Good morning and fair questions! Thought I'd take a minute to chime in here:
Even though I've been with CCL for 18 years, I've been in charge for right around a year since Joe retired and was looking at turning the lights off on CCL for good. What inspired me to keep things going was the number of emails and private messages from people who loved CCL and didn't want to see it go away...many that don't really or never post in the CCL forums. Some even offered to send money or pay more for the service and that really meant a lot to me personally and professionally. Some users left during this period but far more stayed.
The first 3-6 months of the transition in 2025 involved a lot of behind the scenes logistics: setting up a company, servers, moving information, figuring out how all the databases work together...we had to shut things down in the US and reopen them here in Canada. Much of this technical info I wasn't privy to when I worked here because Joe liked to be hands on with all of it.
Once that was secured, the last part of 2025 has been maintaining things, experimentation, upkeep and planning. I had conference calls with Approvers, Sellers, did a couple promotions for members, offered some free memberships, worked on redeveloping partnerships on top of the regular day-to-day stuff I do including daily customer service, data input, etc. I'm constantly sending response emails through the day to users with everything from "Where can I find (this book) in the database?" to "I've been messaging this store for a week and I want to know where my order is". It can be tedious work but I've gotten good at time management over the years. I also add between 300-400 comics to the CCLdb every week. We also reached a milestone and sold our 3,000,000th comic on CCL towards the end of the year!
The first few months of 2026 has been really positive for CCL because we've been able to plan. We've seen an uptick in new users who are reupping their subs from free promotions we ran last year. Additionally, (and I've kept this quiet) we've secured an awesome new programmer. This guy is a machine and he knows comics. He's working on some stuff that CCL has needed behind the scenes in order to make us more productive AND more competitive. Joe used to have me run to the forums to tease CCL updates that may or may not happen. I don't want to do that. I want to deliver new stuff to the members.
It is NEVER too soon to submit a new feature request to CCL...although we have a laundry list of feature requests that are long overdue. We are prioritizing the list based on the items my partner and I think will make CCL more profitable AND more competitive. There's times when I may be radio silent in the forums but I have eyes and ears out here who let me know when I should take a gander at something or if there's a problem.
If ANYONE reading this would like to share any feedback or submit and feature requests or have any problems with CCL, then can always PM me or reach me personally at
steve@panellogicmedia.com. I am responsive to emails faster.
To be honest, I think all CCL users will be happy with 2026! We want to make money so you can make more money AND have fun doing it. :)