Hotspot #19: Webcomic Finds-Now Written By An Evil 14-Year Old!

When I'm in my contemplative mood, which usually comes after a slew of reviews, I take a break and think... and experiment. It's part of the learning process, and I've learnt to just go along with it instead of pushing myself to do reviews despite the requests that pour in. (The waiting list is well into double figures now, but uh... until next review cycle?)

However I can't refrain from checking out links some some er... little birds send to me from time to time, including this rather amusing comment thread over at Addanac City.

Warning: This is a ranty rant of the highest order.

If you recall, Addanac City was on the receiving end of one of my more controversial Postcards, where I gave it a rather sound thrashing for the very bad presentation and obnoxious tagline. It was so distracting that it coloured my entire perception of the comic, and put me in a bad mood to boot. But it was a very very valuable lesson in how a bad preconceived notion and presentation can influence how a reader "sees" a comic, and how they can be offended by it.

Of course, the most wonderful part of the whole thing was the reaction of the creator, George Ford, who politely thanked me for the review and got to work improving the site. We even exchanged a couple of reasonably friendly (well respectful, at the very least) emails and comments, so I thought to myself that even if I did not enjoy his comic, I could totally admire his work ethic and receptiveness to criticism. 

In fact I even dropped in from time to time to check how he was doing and gave him further feedback on the changes he made. 

Recently I received a post on the blog with a request to check out his website redesign. I'm always happy to give feedback to people who are willing to ask nicely for it and listen, so accordingly, I checked it out, left some comments and suggestions on how it could be improved, and thought that was the end of it. This is it, verbatim from the comment in the other post.

Hi George,

I see you've been hard at work!

I have a couple of points about the new web design:

1) I'm not a big fan of the bright turquoise background. It makes the text very hard to read. I would suggest either a) toning the colour down b) putting a white backing layer for whenever there's text. That way you can still have your turquoise without straining the reader's eyes.

2) I actually liked your old header better. This new one is nicely done and attention-grabbing, but it's TOO attention grabbing. It's got waaay too much going on in the image, it's even interfering with the comic itself as the reader's eye is drawn to the banner more than the comic.

The rest of the layout is a massive improvement. I like how it's a lot easier to navigate, the calendar function is a plus! And reducing the number of ads really does help massively.

So imagine my surprise when a little bird tells me that I'm being badmouthed by readers over at Addanac City. *raise eyebrow* Eh?

Honestly I fully expected it when I released that Postcard, but this is months later, so it's a little late isn't it? But my curiosity got the better of me, so I had a look. I have to admit while "badmouthed" was probably an exaggeration... I was amused to see some rather impotent personal attacks directed at me there.

Sadly, there was precious little constructive criticism in the comments, mainly the usual you-must-be-a-comic-artist to review fallacy (which I am, but that is totally irrelevant to the issue... I do not have to be one to review as explained here. If you disagree I will be more than happy to take you on in a debate on this topic.) and the you're not being fair argument (more on that later, I have my own practical reasons for rejecting it).

Most of them missed the point of my review and George's post. Maybe I need to improve my writing to get my point across better. But I do despise pandering to the lowest common denominator. Since I'm already being vilified, I might as well go with it; besides, some of the comments are too delicious not to share. 

Wow George,
As always you were super sweet to that reviewer. All of that, despite the fact that she was just rude, mean and behaved like a ,well I won’t say. I even read her follow up to your last comment and she doesn’t like the color of the page…. Please. She reviews and behaves like a mean 14 year old. Very unprofessional.
Enough about her, I do now and did before love, love your page.

[SKIP TO NEXT RELEVANT PART]

The one thing I would say about reviews in general is to consider the source when you make changes. I would make changes based on positive criticism.Is that an oxymoron? Meaning, If you start changing based on those that clearly don’t appreciate you it will end up changing for the worse. IMO
Forget about them. You are and will always be a great artist

This one is by far my favourite. I guess I'm supposed to be offended and outraged or something, but in truth when I read that comment, I chuckled in delight for a good half hour.

You might wonder why I should be delighted. Well, I've been told I have a tendency to see patterns and connections that most other people don't see. It's probably responsible for my unorthodox sense of humour, and how I occasionally break into maniacal laughter for no apparent reason.

The irony is delicious here. My point in the Postcard was a preconceived notion and being presented badly influences how a comic is received. It's foolish to assume potential readers will be fair and give each comic a fair chance. Hell no, first impression, website presentation, first three pages... that's all you get at most. Fail to impress by then... there are thousands of other webcomics out there in the web. You've blown your chance. Tough. That reader is going away and not likely to come back.

In the case of Addanac, it gave me a bad impression, the website enforced that, the tagline amplified it and by the time I got to the comic I hated it already.

Now many people will whine it was "unprofessional" and "unfair".

Incidentally: To that I say: Oi! What cloud do you live on? Come down to earth and back to reality, please. Life is not fair.

Oh, I fully admit I am human and thus I write from my point of view. If you want fair try one of those other reviews that try and write from some detached, 3rd person perspective. That's not what Webcomic Finds is about. It's about exploring comics from the point of view of a new reader. I really shouldn't have to explain this... it's in the bloody blog description.

People are not paragons of virtue and will not be fair. You're bloody damn lucky if they give you a chance and check out your link. People WILL judge on first impressions, and many WILL check out a link, see a bad presentation and shuffle off elsewhere without even looking at the comic. I'm a practical reviewer. This is what I take into account.

Interestingly, in the same way, the commenter quoted above got a preconceived notion on the newspost, came here expecting a bad review, glossed over parts I did praise and focused on the criticism.

Never mind that the review was specifically requesting feedback and criticism from me. It was not unsolicited.

Never mind that I warned the creator the review might not be positive, the creator accepted that.

Never mind that I gave some points I felt were valid... they weren't sugar coated and gift-wrapped... THEY MUST BE WRONG AND SHOULD BE DISREGARDED.

The best of all... the follow up comment was specifically requesting me to check out the website design. I did so and gave critical feedback. *GASP* I did not like the colour? How dare I?!? I must be EVIL INCARNATE! *sarcastic*

Back to my point, this commenter got a preconceived notion, came expecting an evil reviewer, saw what she only wanted to see and let it influence her judgement of what she saw.

Sound familiar? Yep. Exactly the point I was trying to make. She reacted exactly how I did in the Addanac City review. (See how important first impressions are? People WILL judge your work even before they see it. It's human nature to do so, and it's futile to make apologies for it).

I have to admit, I'm as human as the next person, and I do enjoy being proved right. And I must say it tickles me to death when someone who so violently disagrees with me and who probably wished to call yours truly something that rhymes with "witch" (And probably refrained from doing so by their utmost reverence for the sacrosanct female canine ;) ), ended up doing the exact same thing and proving my hypothesis right without me having to so much as lift a finger .

It's like having your cake, getting to eat it and being presented with the recipe after that... with compliments.

The world is a wonderful place. That comment really made my day. It had me chuckling into my glass of Orvieto. Mmm... Delicious.

Too much sweetness in a wine sickens me. It's like drinking cheap supermarket Ribena. Ick. Initially sweet, but shallow and boring after the second sip, and containing far too much sugar and flavouring to be any good for you. I like my aperitifs a little more complex, slightly dry, less cloying and pandering.

The same also applies to creative feedback. Vacuous praise like "You'll always be a great artist!" is all very nice and all, but abhorrently useless except for inflating one's ego. Let's be realistic... neither George nor I are "great artists" yet. We're journeymen at best. This kind of praise is more damaging than helpful. It encourages people to slack and rest on their laurels. And then they never improve because they get too settled in their comfort zone.

I'd rather have something like "Your writing uses too many parentheses; they break the flow of reading" or "Your posing and camera angles are rather predictable and conservative, you should try more adventurous approaches." You know something that actually helps me get better at doing what I am doing. That quality of critique is hard enough to come by, why should you expect someone to be NICE on top of that? It's like expecting someone to help you AND then compliment you. For Free. WTH?

Oh and I know I've bemoaned about this before, but why the heck do people keep referring to me as a professional? This is my NOT my profession. I am very proud to be an amateur comic artist.

Amateur
1 : one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession
2 : one lacking in experience and competence in an art or science

Both apply to me. I do this not because it's my job, but my hobby and I love it; And I am not presumptuous enough to disclaim I do not fit in the category of the second definition. I don't do this full time so my experience is not to the level of a professional. When I see my stuff I always see where I can improve further (and I suspect it'll be that way till the day I die). Like I say I think it's a good thing.

Does that mean I do not know what I am talking about? I do know my skill level. I have miles to go yet, but I don't believe in false modesty either. At this level I DO know what I'm talking about. If you feel I'm fudging, point out the part when you think I ring false. I'll be happy to come back with proof and reasonings why I said what I said to back it up, if I didn't already.

Why else would people ask me for a review if I didn't? Why not ask the commenter above for a review if they wanted cotton candy make-you-feel-good reviews?

If George hadn't ASKED me for a review, I wouldn't have even bothered to spend my time writing about someone who was so obviously happy in what he was doing. I'm happy with leaving people who don't want my opinion alone, and I respect their right to be left alone and be happy with their comic. I've taken down reviews from people who asked me to out of respect for them, no questions asked.

But when people ask me for a review, I'm relentlessly honest. I will not lie to spare someone's feelings. And in this case George asked me. Twice. So I was honest, even when it was painful to be so. Oh sure it'd be easier to always write nice reviews and make friends, but I'd be a liar by extension. What's that you say? I can critique more nicely? News flash. I already do. I just don't bend over backwards to do it. 

You want harsh? This is harsh. And probably not as useful. It seems to be harsh for the sake of being harsh.

I can understand people not listening to me if I offer unsolicited advice. Fair enough. They never asked for it. I usually save myself the trouble and don't give it either.

But I do get a teensy-weensy bit irritated when people go out of their way to ask me for a review, people (or others) get offended and hurt when they didn't get glowing words of praise and ignore the points I make because "they weren't put in a nice enough way". These type of people really need to wake up, and grow up and stop living in their sheltered little ivory towers. People aren't always going to, and have no obligation to sugar-coat everything just because someone couldn't handle criticism without tears welling in their eyes.

Writing reviews take time. If I took the time to bloody write a review I obviously gave a damn about it. There are many more people who would like the critique in their place. I could be working on my own projects and improving MY comics with that time. People do not pay me to write this review. Heck, I don't even ask for a link back. I write them for my own development, my satisfaction, and everything else is a bonus.

Wasting my time annoys ME. I'd thank people to not waste my time by not asking for what I've already warned them in advance they might get. Let's get this straight. If I hate something I don't tear it down. I freaking ignore it. My time is precious and it's not worth my effort to take notice of. I'll only do it if A) They ask for it, and I think they can benefit from it B) I can learn something from it. Sometimes B comes before A.

I'm not here to be nice. I'm here to be honest. If I see something praiseworthy, I'll say so. If I say something that deserves to be shot, I will shoot it with a AK-47 and a full magazine of bullets. I try to be nice most of the time, but if your presentation puts me off, well... It's your own fault for putting me in that mood. That's the mood like-minded readers are going to be in anyway, and sometimes one has to be harsh to make a point get through. Can't take the heat? Kindly remove self from kitchen.

My observation so far has been: mainly webcomic creators who read other people's webcomics make any attempt to be "fair" when reviewing. This is because they know how hard it is to make a comic and keep it running (Incidentally I give credit for both which people who didn't skim over the review would have noticed). But your main audience, the majority of people who read webcomics... they don't give a damn. So either you have a readership of mostly sympathetic webcomic creators (whom you've probably left nice comments on their blogs/comics to win their affections before), or you suck it up and adapt.

In any case, if George wasn't prepared to get a negative review, he wouldn't, and shouldn't have asked for it. (If I am not mistaken, he pretty much said so to me himself, and because I have respect for him, I will take him at his word that he really meant it, and not that because it was the right thing to say.)

Ah well. I am aware people do like rushing to defend the underdog for the warm fuzzy feeling it gives. Me? I prefer helping them in a constructive manner. And so I'm prepared to help people by being their harshest critic and giving my unreserved opinion when they ask for it. 

If I have to play the evil villain and be vilified before the eyes of their readers, so be it. :D



Maybe I should do a Sherlock Holmes policy and only pick up review requests that intrigue me. Hm yes. That's not a bad idea at all... maybe I will. 

I'd still have done Addanac City though, that was a very educational review.

Thus ends a long rant in which I got to trot out two new words in my vocabulary. :D All in all it's been a good day. Signing off... Evil 14-year old Comic Reviewer. 

I even have my maniacal laugh ready!

Postcards #3: The Cattle Raid of Cooley

Comic: The Cattle Raid of Cooley
By: Patrick "Paddy" Brown

So I got this request to look at this comic from not an email, but one of the comments in my previous postcards.

If you like "story-oriented comics", you might consider checking out mine. "The Ulster Cycle" is a series of serials set in Iron Age Ireland and based on Irish legend. The first story, Ness, followed the daughter of the king of Ulster on a personal vengeance quest as war threatened her father's kingdom. The current one, "The Cattle Raid of Cooley", is set a couple of generations later and stars Ness's grandson, a teenage rookie border guard who has to face an invasion single-handed. It's at:

http://paddybrown.co.uk

hope you enjoy.

I'm a mythology junkie, but for some reason or other I never gave much attention to Irish mythology. I think I've have heard vaguely of the Hound of Ulster, but never quite did I look further into the myth than that. Naturally, when I popped over and had a look and Paddy Brown's site I was quite delighted to see a comic about Irish mythology of all things!

I'm not sure if it's just my connection, but for some reason the page takes a-g-e-s to load on my compy. It could be the sad excuse of my ISP of course, but something on the page seems to wreak havoc on my connection speed every time (a total of three different attempts on different days) I visit the site, which is something I do not experience on other comic sites.

It is just me? No idea, but it makes reading the comic difficult. The first page is inaccessible, due to the multiple pages on one page and the slow load speed causing some of the images to not load at all. Pity, what I can see of them seems interesting.

Hm... checking on the file sizes of the individual pages, they seem to be around 340KB or so each. Strange they should be so large for art that 's pretty much 2 colours. I can see how sticking 6 of these in a single page cause one's connection to have a heart attack. Frankly, for this style of art I would have thought a PNG would do a better job as opposed to a JPEG. Really bloated JPEGs, at that.

Since I had to skip a few pages that refused to load, it's really hard to get into the story. One thing I do note is the style of dialogue is different. In many fantasy comics, you tend to get these medieval looking characters speaking in modern Americanized english, so it's a nice change to see the characters speaking in character, so to speak. (Did I confuse anyone with the last sentence?)

The art is very nice. I love the use of lines and the style, but the use of red line on white background bugs me. It's the same argument as the first postcard: poor contrast and an unnecessary strain on the eyes. (which is my polite way of saying: "Ooo nice art... but MY EYES!).

I quite understand the want to tint greyscale art with a slightly different colour to make it a little more interesting. After all, I sepia tone my comics as well. But even in the tinted art there's still... well black. or at least, very dark areas. In my opinion, the eye-strain can be greatly reduced and the red tint still retained with a simple hue adjustment and a decrease in the colour saturation:


Original - Panel from the comic


Edited - After 60 seconds of Photoshop work

All in all, I could like this comic. It certainly piqued my interest but the harrowing experience of trying to read through the snail-speed-loading archives resulted in me backing off. I would definitely recommend shrinking the image size bloat. It seems unfair that technical issues can torpedo the chances of a comic being read, but alas, if the effort of going through the archives is greater than what the protagonist doing in the comic... it does.

Stopovers at two "Dies and is 'Ded' Laughing" moments

As you all know, I've been busy recently and even went for a spate of time without reading webcomics. Now that I'm bent on catching up, I'd like to share two moments from two of my favourite comics where I laughed so hard I choked:

The first is from LinT, where great drama and strife is being enacted.

Both moments need context to understand, so I'm going to be obliged to give a quick background blurb. Naturally, spoilers abound!


At the moment, Sangwine, the blond elf is confronting his long-time rival, Al'bert, who taunts him back by professing he knows where Sangwine's house fairy (long story), Hope, has been taken. The result is Sangwine flying off the handle and threatening Al'bert with the worse fate that can ever befall an elf.

And I'm not talking about balrogs here.

(Clicky to see full sized page at source)


Next is Nahast, which managed to impress me by not pretending, like most fantasy comics do, that long flowy hair can hamper vision, and women do not need support while running around:



So while the girls go off to do their erm... supporting, Xu're, the shaman and his spirit guide, Thunder, arrive at the lighthouse where Tzelan is training the girls...



I suspect the thing that makes both jokes work so well is because they're so subtle and told with an entirely straight face. Ironically, it because these two comics are primarily fantasy comics, unlike the humour strips that people call the 'funnies', that makes the joke all the funnier for being unexpected.

On another note, most of you should notice that the current theme over at Comixpedia is Mystery comics, which alone should tell you why I asked for recommendations to Mystery-themed comics last post. Thanks for your suggestions so far, and keep em coming. Even if they're not used here or there, the recommendations will come in handy next time I'm bored and want to sink my teeth in a big fat mystery!

Year #1: Ping's Favourite Finds of 2004/2005!

It took Eric Burn's Websnark to remind me, but Webcomic Finds turned 1 year old on August 12th... And I completely missed it.

Which annoyed me really, because I had a feature planned for it and stuff. I wanted to summarize the picks of the year.

Better late then never I guess.

A little over one year ago, I thought what a great idea it would be if I started reviewing comics. I liked doing it. I'd often done them in forums. But I wanted something more official. I considered doing a review site by proxy, with a drawn comic instead of a review (You'll recognise my prototype for the comic that eventually became "The Essence of..."), but then I decided there were review sites enough already. I really didn't have anything I wanted to add to them and reviewing in comic form has its limitations.

Then I got one of my ideas. You know, one of those weird notions. I was rereading a Dalton Wemble article over at Comixpedia, when Dalton mentioned several topics, including the importance of having people recommend comics through links. Then suddenly it stuck me what an interesting experiment it would be if someone explored the world of webcomics through the links page. Where would you go? How many new and interesting comics could you find from the links page of a comic that you like?

And Webcomic Finds was born.

There's been some misconceptions about Webcomic Finds, the main one being that it's a webcomics commentary site like Websnark and many others. It's not. This is my travel journal, and my journey is webcomics. Occasionally I might talk about other stuff, but the main focus is exploring webcomics and finding new ones.

Now that I've had a year of exploring, I've covered a staggering number of comics, some which were ok, some which weren't and some which were unmissable. It's time to go over the list and pick out my favourite Finds of the year. This is something I'll be planning to do every year, by the way.

Firsly, this is not a top ten list. This is the ten favourite new FINDS list, which means these are the top ten new comics I discovered last year than I am very glad I did. This also explains why old favourites of mine like Fallen Angels Used Books and Count Your Sheep aren't in this list. Love em to bits, but I did know about them waaaaaaay before I started the blog, so they weren't new. There are a lot of comics I like that aren't in here, many for different reasons, ranging from me knowing about them earlier or hiatus or rough spots. Doesn't mean I don't like them, but the ones in the list are the ones that I check religiously for updates.

Now to make this a little more special, I decided that instead of just I list, I'd add a little fanart for each entry. It's not much, and I do apologise for the quality (I'm just learning markers) but it was great fun all the same.

Without further ado, we have, in alphabetical order, the ten comics that made the past year of writing this blog worth while for me:

Catharsis was the comic featured on the 32nd Leg of Webcomic Finds. One of the few webcomics online that prove suitable for all ages, it tells the story of a girl and her dragon... and naken squirrel... and dirt bunnies... and gargoyles... Well it's complicated. Catharsis is charming, well written, and overflows on the cute. It's got a huge archive, and if you like whimsical, heart-wrenching, imaginative humour, you owe it to yourselves to plow through this baby.

Copper didn't win WCCAs for nothing, but back then at the 16th Leg, I didn't know that. Although some reader of the New York Times accused Copper of being a shameless clone of Calvin and Hobbes due to the story being about a boy and his non-human companion, other than the initial premise, there's not THAT muc similiarity, really. It's pretty much as much similarity as between say... Batman and Spiderman). Watterson deals with nostalgia, imagination and real-life. Kazu deals more with fantasy, philosophy and intellectual symbolism. Despite the infrequent updates, each page is good enough to stand alone, so it's worth your time to look over the small collection, and enjoy the thoughtful writing and fantastic art.

Darken was one of my numerous stopover comics, and at that time wasn't updating very frequently. Now that the creator Kate "Komiyan" is in the 3-times-a-week "Lazy Grind", updates have been coming in thick and fast, and this comic has been nothing short of engrossing. A medley group of stock fantasy characters (Warrior, Dragon-priestess, Thief, Dark Elf and Black Widow) are out on a quest. The twist is: their quest is to take over the world of Darken! Finely balancing humour and adventure, if you can bear the roughness of the first few pages, this comic will have you in love with the fantasy genre all over again!

Digger. Everyone's been rhaspodising about it, and with good reason. Digger is the wombat who by an arcane twist of fate, gets tunneled into a world entirely different from her own. Now she's lost in a world of oracular slugs, dead gods and metaphorical pigeons, and with no way to get back to her warren. Other than the spell-binding black-and-white art, the writing... well... this comic can somehow be charming and macabre at the same time, sweet yet scary, funny yet tragic, and Ursula Verson shows you how! Unfortunately at this time this comic requires a subscription over at Graphic Smash, but for those who would prefer it, Digger is now also available in print format. Stopovered due to metaphorical pigeons...

LinT, the full name of which is "Life in Tehran" harks back to a time when comics were simpler and most importantly, FUN. The story is a praody of the typical DnD adventurers-on-a-quest set-up, but the heroic 'heroes' have been subtituted with the silliest, craziest and most lovable bunch of characters ever. From midget dwarves to wise orcs and sock-stealing theives, the characters go through adventure after adventure in the most unheroic ways. And although there's the occasional spare moment of drama, it never gets too far before the slapstick humor pops in to remind you this is all about fun, and that's the way comics should be.

Magellan Justice Academy. Fans of superheros who have gotten bored of the incessant rehashes and ret-cons will find a breath of fresh air in Magellan. Kaycee is the underdog 'norm' hero who is accepted into Magellan Justice Academy, a training academy for superheroes. How can she hold her own, especially when things in Magellan seem to be going into odd directions? It's hard to but a finger on why Magellan works so well as a superhero comic. I think the reason is that the superhero facet is a secondary aspect of the characters, and who they actually are the first. It's less about who has what power and super-ability, but who has the guts, the responsibility, and the good sense. Rule One of good writing: Make the audience care about your characters. Stephen Crowley succeeds massively at this, and Magellan as a result is addictive and compelling. Graphic-Smash only, but with lots of free samples. Stopovered!

Nahast: Lands of Strife has been struggling with updates lately, but you can tell creator Alexander Melchor is really trying. Another one of the fantasy comics, Nahast is different in that it has its own world and high level of world-building. The story behind Nahast is serious, and intricate, with the occasional light moment. Humour really isn't the central theme of the comic though. This is a epic fantasy, though it reads more like mystery and mythology wrapped into one. It's hard to put my finger on why this comic is addictive as it is, but if you don't mind the filler and sporadic update, give it a try and maybe you can find a better way of describing it. Discovered through a stopover.

No Rest for the Wicked is one of the most brilliant fantasy concepts online. Basically, it takes traditional european fairytales, interwines the plots and retells them in the most ingenious way imaginable. The moon has been missing, and Princess November, the Princess from "The Princess and the Pea" can find no rest until it is found. Accompanied by Little Red Riding Hood and Puss-in-Boots, they set out in search of the moon and her grave. The art for NRFTW is manga-styled, but creator Andrael has taken pains to make it her own personal variant of it. NRFTW is one of my favourite comics of all time, and if this comes out in print, I'm getting it. I like it that much. Found on the 6th Leg.

Shivae! by Tiffany Ross is an anthro comic. When I first found it back in one of my stopovers, I was surprised that something this good had managed to exist this long and elude me. Shivae! is an interesting look at a non-human centric world of creatures known as Shivae, which are sort of part-dinosaur part-winged-horse-like creatures (that's a lot of dashes, isn't it?). When aliens start showing up and invading their world, the Shivae come into conflict with the settlers and more often than not, are hunted for the treat they present to the settler's livestock. Their only solution is to run, but how far can they run if the settlers keep spreading? Other the cute character design and the gorgeous colouring by Tiffany's colourist, Flowerlark, the writing is compelling, yet touches on a lot of serious issues in a non-preachy way. Definitely worth a read.

Reviewed back in the 2nd Leg, The N00b is a tongue-in-cheek jab at the world of Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming. Our protagonist is a newbie who has just embarked on an adventure in the world of Clichquest, a cumulative parody of games like Worlds of Warcraft and Ultima Online. While the rougher language may turn a few people off, and The Noob's writing is ingeniously funny and more than make up for any shortcomings in any other department. When you hear an RPGer explain with a straight face that "deus ex machina means "God without a car", you know that Gianna Masetti is an evil evil genius.

That concludes my list. There were many many more comics that I would have loved to include in there, but sometimes a line has to be drawn. But if there were only ten new comics I could recommend to you, these ten would be it.

Looking at the list, I can't help but notice a really high percentage of fantasty comics in it. I must make a mental note to expand my reading tastes the next year. We'll see if things change. My agenda for Year Two is to have more random picks. I'm also thinking of doing more reader-interactive picks. We'll see.

It's been a long year, with many ups and downs. I've made a lot of new friends writing this blog, which I'm grateful for. No doubt I've made a few enemies too, but that's life, I can't please everyone. It also got me a number of of requests from numerous webcomic artists requesting for reviews (I'm working through the list guys. It's long. I'll get through it eventually) and invitation for other groups to write for them (which I would consider if I had more time).

But most of all, I'd like to think most of you out there liked reading Webcomic Finds, and I sincerely hope I've managed to introduce you to one of two new comics that you liked.

And that's the most important thing, really.

Hotspot #7: Welcome to the new frontier, and everyone wants to be a critic.

So maybe you've noticed them popping up. Like mushrooms after the rain, they're starting up everywhere now.

Don't know what I'm talking about?

Webcomic Blogs.

Or if you want to be more specific, webcomic-centered commentary blogs. Since the 12th of August 2004 when I first started Webcomic Finds, I've been witnessing the birth of many many new webcomic blogs and discovering many many more. Websnark, Digital Strips, (not to mention all those other blogs that don't focus on webcomics, but mention them frequently) and now even more recently, William G and Phil Khanhave decided to join the fray.

(FYI, it is notable that Eric Burns converted his old blog into Websnark 8 days after I started mine. Perhaps it's a testament to his writing skills that despite starting later, his blog is far far far more popular than mine ;) Dag-nabbit! Of course, I deal more with the lesser-known comics, so that could be it.)

Back to the topic, I'm not pointing hoodoo fingers or bad mouthing the newcomers or accusing them of jumping on the bandwagon or anything. I'm just making an observation that more and more people are realising that serious and regular commentary on webcomics is still a relatively unexploited niche, and there's room for them to fill it. For now.

The webcomics world is growing very rapidly. Some might say far too rapidly, because it is nearing the state of drowning in its own volume. For every good webcomic out there, there's probably another 10(or if you want to be bombastic, 100) crappy ones you have to go through. The webcomic blogs help by doing this job for you. Providing that you and the blogger share similar tastes, chances are you're going to like what the blogger recommends to you.

And if you have a plethora of different bloggers and different personalities and tastes to pick from, it can only be a good thing.

"Wait!" You say. "Didn't the webcomic review sites like Korsil and Comixpedia do something rather similar?"

Yes and No. They reviewed webcomics. They rated them. But most webcomic reviewers had to be impersonal and impartial, just to be professional. Or at least, they had to try to be.

But by doing so they missed out on the spice the webcomic blogs have. The personality behind the blog. The feeling that you're listening to someone you know talking, instead of reading some article written by a faceless someone you will never know.

And this, I think, is the new frontier. I have great hopes that with the new wave of bloggers there will be less insularity and more blurring the lines between the different webcomic collectives. That we might be able to filter more effectively through the great masses of dross from the gold, the serious efforts from the bandwagon jumpers. That more good webcomics get the recognition they deserve.

Granted, for every blogger that can discourse rationally about plot, pacing and execution, there's bound to the odd attention-seeker who sees the success of Websnark and thinks "OMG! All this guy does is sit around and make snide comments about webcomics! I can do that too!". Much like the webcomics medium it spawned from, it is pretty inevitable that Websnark or HB clones will spring up the more popular these sites get. And like bad webcomics, most of them will run out of steam shortly and end up dying by the wayside.

I am no prophetess or clairvoyant. I'm simply an observer of patterns. We saw this pattern happen with webcomics. I see this as something that will happen with webcomic blogs.

Just you see if it doesn't.




Fun fact: The Webcomic Finds system of picking reviews was inspired by this same Comixpedia article of Dalton Wemble's. God, I miss that column.

Stopover at The Noob: Arsemode Rulez!

Because it does!



This is such a bit of obscure gaming humour, but even if the last MMORPG I played was years ago, I'm pretty sure if there was an exploit like that, there'd be people who were willing to look stupid if they could have an advantage.

And the sight of all those players prancing around with their hands on their arses... Ouch, ouch, ouch! I laughed so hard that it hurt.

Gianna, how do you come up with this stuff, woman?

Stopover at Real Life: Webcomic Proposals must be coming in to fashion...

In case you missed this yesterday:

I think the first time I ever saw an online proposal was when Gabe of Penny Arcade did it.

And while technically Greg Dean didn't do it the same way (proposed first, asked question later) I'm beginning to wonder if a trend is beginning to develop.

Regardless, something to keep in mind for those of you who are dating webcomic artists, since it's something that's highly likely to happen if you're dating one and one of them proposes. ;)


Oh and I forgot. Congratulations to Greg and Liz are in order ;)