Dr. Jacques’ Six Year Check-Up
October 16th, 2009
Jeph Jacques is offering some thoughts on how webcomics have changed in the last 6 years in his State of the Webcomics Union.
One particularly astute point:
“The idea of critical analysis of webcomics has largely died out. Sure, people still blog about webcomics and “review” them and stuff, but it’s become a tiny, tiny niche sector. I think this is mainly because there’s not a whole lot of point to reviewing something anybody can go look at for free and make up their own mind about! Is this a good thing? I have no idea.”
It’s a good read overall. Check in to read the post and the many comments.
March 3, 2021
Jeph has a lot of good things to say, but his thoughts on criticism are the one part I find a bit off. I liked El Santos’ response to this over at Comixtalk. Short form–if it’s true that fewer people are writing about webcomics, then that suggests that fewer people care enough about webcomics to write about them. (It’s not as negative an argument as I make it sound–he disagrees with the thesis that there are fewer people writing about comics in the first place).
To me the importance of reviews/critics is in some ways bigger now, since there is so much content ou there.
Indeed.
There needs to be a way to “Search By My Tastes” when looking for content to enjoy as there is sooooo much.
Reviews help that.
Of course I’m horribly bias, as I’m currently trying to set up a review website for..well…everything.
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