I've noticed online, and written that no one really reviews anything. I know there's a lot of guys who ask for money to make reviews as well. And, that's perfectly fine. If you put in the work, you deserve to be compensated for that said work. People like Riley has always done a great job, but Riley's no where to be seen. He comes and goes, but then again Riley's a busy man. There's other people like Peter Marinari I will say this straight, something about him feels more like he's trying too hard to make money on a dead platform than anything. As far as his reviews go, they're awfully inaccurate and lackluster and don't give you what you need. Making an hour long video just to describe something is time wasted. I'm sorry to say that. But I feel like I'm wasting my time looking at his videos. Just because someone reads a ton of comics, doesn't mean you know how to review them properly and accurately. Hardcover Comic Reviews, he does a good job, and I've always appreciated his work, Omnidog as well, I've enjoyed him for a super long time. Plus he's got a nice personality. Then we got Gem, Gem is a lot like me personality wise, I'd say we compliment each other extremely closely. However, Gem is a different breed of reviewer and such all together. Though, he's not much of a comic reviewer. He's more for entertainment. That's just being honest with everyone. But no one I know, just flat-out reviews anything as such. I'd compare reviewing comics, to actually translating a manga script, or even writing a comic script. It has to be spot-on, show every aspect of what's going on within said book, and convince people to actually wanna read it. Since no one has taken the initiative to actually do that, and go full length, and actually review a book for what it really is, other than something it's not. Also, Linkara doesn't count, cause he smashes on books more than anything. I get his gimmick, and how he is. But he's more like a comedy show than anything.
With all that said, I'm going to start doing full in-depth reviews in between translating manga volumes. I will say I love comics as much as I love manga, and I am a manga translator. As well as translated a multitude of French and Italian comics. I've also written many comics myself along with a few friends. That's on top of also proofreading comics for good friends of mine as well. So I would say I have a huge knowledge of comics/manga/international works. Of course, I would go into stuff no one's even dared to look at, or things that are pretty underground that you'd have to be reading for at least a decade to even know about. One thing I've always wanted to do was go into series and exploit them for all their worth, from writing to artwork and completely deconstruct how a person writes a story and see how well something like that can hold up today, being if it's from the Golden or Bronze Ages of comics. As well as international comics, I don't want to be held down by one style, I want to explore and widen the spectrum, since no one has done that. I'm going to see that I do. Also, it's not about suggesting comics to people. It's not about what's the newest thing on the shelf. It's about what's got staying power. What's written so brilliantly that it lasts decades and is super memorable. I'll say this right off the bat, I'm going to go after the most unheard of things and the most popular things. I'm going to dissect them both, I'm going to make comparisons and I'm going to give solid points as to why someone should check out that series, or if someone should literally stay away from that series.
In this time now, I've noticed not many people like comics, I've noticed a lot of things. I worked with a bunch of teenagers and dudes in their early 20's that didn't even know what a comic was, on top of watching a movie. Some kids used to tell me comics are for older people. Actually, no, comics are for everyone. People just got an awful misconception about them, cause the market's so saturated with godawful titles, that finding a good brick a mortar shop that actually has titles worth buying is impossible. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't. I've seen kids buy comics just to see what they were. Some of them buy them for the art alone and don't actually read the dialogue. I've read comics, manga, and such my entire life. It's a big part of what I do today. When times were rough, comics always helped make things better. I will say, some comics are great to the point that they get cancelled before they can even have potential. And some of them are so awful, you wonder how something like that is still on the shelf of the local comic shop. Of course, I never buy anything in shop, unless it's OOP and they actually have what I'm looking for which is super rare. In these days now, you get everything online since that's the way of the future. But finding something good, is really hard. Cause there's cases where something so good sometimes ends up getting cancelled. But I will cover all of this and more, I've been looking to do this for a long time. And now's the time.
I'm going to start by doing text-reviews, I believe by doing text, people read it, understand it, and appreciate it more, than just showing off a massive collection of HC's in the background. A lot of people, always ask me to write reviews, I literally get spammed with people always telling me I should be a reviewer, based on my hardcore balls to the wall style of mentioning how I feel a certain series is. I guess I got so much inspiration from so many people, that I'm actually going to start doing that now. I used to be a huge contributor to Comic-Vine, I've written a lot of neat things and columns about certain series. A lot of the authors had gotten back to me, and told me they liked what I wrote. So like, I'm going to actually go full-steam into reviews, I'm also going to start writing a new comic series as well sometime down the road. I've always had an idea for something super crazy. I'm going to start from here, see how it goes and then, build it up and see where it takes me. I kinda feel like I should've started this when I was younger. But like, YouTube is a pretty dead community now. A lot of people are abandoning it cause it's fallen apart. And as cool as it is to see new reviews, they're overshadowed by copyright claims and all kinds of garbage that YouTube has on it. I don't understand how some kid buying a new car gets a million something views while the person who shows appreciation to something he loves and wants to share gets not even 100 views, that's lame.
I'll also take suggestions on what I should review. If it sparks my interest, I'll check it out. If it doesn't, I'll check it out and review it as I would anything else. Sometimes the most unattractive series is most likely one of the best series. Some writers are able to make comic gold, while others who try to capture what they did in the old days falter behind. Reading comics and finding a good comic is like finding a needle in a haystack. Some writers and artists work great together, while others don't. Some artists actually carry the writers works so although the writings lacking, the art makes up for it and vice-versa. Comics are a mixed bag of trying to find a balance between something great, and superior. Me personally, I love Alan Moore's works a lot. I consider him one of the greatest writers of all time. But I feel his element is deconstructing and making superhero's a lot different than what they are. That's literally his charm. Although, I appreciate his works now. They're nothing in comparison to what he used to do. I always wondered what would've happened if he wrote an entire Batman run, or even Captain America or even X-Men run. Those would have probably been some of the greatest runs in history. But all we could do is wonder, really. Frank Miller is good, but when he's in his element. Same thing with Grant Morrison. I won't say I like everything they've written cause they're a hit or a miss with me. But I'll cover all of this and more in the coming weeks.