concerning webcomics:
Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Feel Bad.
Only been around for a couple weeks, and homeboy's already got half the webcomics 'scene' (the unbelievably shitty half) up in arms; he apparently made the guy that does Dominic Deegan cry. Killer.
After wasting a good few hours reading up on the shitstorm that John Solomon (the author of the above blog) kicked up, my transvestite/paedophile/brownnosing douchebag addled brainpan could only form one terrible conclusion: the webcomics world simply cannot support serious critique. It's become rapidly apparent that any attempt at actual criticism inevitably tends towards one of two extremes: either simpering, mealy-mouthed fanboyism (ala Websnark occasionally or Tangents all the fucking time) or rabid assholery (ala William G. or the aforementioned Mr. Solomon). Granted, I tend to find the later a whole fuck of a lot more palatable than the former, but still. There really doesn't seem to be any middle ground.
I'd wager this lack of honest critique is less a reflection on the artistic value of the medium (of which there is plenty) and more a reflection on the nature of the medium itself.
In traditional media, critique provides a valuable service in mitigating loss. If I were, for example, to decide that I wished to take a young lady to the cinema, I would read up on what was playing and get some critic's opinions on our choices. In this context, knowing that Mr. Reviewer Man from the local paper thinks Death Weasels 4: The Harvesting has all the cinematic quality of used toilet paper would be a good thing! It'd save me twenty bucks, if nothing else.
But unlike film, or a print comic, a novel, or most other forms of art, there's nothing lost from reading a bad webcomic. Say I decide to check out Dominic Deegan, for example (and say I had previously suffered a debilitating brain injury, but I repeat myself.) I'd get about a dozen pages into it before I would say to myself "Hey! This comic is a giant pile of runny shit!" and stop reading the damn thing. I've lost nothing more than a few minutes of time, and a few dozen brain cells that I'd probably just kill with booze later in the night anyway.
So why bother with critiquing something which one may easily try for oneself? I would argue that really just comes down to ego. On the one hand, we have sycophants like Rob Howard (Tangents) who gives every shitty-ass comic on the intarwebs a gushing review because he desperately yearns for the modicum of reflected fame that comes from the favour of his gods, the mighty Lords of Keenspot. On the other, we have predators like John Solomon, who tears into horrible comics and their creators with a glee usually reserved for dropkicking babies down staircases, and requires no further motivation for his actions than the wailing and gnashing of little fanboy teeth in his wake. In either case, the true purpose of the review is not to add to the body of scholarly discussion on the topic; rather the reviewer is just a self-absorbed asshole.
At any rate, John Solomon is actually funny, which is more than can be said for the vast, vast majority of his colleagues. And fucking Eric Burns never updates anyway.
Only been around for a couple weeks, and homeboy's already got half the webcomics 'scene' (the unbelievably shitty half) up in arms; he apparently made the guy that does Dominic Deegan cry. Killer.
After wasting a good few hours reading up on the shitstorm that John Solomon (the author of the above blog) kicked up, my transvestite/paedophile/brownnosing douchebag addled brainpan could only form one terrible conclusion: the webcomics world simply cannot support serious critique. It's become rapidly apparent that any attempt at actual criticism inevitably tends towards one of two extremes: either simpering, mealy-mouthed fanboyism (ala Websnark occasionally or Tangents all the fucking time) or rabid assholery (ala William G. or the aforementioned Mr. Solomon). Granted, I tend to find the later a whole fuck of a lot more palatable than the former, but still. There really doesn't seem to be any middle ground.
I'd wager this lack of honest critique is less a reflection on the artistic value of the medium (of which there is plenty) and more a reflection on the nature of the medium itself.
In traditional media, critique provides a valuable service in mitigating loss. If I were, for example, to decide that I wished to take a young lady to the cinema, I would read up on what was playing and get some critic's opinions on our choices. In this context, knowing that Mr. Reviewer Man from the local paper thinks Death Weasels 4: The Harvesting has all the cinematic quality of used toilet paper would be a good thing! It'd save me twenty bucks, if nothing else.
But unlike film, or a print comic, a novel, or most other forms of art, there's nothing lost from reading a bad webcomic. Say I decide to check out Dominic Deegan, for example (and say I had previously suffered a debilitating brain injury, but I repeat myself.) I'd get about a dozen pages into it before I would say to myself "Hey! This comic is a giant pile of runny shit!" and stop reading the damn thing. I've lost nothing more than a few minutes of time, and a few dozen brain cells that I'd probably just kill with booze later in the night anyway.
So why bother with critiquing something which one may easily try for oneself? I would argue that really just comes down to ego. On the one hand, we have sycophants like Rob Howard (Tangents) who gives every shitty-ass comic on the intarwebs a gushing review because he desperately yearns for the modicum of reflected fame that comes from the favour of his gods, the mighty Lords of Keenspot. On the other, we have predators like John Solomon, who tears into horrible comics and their creators with a glee usually reserved for dropkicking babies down staircases, and requires no further motivation for his actions than the wailing and gnashing of little fanboy teeth in his wake. In either case, the true purpose of the review is not to add to the body of scholarly discussion on the topic; rather the reviewer is just a self-absorbed asshole.
At any rate, John Solomon is actually funny, which is more than can be said for the vast, vast majority of his colleagues. And fucking Eric Burns never updates anyway.