by Ilya Olenskaya on Sat Jan 06, 2001 11:35 am
Alrighty, let's dig in and see what we come up with. Ah, a disclaimer on request of Mr. Howard.<P>The opinion expressed by Ilya is his own, and no one will agree with it, but what matters is that it is his, supported by him alone.<P><b>Ilya, I regret to inform you that your future as a reviewer looks dim indeed.Alas, review is not my intention, it is purely my opinion that I offer, and nothing more.<P>I can understand you not liking Common Grounds. I can't understand you attempting to review it without actually reading more than a week's worth of strips. Yours appears to be the sort of lazy, hack-work that eventually gets paid columnists fired, but that gets published on the web in spite of its easy categorization as "drivel."</b><P>Hack work? That term can be applied to any endeavor, regardless of status. For instance, I am not a fan of Tim Burton's, and see his take on the Batman mythos to be nothing but pure, unadulterated hack and slash. Perceptions of what are, and are not, worthy works will always clash thanks in part to those silly little notions we members of Homo Sapiens hold in our self aware minds.<P><b>If you want to pan something in a review, use reviewers' language before resorting to shallow, diatribic rhetoric. Use examples of the strip's dialog. Link to strips you thought were bad, and call attention to the faults. Make your case intelligently.</b><P>So what you are saying is that I should alter my language to make my thoughts more palatable to the less perceptive. I, on the other hand, disagree wholeheartidly. Consider this, the first strip of Common Grounds that I read already had a disagreement between the two stereotypical leads, based on a romantic conflict. From the opening strip that I then elected to read, I gained an insight into a main plot, and from roughly 12 or so strips, realised that the writing was ultimately formulatic and overly predictable. The jokes were tired attempts at sarcastic irony as well as overly self aware, making the punchlines heavy handed and lacking in comic timing. Rather than playing Punch and Judy, I opted for the more Stalineque style of verbal barrage, since it can be found humorous by those people who still remember that being over the top is, indeed, a form of humor.<P><b>In the case of your Common Grounds review, the only point you made is that you are mean-spirited, and write coherently. Boo.</b><P>Bravo, you have deciphered my hard to grasp point. The Rosetta Stone is a pale mockery of the deduction skills you possess as a person. Alas, I must admit you did make a few mistakes, one of which is that I call what I write a review, I do not. If I did label my thoughts as a review, I would certainly bring out my old grammar texts, thesaurus, dictionaries, et al. and properly, as those zany children say today, "Rip a new poopshoot" for the aforementioned affronts to my personal sensiblities.<P><b>And Case Yorke... I'm just a little disappointed in you for hosting Ilya's tripe. It's unwise for a cartoonist, especially one showing a modicum of true wit and talent, to support unsubstantiated attacks on his/her peers.</b><P>Politics? Dear me, oh my, are you attempting to admonish Mr. Yorke for daring to possibly disrupt this happy little den of lies, two faced greetings, and oft whispered insults? Attack my all you want, I see no wrong in your assement of my small blurbs of writing, but to level a poorly vieled threat at someone who's opinion I do respect, well that just simply smells of skullduggery. Your motives are reviled, and no, that is not a typo. The very fact that you chose to put this on a forum screams murder in the second degree, because you neither have the gumption nor need to simply message me at the mail provided by Mr. Yorke for responses, grievences, or praise should someone wish to level any at my person. This travesty of justice you claim as simply not wanting to see other people's feelings harmed, neatly placed into a disguise of providing "criticism" of what I choose to do is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to half heartidly warn Case to play into the machine. I do miss sweet home Chicago, because I certainly could use some Taminey Hall scratching right about now. <P>To sum it up, aim your guns at me, and not my pal Case.<P>Thanks again,<P>-IO