Webcomic Fan is a site devoted to, yep, webcomics. It has a link to Comixpedia with a thoughtful description:
To describe The Kuna Melba News as “The CNN of Kuna, Idaho” would be misleading. While that description is accurate in the sense that of all the news periodicals published in Kuna, Idaho, the Kuna Melba News is arguably the best, it misleads the reader in the sense that the mental image one gets when one imagines CNN — a giant, sprawling network of buildings scattered across the world, staffed by thousands — is a far, far cry from the reality of the humble offices of the Kuna Melba News. In the same way, I am reluctant to describe Comixpedia as “The CNN of Webcomics.”
There’s more – go check out the rest of their links and reviews pages.
An interesting idea, but the site design is mind-numbingly bland and vacant. As well, most of the reviews seem to be of the type I call “Sniper Reviews”. Some anonymous guy or gal giving their anonymous opinion on someone’s work. I find it very difficult to put any stock into a review unless I know the person reviewing it.
For example, a review of a webcomic that blasts it as “filth and depravity without an ounce of funny to its name” means one thing to me coming from someone I know is a self-rightious prude as well as a pompous wind-bag with his head lodged up his ass and yet means something completely different if it’s coming from someone whose work and opinion I respect.
Some of the reviews are poorly written. Their style is really stilted. Their style lacks any depth. Their sentance structure is monotonous. Their writing is very dry.
… well you get the point.
The site needs a little more pizzaz. These are supposed to be webcomic fans but you don’t really get that when you visit the sites. It just looks like somebody’s geocities webpage about their aunt’s collection of glass unicorns, but without any actual pictures of the unicorns.
Lively up yourself Webcomic Fan. Let’s see a little passion. Let’s see a little oomph!
“filth and depravity without an ounce of funny to its name”
You got this one, didn’t you? 😉
>>most of the reviews seem to be of the type I call “Sniper Reviews”. Some anonymous guy or gal giving their anonymous opinion on someone’s work.<< All of the reviews are written by me, unless otherwise indicated. None of the reviews are anonymous. As for lacking pizzazz, you actually caught me in the middle of an update to make things look a bit less bland. Check back in a few days.
I find it very difficult to put any stock into a review unless I know the person reviewing it.
Of course, you can pick up an idea of a reviewers personality by assessing their reviews of comics you already know. For example, Ravenswood’s review of Penny Arcade was fairly negative. I like PA, so I’ll treat the other reviews by him/her with a certain amount of scepticism.
Their review of Comixpedia continues:
They may be the only game in town when it comes to webcomics news, but they’re not yet the earth-shattering force of vital journalism that they could be. While they do hit some major webcomics news stories, and many of the smaller ones as well, there’s still the occasional big story that they miss. Also, big and small news stories seem to receive equal treatment. There are no big headlines; to find the important stuff you have to slog through the unimportant stuff. The layout and navigation have improved since they first started, but it’s still difficult to use. In short, Comixpedia is the best source available for news about the webcomics world, but it could be better.
It could start being better if people used a little more judgement about what actually constitutes news items instead of posting blatent self-promotion under the guise of a news item *cough*cough*
Well that’s a fair point. I hope we’ve helped improve that a bit this year by moving press release to the “press release” category and other items to the blog.
Yes this particular post is probably not news but it was a slow day in comic newsland (although I’m not sure how that review of Comixpedia counts as “self-promotion” – perhaps self-denigration? 🙂
I guess the last thing to mention is that we actually have a very small staff and we rely on the community of readers to do a great deal of the “reporting” – our model with regards to news is Slashdot, not NYTimes.
My mistake — I was under the impression that the people who owned these sites sent these in as news items. My express apologies.
Well, like he said. It’s the CNN of webcomics. Not the indymedia.com of webcomics. Out of curiosity, what “small” stories are there about webcomics that Comixpedia doesn’t report on? It’s not like we’ve got a convention out in Moscow that we’re not sending representatives to or something. I’ve said more than I probably should have about doing more reviews for lesser-known comics, which is fine one way or the other, but I don’t have any idea what kind of news items are going under the radar.
I agree. I personally don’t like PA. That’s me, but I can see your point. I found it kinda cool that he didn’t like PA, but still gave it a thumbs up on the links page. Reviews are subjective. Truth is, no one comes on the scene as a “trusted source.” You have to build up to that point. Since the guy doesn’t make any effort to claim he’s an authority, just saying it’s his little site, I think you can cut him some slack.
Nike-gal