Chris Ryall, the Editor-in-Chief of filmmaker Kevin Smith's pop culture news and commentary website, MoviePoopShoot.com, has stepped down from his role. Ryall, who also serves as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of San Diego-based comic book publisher IDW Publishing, has been with Smith's site since June 2002.

Prior to Ryall's arrival, the site functioned as an extension of the movie fan parody site that first appeared in Smith's 2001 film, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.

According to Ryall, "Kevin and I talked in early June of 2002 about turning the site from a jokey place into a real pop culture smorgasbord, which is exactly what I strived to do."

The site, which changed over exactly two weeks after Ryall agreed to come on board, received an early warm welcome in the press, garnering positive mentions in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, USA Today, and even CNN's Headline News.

In his four-year tenure, the site featured columns from Smith himself (documenting his work on Jersey Girl), former Los Angeles Times writer Jeffery Wells, DVD producer Robert Burnett, screenwriter Brian Lynch, among others. And three years ago, its most popular column, comics writer/historian Scott Tipton's Comics 101, went live. That column, which features detailed looks at comics titles, characters and films past and present, will exit the site this week as well.

Tipton, also the provider of the bulk of Movie Poop Shoot's news and headlines since its inception, will continue his column with the launch Comics101.com next week.

Ryall plans to bring his popular TV Recommendations column to Comics101.com as well, and will continue to document his development of his comic book adaptation of Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show (to be published through IDW Publishing starting in March) there as well. Kentucky Fried Rasslin' writer Scott Bowden will also join Comics101.com next week.

About Ryall's work on the site, Kevin Smith said, "Chris has really been a rock for Poop Shoot, lo these many years-and not the kind that drags it down or sinks it, mind you; the kind a brother could count on, day-in and day-out, to build and maintain a site that accomplished exactly what it set out to do: move beyond the movie in-joke it started life as and become a thriving web destination all its own."

Under Ryall and Tipton's run at Movie Poop Shoot, the site's readership and hit counts grew every year, and they were never higher than in January 2006, according to Alexa.com. Many of the columnists and comic strip creators will continue on at Movie Poop Shoot, and Smith and his Web designer, Ming Chen, have additional changes and a site makeover planned.

"It's been a great run with the site, and I'm proud of what we accomplished in my time there," said Ryall. "Kevin wanted a site that gave him news and info on pretty much every area of pop culture he was interested in, and he wanted daily updates. I did my best to give him the former, and in regards to the latter, we maintained updated of news and columns every single weekday of my entire run. In the past four years, there have been holidays, sicknesses, family crises, my wedding, the birth of my daughter and other situations that arose, and yet not one of those broke our uninterrupted streak of updates. Which is a testament to not only the obsessive efforts of Tipton and myself to deliver every single day, but also to the dozens of reliable, consistent freelancers that have contributed over the years. I know Kevin has some different things planned for the site now, so it made sense for me to step aside. I think I'll miss running it forever, but I look forward to some new experiences and also to seeing what they do with the ol' place when I'm gone."