New Voices
Seems like it’s open season for new webcomics blogs. On the one hand, you’ve got Useful Lies, which going by the profile is written by a gent named Dalion Barinon in Spain. Overall tone: enthusiastic, voluble, somewhat lacking in depth. I don’t want to rag on somebody who’s just getting started, but if you’re going to write about webcomics (or any kind of comics, for that matter), you really want to minimize sentences that include:
… and Scott McCloud (I have no idea what he does. He is important, though. For some reason)
Ah, well, we at Fleen have certainly written worse ourselves. Welcome to the game, Dalion.
Secondly, there’s Your Webcomic Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad, which (Zoidbergian references aside) is credited to John Solomon, a pseudonym. It’s — well, it lives up to its name. Solomon hates your webcomic and will tell you in detail why, although his savage critiques are miles from, say, Josh Lesnick’s desire to analyze, praise & damn in equal measure, and make everybody’s art better. The rhetoric is pretty over-the-top, and reading YWISAYSFB reminds me of my halcyon days reading Ed Anger. Seriously, if your first blogpost includes the line:
This is because anyone who likes Dominic Deegan is a fucking moron. (emphasis original)
then I figure your tongue has to be pretty far in-cheek (and what the hey — he’s driving up David Willis’s hits and books sales so that’s all good). In any event, everybody say hello to Dr Zoid Solomonberg!
In other news, I shamefully neglected to list Tyler Page along with the other creators I met at MoCCA, and have been enjoying the hell out my copy of Nothing Better, volume 1. My minireview of this book: Terry Moore + flashing back to college (sometimes painfully so) = you should give Tyler Page money and read it yourself. Speaking of books, looks like Karen Ellis will be dropping one sooner rather than later. My minireview of this development: Awesome.
New blogs. Same comics. Next.
By Greg Carter on 06.27.07 8:09 pm
In Dalion’s defense, I’m not entirely sure why Scott McCloud is important either.
By Christopher B. Wright on 06.27.07 8:55 pm
To be fair, no one else knows what Scott McCloud does, either. It seems to have something to do with fairies, though.
By peterb on 06.28.07 8:43 am
Oh snap?
By Paul Southworth on 06.28.07 10:16 am
It’s hard to respect someone who badmouths the work of others but doesn’t have the balls to use his real name.
As for Dalion’s comments, I find no fault in his statement.
By rkmilholland on 06.29.07 5:16 pm
Dalion’s comment?
A fine comment indeed. You don’t need to know who Scott McCloud is to do webcomics reviews.
To do better comics, probably. To do better web comics criticism, likely. But you could do okay without learning anything from him. It’s not as though he has a monopoly on the critical apparatus needed to do or understand comics…ANY MORE. Now, back in 1994? Hell yeah.
By karla on 06.29.07 9:36 pm
(Posted late which means five people will read this…)
No, you don’t need to know who Scott is to decide whether a webcomic is good or not. But if you feel that a guy is “important for some reason,” you might want to take a couple of minutes on Google to find out why, rather than just going, “Who… IS… this mysterious MICK-CLOUD?”
By T Campbell on 07.03.07 11:01 am
[…] of Nothing Better, which remains the benchmark for headin’ off to college storytelling. When last we left our intrepid heroines Kat and Jane, they had just come to the uneasy realization that sometimes the Freshman Roomie […]
By Fleen: Try Our Thick, Creamy Shakes » Literal Blasts From The Past on 10.20.09 3:04 pm
The above comments are owned by whoever posted them. The staff of Fleen are not responsible for them in any way.