HumphreyLee
Name: Joseph Iacovone
Bio: Not much to say here. All you need to know is that I love comics, I'm a big fan of what the dynamic trio (plus one) do here, and you can either find me roaming miscellaneous Internet Comic Book forums under the moniker I have here, or you can find me doing my own Comic Book reviewing over at www.aintitcool.comYes, I'm an @$$hole, and I'm proud of it...
Reviews
All reviews by HumphreyLee
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I read it, have since day one and, well, it's okay right now. Loved it for the first couple issues and now it's kind of lost a lot of steam. The irregular schedule doesn't help it either. It's a strong premise, but doesn't feel like its gone anywhere with it yet. I'm still giving it a couple more issues, but it needs to sell me more. Also, it doesn't help that Oni is publishing another Post-Apocalyptic book in WASTELAND that is far and away better (and, if you want to talk a criminally under-read book on the stands, there's your pick right there).
Oh, and if anyone wants to try some of RESURRECTION, I have doubles of the first three issues just sitting around. I had bought them as they came out, but the guys at ONI randomly sent me some review copies so, I guess if anyone wants them I can send them out. Just give me a PM or whatever on the messageboard or here (wait, can we even do PM's on this page?)
PROMETHEA and TOP TEN both are absolute Absolutes. Two of the greatest pieces of comic book artistry ever made, and they both are top reads as well. I can't know why they never got them back when. Now I imagine old issues with Alam Noore may stop them from happening
Yay! Finally got to listen to the cast (which, was really good Josh and BCM. Interesting to say the least) and I guess this is how I fall after listening to it and, like I said, being from the viewpoint of an Internet reviewer from a, I guess somewhat "infamous" review site:
I agree and disagree.
Even having listened to the cast, I pretty much stand by what I said earlier in this comments section, and I do stand by some points made by both these gentlemen.
I still maintain that a bad book is a bad book. While I get what BCM is saying that when it comes to a more "labor of love" creative book that sets and does what it does, in that aspect to a creator I can see how a book can't be "bad"... but it really can be. Even with the best intentions, and hopes that even something niche can find the audience it inherently has and should appeal to, it can still be just a bad comic, from a base technical standpoint. I've been reading up on some Hunter Thompson again, in prep for the new documentary about him coming up, and even with one of the most creative minds we've ever seen and a man who was passionate about his work, even with all that going for him and even when he was at his most incessed about his work, he still produced some stuff that was honestly just shit. It happens, it really just does. Now, how you approach talking about a comic book or whatnot in that manner is where a good reviewer, especially an internet reviewer, will step up with constructive criticism or just that bit of tough love to try and disect the book and say where the book went wrong and what worked and should be focused more on. And a good reviewer will also be able to discern whether a book isn't so much "bad" as it's just not for them. Much like Ron and his experience with THE SANDMAN for instance.
But my point remains, even with the best intentions, a book can still be horrible. I'm sorry. Even the Sam Loeb tribute issue of Superman/Batman can be a "horrible" comic, but that's just where taste and decency and a recognition of why that comic exists is supposed to take hold and a reviewer is supposed to show some goddamn class and either just ignore it from a review assignment standpoint, or at least just take the traffic space to give sympathy to those involved, which sadly a lot don't do because, like BCM said and I mentioned last time, sometimes it's just a person behind a keyboard like I am right now with a voice they want to share no matter how ignorant or snarky it might be and they're going to share it come hell or high water or their mom calling down to them in the basement that the meatloaf is ready.
And as for the, I guess I would say, "frivolity" of reviewing more mainstream works like your primary DC and Marvel books.. again I agree and disagree. I think the higher up the sales chart you go, I can see it being semi-redundant. For the most part Batman fans are going to buy their Batman books, Spider-Man fans are going to buy their Spider-Man books, Mark Millar fans are going to try out his FF and Wolverine and so on... for the most part. But there will always be that group of "late-adopters", those people that have always been tentative about trying an FF book, no matter who the creative crew, and are looking for an opportunity to try them for once who want some conductive feedback as to if this is that time or if they should keep on waiting. Or those who see something like ONE MORE DAY happen and swear off Spidey comics (yeah, right) but then read that despite that shit storyline the BRAND NEW DAY stuff is overall pretty good and they should at least try out the Slott arcs or whatever.
Yeah, I as a reviewer for the most part love to talk about more Indie creations and show people that might not know they exist, anyone who knows what I do at AICN knows I absolutely love the chance to promote stuff like FEAR AGENT, SCALPED, THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, WASTELAND, and hell, I think I did BATTLE HYMN and THE LEADING MAN back in the day and so on and so on. But sometimes I think just getting someone to try a good FF run or what have you from time to time is just as important to the industry and building up Indie and creator owned books. Readers are readers, and hopefully you can eventually lead them on to those more Indie-centric titles once they've suckled the mainstream tit for so long.
And besides, sometimes even these "mainstream" books don't get anywhere near the sales they need and deserve, even though just having the Marvel or DC banners on them typically guarantees them double the sales of your typical Image book. MANHUNTER, NEXTWAVE, JONAH HEX, CHECKMATE, IRREDEEMABLE ANT-MAN, THE ORDER... all books that got cut way before their time or are barely hanging on because, despite being mainstream, they don't routinely have Wolverine or Batman in their pages and get overlooked. Sometimes taking on one of those is almost as daunting as championing something like WASTELAND and all those I mentioned above.
And I think that's enough from me. I may do my own blogging about this for the five people that read it, but it's still something I like to talk about since I've been doing this reviewer gig for something like three years now. Three years? Sheesh. I read too many fucking comics.
Again, good audio chat there gents.
Cheers...
Of course, I'll definitely take a listen when I can and get back to this, because at the least it's riled up a part of me I've been thinking about recently, i.e. sort of an "existential" crisis being a reviewer on the Internet and whether anyone really gives two tugs or not. I was just going from the base gyst I got reading the posting entries that led up to this.
Long and short of it is, like I was saying earlier, with the Internet becoming the primary tool for relaying info and inflecting criticism on our entertainment there's so much that gets lost in the shuffle, and with so many voices out there it seems to me that while more reviewers are probably the last thing we need to be wasting data with. A good one, or troupe of them like we have here at this iFanboy site that knows their stuff for the most part, and that doesn't let too much of say "Fanboy snark" bog down their criticisms is something we could use more of, especially in a time where the economy is kind of in the shitter, and people's non-essential purchases are going to be weighted more heavily.
I admit, the site I "work" for has that wonderful "@$$hole" moniker that, yeah, we pretty much pride ourselves on so take what we say with a grain of salt, but despite fanboy tendencies on the part of my comrades, I like to think we know our stuff. And for the past, I dunno, year or so I've been taking it on myself to play things pretty straight-forward, and really just use whatever little "power of the press" I do happen to have to promote and/or disect new material, or vastly overlooked material. I do love me a brand new series to buy and try out and then talk about. The guys here do their Pick of the Weeks, if I can do a brand new #1 or OGN or new creative run on an established book then I'm set. Whether anyone cares or not, that's going back to what I was saying earlier about the "Voice in the Wind" that is the Internet, but if I can entertain someone for a few minutes of reading and get them to do a "Hmm, maybe I'll give this book Humphrey mentioned a look" for something like the SCALPED's or, hell, '76's out there well then I think this gig is worth the effort.
I wish I had been paying attention more as this was going on (I'll have to catch up on this podcast later, but I just finally read all the posting that went back and forth to lead up to this). As someone who has been doing Internet reviews for quite a while now, I would have contributed a bit from my standpoint. On one hand, and given what I've been feeling about the Internet, or at least sections of the Internet like what we post on, I can kind of see and understand a notion that, with so much information floating around, with so many forums and blogs and places for people to get on their own little soapboxes and contribute to all the word traffic, I can see how the concept of "some Internet review" can lose a lot of meaning.
Hell, half the time when I write mine I can't help but wonder who gives a good flying goddamn. Sure, every once and a while I get a Thank You from a creator in email form, which I immediately fuck up by weakly replying some fanboy ramblings like "Mr. Johns I just love all your stuff the JSA is so good please come back on Flash would you like to do an interview?" but anyways, it's a nice little nod that someone does care, but mostly when you give them a good write up. Again though, there's just so much info flow running amok, what does it really all mean? For all we know, half the reviews on the internet are being written by the same Green Lantern t-shirt wearing, Cheeto munching, pit-stained basement dweller who has 1600 different account names all of some variation of "HlJrdnFn" or whatever (to use a gross misgeneralization of the comics community of course.
But at the same time, to say certain comic books, or movies, or just about anything for that matter are "un-critiquable"or however you want to put it, is pretty asinine. Nothing is above criticism, particularly well thought out and educated criticism, and as far as I'm concerned I don't think it happens enough. Sure, some topics warrant more attention or care, but even a "Labor of love" can still be disected. You can maybe lean off certain aspects of them, but quite frankly, if something is lacking, it's lacking.Especially reviews themselves. If you're going to put a part of you out there, you have to expect feedback to come of it, good or bad, better or worse. And any good reviewer out there is going to be able to at the least inflect a reasonable amount of either creative criticism, or just an understanding that whatever it is they're talking about may just not be a material suited for them despite whatever quality it has and on and on. At least, I like to think that's what I strive to establish when I do my gig off in the wilds of the Interweb.
Yeah, nevermind, something was wrong. The original list I saw before coming over here didn't even have half the stuff coming out this week that I'm buying. WTF is up with Diamond this week? As is they didn't even post up until today.
11 issues and 2 TPB's. Much more worth the trip to the shop.