Hmm, what a weekend. I had stayed home sick Friday, so I decided to finish the review for Triquetra Cats, so I posted the news about the review on the comic genesis forums, as I usually do with the CG comics. I was surprised to see how fast the artist responded to it. Unlike other threads on bad reviews, I responded to the thread in a positive manner, attempting to respond to her criticism of the review. I never do this on a regular basis, because I found no point to responding it in the first place. On Saturday, I left for Primo’s house, where I spent most of the day playing Resident Evil 4. I checked the forums once again, seeing the initial response of some of the other webcomic artists on comicgenesis. It wasn’t until a popular forum member brought up the point that I review only bad webcomics, and that my reviews were biased towards ComicGenesis comics. It was the second time such a topic had been raised, and this time, it was more of a personal attack on my reviewing, or as he put it, a critique. It was harsh, but made some honest assessments that I’d like to address. He made a valid point that I am in favor of ComicGenesis webcomics, as I am closely tied with its community and I am friends with much of them. I admit, I am friends with these people. I go on the ComicGenesis IRC chat rather frequently, and they are the ones I turn to for support in my webcomic reviews. I feared that my attachment to the webcomic community may be attacked at one point or another, so I decided to play fair with the reviews they asked of me. For the Green Avenger review, I don’t really know Ryuko, the artist. We’ve spoken once or twice, and probably gone into a discussion once or twice on IRC. Those I do consider to be friends, I’ve already reviewed (like Pimpette or Legostar), but with other people I have yet to review (rkolter and his comic, Reasoned Cognition) I’ve taken my time to make the review a fair one. (The Reasoned Cognition review was written a good while ago, but I’ve held off on releasing it until I had ample time to re-read the archives a couple of times before I’m sure its fair.). And I try to be fair to the best of my extent. I’ve reviewed some of the more popular comics on ComicGenesis and given those poor reviews (Digital War, Star Bored, Burgandy Comics INC) even though the people on the forums are popular and contribute much to the community. I don’t care. I try to separate the person and the comic before I actually review. I admit. I have no damn credentials. I don’t write for anything big like the New York Times. At the same time, there are no credentials to be a webcomic artist. I hoped I could gain credentials not with where I write my reviews, but instead, in the eyes of those who read my reviews and try to enjoy them. I am as objective as possible when it comes to my review. Each facet of the comic – characters, story, pacing, art, premise, and writing- are all examined. I try to categorize the comic at first so that readers of my reviews can see if the comic in such a category. I admit, I don’t take much into giving suggestions on the corrections, and I’m slowly trying to change that. I did mention in the review of Triquetra cats to switch off the screentones, and I really have to give more suggestions in the future if I want my reviews to appeal to both the audiences and the artists alike. Roger Ebert doesn’t say what can be done better about the review. Hell, I read his reviews. The man doesn’t suggest different things to do with the reviews. Here’s his latest review on 16 Blocks. As you can read it, half of the review is a recap on the film and some of the major plot points and characters. It isn’t until the end of the review that he reflects on the film and its strong points. Nothing to it. Thinking back on it all, I’m probably not going to review any ComicGenesis comics in the near future, to avoid any more of this bullshit. The junkRIOT review was going to go up this Monday, but I held it off in lieu of this recent flamewar. Resident Evil 4 scared the shit out of me. I swear, I’m not going near chainsaws anytime soon. Damn villagers. and damn parasites.
ryclaude and his comic, Reckless Youth. Claude put me in as a goth zombie that gets clocked by a floorbuffer. Its a small one, but i still love it.
this was the scene of my desk a couple days ago as i was trying to fix my handspring visor platinum, scar-san. it was getting to be a bitch to attempt to fix it. let’s just say that the poor thing was working so horribly that i thought that licking it was going to help. And i have electrecuted myself on it so much that i lost any feeling in my tip of my tounge (it’s back now, after three days) So I realized that the part that was malfunctioning was the power supply/button system (its the square thing on the desk). It was easy to replace if you know the inside of a computer. Man, this thing is getting better. I’ll try writing a couple more reviews now.