Seriously, LC does the most thorough and professional quality reviews I've seen, and I'm not just saying that because he's my brother. I'm saying it because he's my sister, too.
Playfulness aside, my first real exposure at all to webcomic reviews was here reading the old W.A.Y. threads and the occasional specific review in TT&T back when there was a bit more of a crowd. The reviews I've seen on these forums always seem well thought out, fair, and interesting. It seems like people who've made comics *in general* tend to treat reviews more carefully than people who haven't, and my guess is because people who've made webcomics have just slightly a better insight into what makes comics work than someone who is an admirer of the craft but hasn't partaken.
The saying goes "I don't need to be a professional chef to say when the steak is burnt," and of course I agree with that, and that's why non-creator reviews are still useful. But to murder the metaphor, the professional chef might be able to cite other examples of properly cooked steaks, or other means of cooking them so the steak doesn't get so burnt, or even to speculate what went wrong during the cooking process to lead to the burnt steak. I really appreciate when reviewers of this medium are able to go into the "whys" and not just the "whats," if that makes any sense.
The best non-creating reviewer I can think of offhand is El Santo of Webcomic Overlook, and I still find LC's reviews more thought provoking. I like El Santo's fairness, cleverness, and genuine interest in the craft, the complaint I have being that I feel like sometimes when he's not ripping into something he thinks is poor quality or could use improvement, he kind of just summarizes without analyzing why something DOES work well. LC (and a lot of the reviewers here, to be fair) are good at pointing out not only what is working, but *why* it's working. Then again, El Santo writes primarily for potential readers, and around here the reviews are written for potential readers AS WELL AS the creator of the specific comic AND other passersby creators interested in seeing if there's any tips they can apply to their own work.
Basically, DOMA has been repealed, and I am so gay for all of you. Lord christ I need to stop drinking so much wine.
Sortelli wrote:I still remember one argument I got into with a dude on these very forums which caused him to publicly swear that I only hated him because he never bothered to review EOI even though I had no idea nor care that he did reviews in the first place.
This is fucking hilarious though and I don't feel like working on my own comic so I'm probs gonna go hunting around for this nugget of ancient forum drama