A late night wrap up of the week that was. And Happy Holidays to everyone around the world. Stay safe and happy out there.
New group blog, FLEEN on webcomics spawned by Jon Rosenberg. Although I don’t agree with Rosenberg’s categorial rant on creator-written articles about webcomics, I am all in favor of FLEEN’s stated mission of using non-webcomics creators to write on webcomics. Because anything that draws in more good writers interested in writing about webcomics is a good thing for webcomics and frankly for Comixpedia. Don’t get me wrong, I love our current crew of contributors. It’s just given our ridiculously low pay (BUT HEY! COMIXPEDIA DOES PAY FOR CONTRIBUTIONS, if you hadn’t heard that) it’s not easy to recruit people who don’t already love the medium going in.
Also Eric wrote an essay responding to Jon’s post. Since Eric is a webcomic creator and critic, it’s not surprising he was interested in responding to Jon.
I also got a press release from Powerful Press about new issues of their comic titles, METADAWN and NOCTURNAL ESSENCE. Right now all of the archives at their site are free to readers.
Speaking of writing about comics it’s been awhile since I’ve mentioned it so here’s the link to the Comics Blog Update Machine where you can find up-to-the-minute links to a lot of blogs on comics.
And last but not least – here’s the latest addition to the new Comixpedia creators library: Kevin Robertson. Robertson’s webcomic is Beyond The Punchline.
Ok, Jon’s apology is making a big difference in how I phrase this, but I can’t NOT say it.
I have never created a webcomic. I have no particular intention of creating a webcomic. This does not completely rule out the possibility that I may, one day, create a webcomic. But at the present time I am utterly webcomic-creation-free.
And I was the Editor-in-Chief of Comixpedia for six months. We put out issues 3 weeks per month, we never missed an issue, we always published on our assigned Sunday nights for the big Monday reveal, and we were late with less than a handful of articles. That’s damn good for a bunch of volunteers.
I edited each and every article with an eye toward The Chicago Manual of Style 15th Edition and Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary Eleventh Edition. I made a serious effort to make sure that punctuation and grammar were both correct and consistent. In terms of the writing, I pushed writers to present arguments and support them. If they failed to provide sufficient support, I sent the articles back to them and asked for additional material. My editors (when I had them) for various sections did the same.
But even when I wasn’t EIC, when we were helmed by webcomic-creators, we had the same dedication to good writing and good editing.
Come February, we’ll have been around for THREE years. We’ve never missed an issue. We always have good, well-written content. That’s one HELL of a job and I salute the writers and editors, past and present, for such consistent and high-quality delivery.
Happy Holidays, ya’ll! It’s been a pleasure serving with you.
Kelly J.
Don’t forget to read Jon’s follow-up announcement.
CNN is primarily a news channel. So far FLEEN hasn’t posted anything that could be called news.
CNN tries to be objective in its reporting. FLEEN has posted essays that offer a subjective opinion about various webcomics and creators.
I’ll have to disagree with you on your FLEEN = CNN statement.
As far as FLEEN coming out swinging, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what’s in the press release – if FLEEN is good we’ll all be checking it out and if it’s not we won’t be talking about it anyway. The idea of a group blog on webcomics is actually something missing ’til now anyhow. (I realize DS and WS have two or more authors but they don’t really fit the characteristics of a group blog).
I don’t know. It reads more like CNN for webcomics than a critical review site. Heck, Websnark regularly writes more significant and serious critical articles, and according to Jon, Eric cannot be considered a significant or serious critic because he is “tainted” by his past and present with webcomics.
This also holds true for a half dozen or so other review blogs I’ve seen. They’ve [i]also[/i] proven themselves to be significant critical sites. Maybe Fleen needs time to grow and become more experienced, but to go out swinging and stating that you can’t trust the impartiality of the current reviewers because they have dabbled in writing or drawing webcomics in the past is… putting blinders on and ignoring everything around you.
I’ve reasons for my belief that webcomic experience gives webcomic reviewers/critics an extra insight when reviewing a webcomic. And my detractors have some excellent reasons why my belief is flawed (and they are partly correct). But to go the absolute opposite path… especially in the light of such sites as Websnark and its ilk… *shrug* as I said above, they’re putting blinders on and ignoring everything around them.
Besides, Roger Ebert wrote a movie script that was made into a movie (a rather poor one, but still!). Does that make him any less capable than he was before to do movie reviews? (Though I never did listen to him… *chuckle*) Does the fact a movie critic acted in a high school play or in some amateur movie twenty years prior mean that they cannot be considered serious reviewers? How does the fact I drew a comic 4 years ago lessen my ability as a reviewer? Or the fact Eric Burns has two comics out currently, and had a failed comic years ago? Is Kris Straub (I think he’s the chap, if I’m wrong I apologize) an ineffectual critic because his critiques are in webcomic form?
Just something to think about.
Take care!
Robert A. Howard, Tangents Webcomic Reviewers
http://www.tangents.us