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December 15, 2004
The Pickytarian vs. Street Angel - Round 2
Street Angel co-creator Jim Rugg bites the hand that feeds him, offering this opinion of the comic book blogosphere in that Comic Book Galaxy year-end round-table discussion:
The majority of what's out there now is just so inconsistent and so unprofessional. I can't imagine an average reader will find much helpful information. So much of online, comics-related writing is by wannabe cartoonists and is filled with biases, grudges, ass kissing, and unprofessionalism. It's mostly trash, but I do think it has next-to-no impact, so whatever.
For somebody with so much disdain for online comic book commentary, Jimbo spends an awful lot of time reading and responding to it. I like to megalomaniacally imagine that he came up with this opinion after reading my negative review of issue #4. But hey, I'm just a biased, grudge-holding, ass-kissing, unprofessional wannabe cartoonist, so whatever. ;)
Finally, Rose from Peiratikos pointed out that Jimmy's comments in that article include the same "less vs. fewer" mistake that I made in my original review. So, ha!
Once again, I feel compelled to point out that Street Angel was quite possibly my favorite new series of 2004. Jim Rugg and co-creator partner Brian Maruca clearly have a lot of talent and I love that book. But that comment sounded awfully mean-spirited when you consider the amount of support that Street Angel received from the online community this year.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at December 15, 2004 11:05 AM
Comments
I got a little panicky after going to bed, because I think a case can be made for "less than half," but still think that "fewer" is preferable in this situation.
And yes, the internet is inconsistent and so are blogs. I thought that was the point, right? I'm not as concerned about the lack of professionalism, either, because there's so much of that lack to go around among comics professionals that we amateurs shouldn't get too
worried, I think.
It must be frustrating to deal with criticism, especially in a forum where you can't really defend yourself. I mean, occasionally comics creators have posted on blogs to say, "No, no, I meant this," but that ends badly if their readers don't think it's what they said in the work. People are going to interpret and misinterpret and that's just how reading works. It's just another reason I'm happy not being a creator myself.
Posted by: Rose at December 16, 2004 09:46 PM
Since comments are apparently working now and I'm not as cranky as before, I'll add that I really appreciate that Jennifer de Guzman, as an editor, knows grammar rules. That's a rare commodity in the general comics arena, as far as I can tell.
And I should probably clarify that I definitely think a lot of casual criticism is unprofessional and not well done and it's something I've complained about before, so I'm not really disputing anything Rugg said. And no, I don't think blog reviews are going to make a huge difference in purchasing patterns, so that's probably true too.
I'm just afraid I sounded like I was defending blogs too much and being unfairly mean to Jim Rugg, neither of which is something I'd really want to do.
Posted by: Rose at December 17, 2004 12:21 PM