Shelf Life: Review 101: Tools for Reviewing Comics

[CBR News]

This week, Ron Marz reviews the current state of comic reviews, and suggests some needed improvements to raise the level of sequential discourse.


Full article here.

[Charles J. Baserap]

"Reviews are also not a venue for what the reviewer thinks should have happened instead. The comic should be reviewed as it exists, not compared to the hypothetical comic that exists only in the reviewer's mind."

THIS needs to be taught to 99% of the reviewers on this site. There have been countless reviews that are the equivalent of a food critic going into a restaurant and wanting to sample the steak, finding out they've only got chicken left, and then bashing the chicken for not being the steak they wanted.

I'd also add to remove prejudices as much as possible, or at least own up to them. There are some reviewers who have certain types of characters they are champions of, or writers they're big on, and they tend to give more favorable reviews to those or are more forgiving of things they'd lambaste another for. A prime example is a former reviewer for this site who loved up and down the work of a particular writer on a Marvel series. OK, fine. But then said writer had to take a break for an issue and got an assist from another and the reviewer bashed the issue comparatively. But then the third month in a row of reviewing the book, the credits on the cover made it seem that the first writer was back at the helm and the review was all glowing again--even saying it felt like X was back and made all the difference--but the reality was that X was NOT back, and the interior credits were accurate and it was the same writer bashed the month before.

There's also the reviewing of comics by people who don't read a particular series and then "deduct points" from a book for not having all of the answers or faulting the book because they didn't get something that they would have if they'd been reading the series. Sure, every comic might be someone's first, but every comic cannot have exposition on all of its previous issues.

[Lot 49]

Huh. A critique of comic critics and comics criticism. Now, I've seen everything.

[CarlBarks88]

I enjoyed this column so much that I had to register just to comment on it! First off, as professional art reviewer and critic (I've been published many times in magazines and websites) I appreciate you calling attention to the need to standardize comic reviews and critiques, something sorely needed in such a young art form. Although not an artist (though I'd argue that writing counts as an art form) by any means, I also have Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art, which I recommend to any person who would like to understand and appreciate the guts and gutters of comics.

I usually avoid comic reviews because for lack of a better term, they tend to lean towards "fanboyism" rather than reasoned critique. Like you argued, many reviews seem to critique the comic based on what it didn't do or they (the critic) wanted it to do, instead of what the artist(s) did do. This is unhelpful to me as a consumer as to whether or not I want to spend $2.99-3.99 on a comic. I think this is because there's simply a lack of understanding of how to write or critique (yes, I went to college for this, and there is such a thing as journalism, art, art history, and art criticism.) I also feel there needs to be clearer understanding on what is a comic review, and what is the purpose of the review.

Like movies, comics can be entertaining, thought provoking, fun, or even boring, all subjective experiences that need to be communicated clearly. If the comic was entertaining, than why was it entertaining? If it was boring, or poorly constructed, why? How was the story told? and so on.

[square]

I agree so much with the big idea here, and not with the small ones. Comic reviews are terrible on the whole, and it is because they focus on story (CBR, Comic Vine) and sometimes they focus mainly on social values (Comics Alliance, ComicsBeat). Where is the site that cares about comic art? Maybe Comics Journal gets it right.

Where I disagree with Marz is the focus on conventional storytelling. Eisner is great. Toth is great. Golden is great. But, they are all part of a single through-line of comics history. I would rather a reviewer had an art history understanding overall. Knowing Golden is great if you're reviewing Todd McFarlane or Art Adams comics, but is he at all relevant if you're reviewing Dash Shaw (has that name ever appeared on CBR?!). At the same time, comics haven't been an American genre for a long time. Actual reviewers need to step outside the weekly releases and educate themselves on (or at least experience) what is going on around the world. Tezuka or Moebius are more important names to know than Golden. American comics reviewers live in a bubble where The Walking Dead is considered an alt-comic.

But the main idea, that reviewers need to grasp the art of story-telling, is totally sound. There are many ways to tell a story, and many ways to understand one too!