Next issue..?

Production Notes (and why there is no nEXt issue)

A lot of things can happen in a matter of weeks. For instance, just concentrating on EX staffers during the production phase for this issue, some people (including myself) got sick with various illnesses with the flu being most prominent... and people had to leave work (and the Internet) for the holidays.
But the anime and manga industry do not wait for us to keep going. While this issue was making its way through, Watsuki Nobuhiro returned to the pages of WEEKLY JUMP with his new 19th-century country-western series GUN BLAZE WEST on the Japanese end of the Pacific—and across the ocean back on our home turf, Cartoon Network announced that the popular anime series OUTLAW STAR will start airing on January 15th.
Back to the subject at hand. You may have noticed that I just wrote "no next issue". That's right, there is no issue 6.1 planned for release. We at EX try to keep up with the latest news and reviews, and with all of our volunteer staff having busy schedules as of late, we decided that it was time to change (or rather, update) the method in which we bring you information. Therefore, while we make the switchover, we will be on a short hiatus.
All of us at EX appreciate your continued support and feedback, and we hope that you will come back and visit us when the new system comes online!

—Rika Takahashi

Please allow me to elaborate on some of the changes in store for EX.
To date, each issue has been produced brute force, coded entirely by hand. The sheer amount of work involved is quite frankly a killer, and the magazine-style format also means waiting for all the pieces to fall into place before an issue can be completed and put up on the site. This approach may have worked for the past several years, but it's not working anymore.
Well, it's time we changed that.
EX will transition from an issue-based format to an index format. In the interest of keeping things fresh, content will be posted to the site as they come in, and things will be managed with a content publishing and management system to take out most of the HTML production work.
I'd like to ask our readers to please bear with us during our period of transition. The new setup should allow for more frequent updates and far fewer delays, so it should be worth it, both for ourselves as well as for our readers.
Stay tuned.

—Keith Rhee