I stumbled across everything2 through my RSS reader. The site really tries to be what it says with everything from stories to poetry to ideas and reviews. Today I found a new piece by "Glowing Fish" about a 1985 Alan Moore back up story from The Omega Men series.
The review itself is short. I imagine that it rivals the script to the original piece in length which begs the question "what is a good length for a review?"
In this blog I try to keep my thoughts as concise as possible. Especially since I am looking at articles which are usually only a page long I think it would be inappropriate for my article to be longer than the original. This is not an issue when one is reviewing a two hour movie or a 300 + page book but what about when you are looking at four page comic story? And is it really worth it to review such a short work?
My philosophy is that a review should provide insight as to whether the audience of the review should spend time and/or money on the product being reviewed. Considering that, the review of a small percentage of comic book does not seem to be a worthwhile use of reviews time or space unless it can be shown that this one story can justify the entire cover price of the comic. Or the reviewer could be a using the short story as a kind of jumping off point to discuss the author or ideas presented in the work. In which case the article moves away from a review and into criticism.
This review does not do that. Of course the reviews on evertything2 are a different beast altogether. They are really personal insights written more for the authors benefit and perhaps education than a "professional" review which may be more driven by the business of art rather than its true appreciation. That being said I cannot really endorse this review of The Omega Men back up story on either criteria. It was not worth the read I gave it because it did not offer any true insight into the story itself, Alan Moore, or the comic book genre. But I site such as this is still worthwhile as a whole as a place for people to gain perspective on issues they enjoy or wish to learn about. If I stumble onto something less than brilliant then the fault is really mine.
The review itself is short. I imagine that it rivals the script to the original piece in length which begs the question "what is a good length for a review?"
In this blog I try to keep my thoughts as concise as possible. Especially since I am looking at articles which are usually only a page long I think it would be inappropriate for my article to be longer than the original. This is not an issue when one is reviewing a two hour movie or a 300 + page book but what about when you are looking at four page comic story? And is it really worth it to review such a short work?
My philosophy is that a review should provide insight as to whether the audience of the review should spend time and/or money on the product being reviewed. Considering that, the review of a small percentage of comic book does not seem to be a worthwhile use of reviews time or space unless it can be shown that this one story can justify the entire cover price of the comic. Or the reviewer could be a using the short story as a kind of jumping off point to discuss the author or ideas presented in the work. In which case the article moves away from a review and into criticism.
This review does not do that. Of course the reviews on evertything2 are a different beast altogether. They are really personal insights written more for the authors benefit and perhaps education than a "professional" review which may be more driven by the business of art rather than its true appreciation. That being said I cannot really endorse this review of The Omega Men back up story on either criteria. It was not worth the read I gave it because it did not offer any true insight into the story itself, Alan Moore, or the comic book genre. But I site such as this is still worthwhile as a whole as a place for people to gain perspective on issues they enjoy or wish to learn about. If I stumble onto something less than brilliant then the fault is really mine.
