About Me -
My name is Delos and I’m a regular guy with a beautiful wife and good kids. I have a little bit of college under my belt which has been of only indirect use to me. I’ve had a number of different jobs and I am constantly challenging myself to improve in some way or another. This site was originally created to force me to be creative in some way every week.
About the Reviews -
I love comics and I’m always looking at how I can improve my own work by examining other creators’ works. It’s such a wildly diverse field that it’s not advisable to make sweeping generalizations and ignore special circumstances and subjects.
Every comic has strong points we can learn from. While there are forums where you might discuss making comics, I haven’t found any lengthy discussion on what we can do to make our comics more successful. There are a few good books on the subject but the aspiring webcomic creator is forced to learn by sheer brute force practice how to adapt his/her personal style to the medium. This is not as efficient as it could be. No one can escape the work involved in making good comics, but I want to make good comics RIGHT NOW, not waste years following dead ends in learning by trial and error. There are bound to be things good comics do to imitate and things bad comics do worth learning to avoid.
Also, there are literally thousands of webcomics but only a handful of places where you can find decent, regular reviews. The focus of my reviews will be on trying to determine what is positive, successful and worth emulating about each comic. This leads some to wonder where the ‘hard criticism’ is and where the harsh negatives about the comics are pointed out. As a matter of fact, I did mention some disappointing issues with layout and such in my initial reviews. I quickly came to the realization that it’s easy for any viewer to know what they like and what they don’t. We make thirty second judgments -mainly from the look of the comic. If it hasn’t captured our interest in that brief span of time, we click away somewhere else.
I’ve seen the comment that even nice reviewers have to throw some comic to the wolves just to prove they are fair. I don’t do that since I am well aware how much effort goes into creating comics. I’ve mentioned things that are especially jarring and have persisted over a period of time but I try to do so in a way that lets the artist retain their dignity. I also have, on a few occasions, emailed a webcomic author with a few specific ideas for needed improvement but there’s no need for me to make that information public. (Pay no attention to the work going on behind the curtain…) There have been times where I was specifically requested to approach the comic more constructive criticism.
I just wish to have an open discussion about what good comics do so we can all avoid as many pitfalls as possible. As of this writing, a few other sites now exist with a similar purpose. See the links page.
-Delos