Newsarama’s certainly been on the front lines for years in terms of getting the scoop on comic news, but to be honest, the site was really stale for a really long time. Not that there were really any other great sites to compare it to. It was basic, straight-forward and pretty much a glorified message board, with news briefs/interviews kicking off most threads.

Today I logged in and was shocked and pleasantly surprised to see not just a little redesign but a full-on makeover. Embracing the best of Web 2.0 without stuffing every last widget in every corner of the homepage, the Newsarama gang has really done a bang-up job I’ve gotta say. Broken out nicely by categories such as comics, film, TV and games, the news bites and interviews are now actual articles, rather then message board posts. And like most interactive sites these days, readers can leave comments on each post. In essence, it’s still the same style that Newsarama always had (article with comments included), but it’s in a much more digestible and attractive package.

There’s also a nice Comic Preview Viewer. I hate reading comics online, mainly cause they never fit on a full screen and there’s lots of scrolling, plus it takes forever to load. This one is super fast, you can switch pages easily and it’s real straight forward to use. Yeah, it still goes beyond my screen, so maybe I’ll just by a 50″ monitor and be done with the whole problem.

Toss in lots of blogs, plenty of videos (movie trailers, interviews, you name it), that don’t slow down your browser at all, save for a slight delay on initial load), a pretty fast-loading site all around, and this new newsarama is something to really celebrate. For the curmudgeons out there that hate it, yes there’s still a forums to discuss topics, but you can also still access the old archives via a “Newsarama v.1.0″ link in the header to go back to the old style. I’ve always popped in to Newsarama every once in a while just to keep up on comic news… but with this new site, I may just become a regular.