New Hole Ripped Courtesy of Salon.com

[Imboden]

In their "quick overview" of the books available Today for FCBD, The very famous comic critic Douglas Wolk had this to say about the Digital Webbing Jam:

"Digital Webbing Jam 2007 (Digital Webbing)
Five quick pieces -- three of them excerpts, the other two incomprehensible anyway: generic horror, generic superhero stuff, three unamusing pages of the very long-running superhero parody E-Man, and a failed "experimental" piece built out of clip art. D+ "

So what does the Glorious Doug Wolk like?

Comics Festival (Legion of Evil Press) gets an A
Unseen Peanuts (Fantagraphics Books) gets an A
Love and Capes (Maerkle Press) gets an A-
The Astounding Wolf-Man (Image Comics) gets an A-
Whiteout (Oni Press) gets an A-

What did WORSE than us in his eyes?

Jack the Lantern: Ghosts (Castle Rain Entertainment) got a D
Comic Genesis(Comic Genesis) gets a D
Hunter's Moon/Salvador (Boom! Studios) has a D rating
Keenspot Spotlight 2007/Wickedpowered (Keenspot) also gets a D
Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) is also a D
Family Guy/Hack/Slash (Devil's Due Publishing) has the lowest grade at D-

The highest rating went to:

"Activity Book (Drawn & Quarterly)
Lynda Barry, the cartoonist behind "Ernie Pook's Comeek," teaches an unusual sort of writing workshop. This excerpt from a forthcoming book is basically her introductory lesson, and it's a joy in its own right, deliciously drawn (with fragments of collage worked into each page), insightful and bubbling with delight in the process of artistic creation. A+"

[Mike225]

Well...he SUCKS!

[Calloway]

eh, though I do support dwp there is alot of crap in it.

[stahss]

eh, though I do support dwp there is alot of crap in it.
Do you even know which stories went into the FCBD book, or are you just generalizing? The book contained excerpts from virtually all of DW's series: Punks, BloodRayne, E-Man, Zombie Highway...way to insult everything. :yawn:

[L Jamal]

I think the problem with the JAM book is just that you're attempting to introduce everything. when I first saw the cover, I was hoping for one story that feature BloodRayne, FoJ, E-Man and the guys from Zombie Highway against some zombies.

I glad that the book is color (and not black and white). I think Ed would have been better served to run a new BloodRayne story with 2-3 paged samplers of the other books, but I understand why he didn't.

As to the quality of DWP, it's a non-themed anthology. What one likes another will not. It's not meant to please everyone. That has nothing to do with the JAM book as only Zombie Highway and FoJ appeared in DWP.

[eDuke]

Do you even know which stories went into the FCBD book, or are you just generalizing? The book contained excerpts from virtually all of DW's series: Punks, BloodRayne, E-Man, Zombie Highway...way to insult everything. :yawn:
I ran:
- the complete FOJ story from DWP #24
- the last 7 pages of BloodRayne: POD #1, the subway scene
- the 3-page E-Man origin
- a 4-page NEW Zombie Highway story
- a 3-page NEW Punks story

At least we got his money... oh, wait.

[Dexxell]

Heh. I don't know why, but I wouldn't take that guys review serious. Seems to me like he had planned to write that, before he'd even read the book. Just a suspicion.

[Calloway]

Do you even know which stories went into the FCBD book, or are you just generalizing? The book contained excerpts from virtually all of DW's series: Punks, BloodRayne, E-Man, Zombie Highway...way to insult everything. :yawn:

no, but as you see..i didn't mention that book. I said DWP.

It's a gimme that in an anthology there will be crap. Although I'd like to be gung ho, support the team I will not eat food that taste like dog doo just because my mom entered it in some contest.

Luckily for the crap contained there is some great stuff on the opposite end of the spectrum. Zombie Highway for instance.


Also let me just add, one man's granite is another man's gold.

[kdmelrose]

And a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

:sure:

[Calloway]

Whereever you are , your only a stone's throw away from where you've been. :whistlin:

[eDuke]

Whereever you go, there you are!

[Mike225]

Where there's smoke, there's wallpaper!

[Buckyrig]

Grandma got run over be a reindeer?

[Calloway]

If a tree fell in the woods and no one was around, would it make a sound?

[hannu]

If a tree fell in the woods and no one was around, would it make a sound?
And, more importantly, would it be LETTERED??

[Calloway]

no, but it would be inked!

[Imboden]

Do you even know which stories went into the FCBD book, or are you just generalizing? The book contained excerpts from virtually all of DW's series: Punks, BloodRayne, E-Man, Zombie Highway...way to insult everything. :yawn:

(cough-cough)

...Fist of Justice.

(ahem. Sorry, something in my throat)

[hannu]

Is this Doug Volk influental somehow? Does it matter what he says? He didn´t like it, so what? He´s entitled to his opinion. He seems to like books published by Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly etc., so DWP probably isn´t his cup of tea anyway.

We could always e-mail him and tell him that DWP QUIT, because he was so MEAN! :p

[Calloway]

(cough-cough)

...Fist of Justice.

(ahem. Sorry, something in my throat)


which I have to credit with upping the quality to my surprise. In a way it did kinda save dwp.

[kdmelrose]

Is this Doug Volk influental somehow? Does it matter what he says? He didn´t like it, so what? He´s entitled to his opinion. He seems to like books published by Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly etc., so DWP probably isn´t his cup of tea anyway.

Douglas Wolk is a well-respected comics critic/journalist/author who writes for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Publishers Weekly, Seattle Weekly and other publications. His book Reading Comics comes out sometime this summer.

He didn't like the FCBD book. No big deal. Different strokes and all of that.

[hannu]

Ah. So he is somebody. By the way, also the papers he writes for say a lot about his tastes.

Well, I like you, Mike! :)

[kdmelrose]

I just read through Wolk's Salon piece, and his recurring gripe seems to be with the "sampler" books -- the ones containing excerpts from other titles (versus complete, self-contained stories).

That's a fair criticism, and one that probably highlights a gulf between publishers and readers/reviewers: A lot of publishers want to use the FCBD books to promote as many titles in their lines as possible. A lot of readers -- and, apparently, at least some reviewers -- want full stories. For free.

[Calloway]

yeah, the bloodrayne story kinda left me confused.

[hannu]

A lot of publishers want to use the FCBD books to promote as many titles in their lines as possible.

Well, it does sound a bit like a free comic book advertisement day! :laugh:

[kdmelrose]

Well, it does sound a bit like a free comic book advertisement day! :laugh:

In a big way, it is. A publisher would be foolish not to use Free Comic Book Day to try to woo people to buy their various (other) titles.

But, hey, I like samplers. And I don't complain when online previews don't give me the full story. ;) Instead, I look for snippets that catch my eye and, if I find any, I track down the appropriate books.

[Kel Nuttall]

eh, though I do support dwp there is alot of crap in it.
Man, I'm sorry to bring this up and I may catch some shit for it but... damn... who the flying **** are you to be calling any of this work "crap"?!?! You can not like it, you can say you don't like, you can say you think other work in the book is better, you can flat out say that you personally hated it ...but calling it crap is just plain arrogant bull****. There's huge difference between being "honest" and "expressing your opinion" being a ****ing dick. I don't know how Ed puts up with this ****.

[Calloway]

Woops, sorry. Didn't mean to buy the comic and have an opinion on some of the stuff in it. Maybe crap is too strong a word. Alot of very weak stories.

Incidently, I never said the book was crap. Alot of what I've seen in it was crap. Ed's judgement on FoJ was good because the book did get better. There were things that I loved in the pre foj dwp but there was alot of "weak" stuff in there and tended to outweigh the good.

[Fresco]

That would make a great name for a comic book...



CRAP!
featuring seriously good crap-- with back-ups featuring the "Nappy Headed Hoes!"



it will sell millions...
copyright and trademark Franchesco!

:har:

[DanMatrix]

I liked the DW comic.

I thought that the Bloodrayne section promoted the art and story of the series very well.

The FOJ section was good aswell evenknown to me just seems like a Superman rip off but was fun none the less.

E-man was short and boring. Origin story seemed rather weak, he just appears in a light bulb one day then blam the two are off on adventures?

Zombie Highway was kind of boring aswell, seems like it would have been better to have more zombies and fighting then to have a little fun then 3 pages of some guy talking about family yadda yadda then alittle killing.

I didn't like Punks at all, couldn't stand the clip art style with the weird ass characters but meh simply not my edge of the sword.

For people to expect a full story book on fcbd, then look down on sampler ones is retarded. First of all its FREE comic book day, you can't expect someone to specially make a full story for free. Second why would a publisher not want to promote all their comics, so a sampler simply makes sense.

All in all its a good read. I have been wanting to see what FOJ and ZHW was about so was cool for me.

Have a good one.

[Imboden]

My beef with Wolk was his "wave of the hand"/dismissive "generic" comments about the work in the Jam book. Nothing in there is "generic". I'll only speak for my own work, but that FoJ story from #24 is - in my little ol' opinion - a very good story, one I am pretty proud of. And while not 100% original (a twist ending) it's far from "generic".

It seems that all he did was look at the pages and make a judgement. As a "well-respected comics critic/journalist", his opinion may hold weight with people. And if we were to lose some potential readers because he didn't READ the book, well... that would suck.

[Dexxell]

Imboden,
I wouldn't think too many people would be swayed away from our books. It wasn't a real descriptive critique, so it won't be dwelled upon. And hopefully, people don't base their sole tastes on on critic.

(Besides, perhaps we could come back at him with more material in the future. Enough to win him over. It's nearly impossible to build a connection with a reader in so little time.)

[eDuke]

A creator I know once offered up this advice; stay away from reviews. The negative ones will devastate you, the positive ones will make you content and you'll never strive to become better. Several creators I know in this industry stay away from reviews and message forums for the same reasons above.

[Ron Phillips]

Well, I submitted two stories to DWP in my time, could have done a lot more. Anyway, I can definitely say my contributions were 50/50. The first was good and the second was bad (or at least not as good as the first).

I think of all the stories I read in DWP over the 6 years, the ones I really didn't like were due to pacing issues. It's a hard task to successfully tell a story with unknown characters in a limited space. I think that was part of the issue with my second contribution. I crammed it into 8 pages. It would have been funnier if it had more too it, to successfully carry out the gags.

Reviewing FCBD comics is kind of limiting as well, a lot of it will be promotional material and you can't really expect award winning material to be given out for free.

[stahss]

no, but as you see..i didn't mention that book. I said DWP.

My bad, I thought you might be talking about the book or review that pertained to this thread; I didn't realize you were just taking vague swipes at the entire unrelated 30-odd issue anthology.

[Calloway]

Well, I submitted two stories to DWP in my time, could have done a lot more. Anyway, I can definitely say my contributions were 50/50. The first was good and the second was bad (or at least not as good as the first).

I think of all the stories I read in DWP over the 6 years, the ones I really didn't like were due to pacing issues. It's a hard task to successfully tell a story with unknown characters in a limited space. I think that was part of the issue with my second contribution. I crammed it into 8 pages. It would have been funnier if it had more too it, to successfully carry out the gags.

Reviewing FCBD comics is kind of limiting as well, a lot of it will be promotional material and you can't really expect award winning material to be given out for free.


This is where I can see fault with some of the stories. Back when it was originally pay to play there were 6 page stories that should have been at least 12 and as a result the story was kinda unfulfilling.

[Kody]

Clip art? WTF?

Punks is NOT clip art. It's photo collage. Does this Salon.com idiot have any actual knowledge of art history or technique?

Sigh.

[Kody]

I liked the DW comic.

I thought that the Bloodrayne section promoted the art and story of the series very well.

The FOJ section was good aswell evenknown to me just seems like a Superman rip off but was fun none the less.

E-man was short and boring. Origin story seemed rather weak, he just appears in a light bulb one day then blam the two are off on adventures?

Zombie Highway was kind of boring aswell, seems like it would have been better to have more zombies and fighting then to have a little fun then 3 pages of some guy talking about family yadda yadda then alittle killing.

I didn't like Punks at all, couldn't stand the clip art style with the weird ass characters but meh simply not my edge of the sword.

For people to expect a full story book on fcbd, then look down on sampler ones is retarded. First of all its FREE comic book day, you can't expect someone to specially make a full story for free. Second why would a publisher not want to promote all their comics, so a sampler simply makes sense.

All in all its a good read. I have been wanting to see what FOJ and ZHW was about so was cool for me.

Have a good one.


Again with the clip art? Jesus, someone please tell me how photo collage looks like clip art.

[Troy Wall]

Goddamnit, Chamberlain, it's clip art and you KNOW it!!!!!!!!!

:laugh:

On the serious, I don't understand the clip art observations, either. I'm about the most artistically retarded homey on the block, and even I know it's a collage technique being used.

LGM: That wasn't even trying to be a full BR story, so I certainly understand any confusion that resulted...it's a few pages from the end of Plague of Dreams #1. What we originally wanted to do was a mega-recap of all the issues using a....shit...collage technique with maybe a little new art thrown in here and there. But, time and all that.

[Mr.Musgrave]

Clip art? WTF?

Punks is NOT clip art. It's photo collage. Does this Salon.com idiot have any actual knowledge of art history or technique?

Sigh.


That's not a serious question, is it? Of course he doesn't. I like the way Punks looks. Then again, I'm not a fan of the conventional.

So to quote Mr.White: "Piss on this fuckin' turd."

Those who can, do. Those who can't, critique.

[Calloway]

Goddamnit, Chamberlain, it's clip art and you KNOW it!!!!!!!!!

:laugh:

On the serious, I don't understand the clip art observations, either. I'm about the most artistically retarded homey on the block, and even I know it's a collage technique being used.

LGM: That wasn't even trying to be a full BR story, so I certainly understand any confusion that resulted...it's a few pages from the end of Plague of Dreams #1. What we originally wanted to do was a mega-recap of all the issues using a....shit...collage technique with maybe a little new art thrown in here and there. But, time and all that.

I kinda got that feeling of being dropped in the middle of something.

[Kody]

That's not a serious question, is it? Of course he doesn't. I like the way Punks looks. Then again, I'm not a fan of the conventional.

So to quote Mr.White: "Piss on this fuckin' turd."

Those who can, do. Those who can't, critique.

OK, just took a minute to check out Salon.com, I had never been there before and I guess I assumed it was some sort of comic news or entertainment site. But apparently it's nothing more than a poorly done propaganda site that happens to have some comic stuff on it. Makes more sense now. :D

[hannu]

Clip art by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clip_art)

The term "clip art" originated through the practice of physically cutting images from pre-existing printed works for use in other publishing projects.

[illojik]

Collage (also by Wikipedia) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collage)

we could do this all day. the fact remains, those who usually WRITE about artform, are not as versed in the methodology, technique or application of the various mediums as people who have actually had extensive training in the field and make a living producing artwork. Kody is right. It's NOT clip art, and you can't argue that. Clip art can easily be used repeatedly with very little effort or talent, collage is a unique application of media that cannot be duplicated in an easy manner and thus is a one of a kind creation (meaning it IS artwork)

I mentioned this to Kody before, that I didn't really get grabbed by it at first, but after a few looks, I became so absorbed with dissecting the technique and everything that went into the creation of the pages, that I think it is a truly groundbreaking form for sequential storytelling. Bah, I'm not a reviewer though, I'm just another one of those artist schmuck types :D

[Scribbly]

I took a tour for that critic guy, criticism posts.
Watch his opinion about this:

How to Draw (Wizard)

A word to the wise: You might not want to get your drawing tips from a comic whose cover features a woman with breasts bigger than her head. That said, the cartoonists whose tutorials are included here are all pretty big names in the superhero-comics world. B-

Obviously this guy knows and likes about comics the same I know about chemicals.

I rather Lil Greenman criticism. :nyah:

[Ron Phillips]

Well I think it's unfair to make assessments on a preview. I can probably see how the Punks preview stood out awkwardly with the more traditional previews.

I hope that when Punks! is release that the rave reviews will make the critic eat his "clip art" comments.

Everything I've seen from it is fabu.

[hannu]

For the record: I personally like the art in it. The dialogue is even better. My point is, it doesn´t matter whether the guy knows the difference (but IF he knew the difference, that would indeed make him an asshole), he wouldn´t have liked it no matter what. I find it a bit lame to crit a critic, it doesn´t make any difference. It´s just one man´s opinion.
Anyways, time to move on.

[ryanscott]

Clip art? WTF?

C'mon, just be a PUNK and use his quote on the cover:

a failed "experimental" piece built out of clip art

That would rock :laugh:

[sabba]

anyone can see it is photo colage

[illojik]

C'mon, just be a PUNK and use his quote on the cover:

a failed "experimental" piece built out of clip art

That would rock :laugh:


THAT is an awesome idea. :)

[sabba]

a great pay back