Comic Genesis Forums

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by wish:
<B>This month, Sequential Tart is starting a series of reviews. One of their regular columnists is reading and reviewing every single Keenspot comic. <A HREF="http://www.sequentialtart.com/geeksquad_1201.shtml" TARGET=_blank>Webcomics. A Journey into the World of Keen</A> is interesting, if somewhat negative in tone.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P> I can handle a negative review a lot better when it doesn't seem the result of a reviewer being lazy. Her review of Bruno the Bandit was a sentence given without evidence for her position. Her lament about the things lacking in Avalon indicate that she hadn't reviewed the entire series before dismissing it for being about a boy and girl dating in high school.<P>The idea is good, but I can't rely on a review that shows no dedication to proper critical assessment. It's not enough to say, "This strip is unfunny." It's not enough to say, "It's like [other series]" and leave it at that. Give examples - fair use allows for quoting in a review. And would it really have been impossible to acquire permission to use excerpts?<P>So that's my review. The idea is a good one, but I believe that it needs to be pursued with more care and attention to the material reviewed and the cases presented.

I sent the reviewer an e-mail regarding her review of Avalon and tried to tell her in the most intelligent way possible to go back and read the entire strip, as well as read the archives of any strip in its entirety before reviewing it.<P>I just sent it off, so it may be a while before I get a reply, if I indeed get one at all.

Some of you may already be aware of the comic webzine called <A HREF="http://www.sequentialtart.com" TARGET=_blank>Sequential Tart</A>. For the rest of you, Sequential Tart is a comic zine put together by a group of (mainly UK) women, who want to change the face of the comic book landscape to include women, and the issues that women value. The rational is that, with more women buying comics, comics as a whole will flourish.<P>This month, Sequential Tart is starting a series of reviews. One of their regular columnists is reading and reviewing every single Keenspot comic. <A HREF="http://www.sequentialtart.com/geeksquad_1201.shtml" TARGET=_blank>Webcomics. A Journey into the World of Keen</A> is interesting, if somewhat negative in tone. Those who are interested in webcomics in general might want to have a look. Also, check out their buliten boards for more dicussion on the topic.<P>-Wish
I don't know what they are but they're not made of flesh.

Actually, the interesting thing I found about her webcomic reviews was that before she revied Keenspot, she review three random webcomics she found. The webcomics were fairly obscure and were in fact my three favorite webcomics! (Bruno, the Jain's Death, and Parking Lot is Full). Though, yeah, her review was somewhat more negative then mine would have been.

Ah, they're available again.<P>It'll be interesting to see what she thinks of <I>Exploitation Now!</I> and <I>Wendy</I>. <I>CRFH</I> should be interesting too, given that it has three very different women.<P>A pity she'll be passing <I>Fans!</I> up.

She doesn't really seem to like her job much.<P>Even the webcomics that she likes get very cursory examinations. It's like she's counting the days until she can be done with Keenspot.<P>I mean, maybe that's me. Maybe it's irrational to expect her to read a year's worth of material every time. But if you give <I>Alice!</I> a paragraph when offline comics generally get at least three... I dunno... seems like there's an unspoken assumption going in.<P>At least they're more progressive than COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE or (God help us) THE COMICS JOURNAL...<p>[This message has been edited by T Campbell (edited 12-09-2001).]

Looks like they need to look for a better hosting service. I can't even connect to their server.

Am I mistaken, or has Josh Philips done all those things that this "professional journalist" thinks would be required to make Avalon a "better comic"?<P>Nullset out.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nullset:
<B>Am I mistaken, or has Josh Philips done all those things that this "professional journalist" thinks would be required to make Avalon a "better comic"?<P>Nullset out.</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Yeah, I just read the article, and I agree. I can see some of her points about Bruno the Bandit (although it seems she missed the storylines where they do a lot of political commentary), and most of the other strips she reviewed were ones I don't read, but she seemed to be way off base with Avalon. I mean, anyone who actually read a full year of the archives would surely see a *bit* more to it than that...<P>Bushi