy.

To Max of the old Geekosystem guard, thank you for your honesty in all matters and continued support. Rollin, thank you for being the coolest dude around and organizing the first full Dungeons & Dragons campaign I got to play. Ian, thank you for laughing through most of it.

Thank you to Sam Maggs for showing me the energy and positivity I’d forgotten in myself. You kicked so much ass for us. Victoria McNally, my redhead nemesis but Neopet friend, I can’t believe we didn’t make YA dystopian fiction about dresses your beat from the get-go but thank you for entertaining us all with your Sailor Moon action figure dramas. Glen Tickle, thank you for joining us for the wild ride, your bow ties will never be forgotten. Carolyn Cox, you are a delight. Your wit and snark are unparalleled. Dan Van Winkle, your talent is much larger than you think, reach for the stars. Also, you’re fired.

Thank you so much for our thankless Weekend Warriors: Becky Chambers, Alanna Bennett, and Janelle Asselin, your current successes make my heart swell. And to our newest fighters: Jessica Lachenal, Teresa Jusino, Sam Riedel, and Alec Bernal, stay strong. I’m sorry I didn’t get more time to work with you all. To the contributors who helped make TMS one of the most diverse outlets online, I salute you. Thank you for bringing perspectives we might not have had otherwise. You helped make TMS a better place.

Now to you, dear readers, nerds, comrades in moderating. Our best days are your best days because when all is said and done, the writers at The Mary Sue are nerds just like you. Besides my staff, you are the reason I stayed here as long as I did. You made me push farther, try harder, and devote more time than I probably should have for my well being in order to make The Mary Sue a place you were proud to spend your time on and tell others about. Commenting on and sharing our posts every day, sharing in our hopes and excitements as well as our defeats and disappointments. This community is a magical place filled with the most wonderful human beings imaginable. I will not name anyone specifically for fear of leaving someone out by accident but the core group of TMS’ers (you know who you are) are a wonderful extended family to me and I’m so sorry to be leaving you. Behave. :)

To my fans specifically (there may be some overlap with our general readership, I hope), those who have followed me on the interwebs for years, I thank you for coming on this wacky journey with me. It’s been a roller coaster, and some of you fell off along the way, but know I appreciate each and every one of you.

So what now? A personal fan campaign to get a set visit with The Rock on Shazam? Probably. Definitely a lot of time off. Absolutely catching up on the comics, TV, video games, and movies I haven’t been able to consume because TMS consumed my every waking hour (and some of my sleeping hours as well).

“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.”

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Jill Pantozzi

Jill Pantozzi is a pop-culture journalist and host who writes about all things nerdy and beyond! She’s Editor in Chief of the geek girl culture site The Mary Sue (Abrams Media Network), and hosts her own blog “Has Boobs, Reads Comics” (TheNerdyBird.com). She co-hosts the Crazy Sexy Geeks podcast along with superhero historian Alan Kistler, contributed to a book of essays titled “Chicks Read Comics,” (Mad Norwegian Press) and had her first comic book story in the IDW anthology, “Womanthology.” In 2012, she was featured on National Geographic’s "Comic Store Heroes," a documentary on the lives of comic book fans and the following year she was one of many Batman fans profiled in the documentary, "Legends of the Knight."

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