TECHnically, you were the first to contribute, so you know where to send that DVD...
Ha, I kid, it was actually.... (drumroll, please!) Matthew Vergin, by six entire minutes, 12 minutes after you posted the plea -- I'll pass his email along to you Jeff.
-B
"If you came across a zine in your local comic book store that had the dozens of reviews everyone's done, plus Abhay's smart-assery, plus Jog's coverage of Igor Kordey's career at Marvel, and the overview of Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent, would you play a dollar for it?"
To be frank, no. I must say that, in all honestly, I liked the old Savage Critic much better. For me, some of the examples above are things I have to scroll past in order to get to the reviews. The "Smart-assery and career coverage, while I'm sure they are interesting for some, are not what I come to the Savage Critic for; I come for the reviews, and even some of the new reviewers are, for my taste, a waste of space. (I won't mention who, here, because that's not the point of this comment.) I may be in the minority here, but I feel that perhaps before asking for money, you should do a poll and see what people think of various aspects of the new Savage Critic compared to the old.
Seriously, meine Freunde, a more succinct post & a larger PayPal button are required, post-haste, ipso facto, Quentin Earhart Deverill, et. al.
You had me at "howdy;" or maybe at "50 posts."
Confidential to J.N.LARS: y'all are loco.
The new Savage Critic is like the Justice League of comix reviewers. And I don't even mean that in the insulting "Detroit Era" kinda way, I'm talking Grant Morrison Big Seven, plus Abhay in a wild-card Plastic Man slot. (Sorry, Jeff. You are Aquaman. Hot hook.)
Hmmmm – Grant Morrison. A font of wondrously imaginative, potentially great ideas each glossed over in the rush to get to the next one, which would benefit from an editor. Yup, I agree. It's just like Morrison's Justice League.
Now, if they broke it into a review column, for new books, a feature column, for articles like the one on Korday and Valérian: Spatio-Temporal Agent, and an editorial column, for articles full of smart-assery (For example: " Jeff Smith's Captain Marvel: How would I know? I'm a grown man."
(Sorry, my comment got cut off. Continuing . . .) Seriously, what was the point of even typing that in a "review"?), and I think they would improve things to a huge degree.
Really, though, give me some DeMatteis and Giffen, with contributions by Maguire and Hughes, with stories ranging from silly (Kooeykooey Kooey) to serious (Despero) any day of the week over Morrison's run. Morrison was much better on both Animal Man and Doom Patrol.
thank you for your efforts on savage critic. i will donate.
please allow me these brief comments
mr hibbs; please continue commenting on your experience running a LCS- your posts are well written and the content is always interesting
add a link to buy a book after it is reviewed. my LCS doesnt stock it, I guarantee, and i dont mind waiting to find or have delivered the first two issues of "the programme" for example. this is probably an easier way to provide funding for the site, anyway.
consider providing graeme an incentive for writing more often. his posts are pretty good, too.
more pictures of in-store tomfoolery
thanks- greg in cville
I totally agree with J.N.LARS - the old Savage Critic(s) was better. The site is much more sharp looking, sure, but I came to SC because I liked to read Hibbs, Jeff and Graeme.
There's a reason I didn't read the others.
I will give you $5 on the condition that you tie Graeme down and FORCE him to write more. He is the most consistent of the Savages (Abhay is occasionally brilliant but usually terrible, so I'll keep on considering Graeme the best).
How much do I want to wade into this "old vs. new" argument? Hmm... I come for Graeme and Hibbs, I have always liked Diana, and (as previously mentioned) Abhay occasionally strikes pure gold (maybe he's basically the Woody Allen or Robert Altman of comics criticism, which isn't exactly faint praise). That seems good enough for me.
I donated. Love the new Savage Critic. Keep up the good work everyone.
I'd pay this site good money in support if you immediately lost Abhay and his posturing, self-aggrandizing, "Look At Me! I was the freakin' **STAR** of my 8th Grade Creative Writing Class" style of reviewing.
And I agree with the above posters, I truly miss the old Savage Critic.
You've got your blood money, you vultures!
I kid! I just contributed. Love the new site--I think a diversity of opinion, writing styles, and posting frequency is ALWAYS an advantage, even if everyone doesn't like the taste of every item on the menu. Fortunately, the old favorites still kick around so you can just pick the flavors you like.
How does Graeme taste? Salty.
Well, I don't usually do this, but I'm going to, since the new Savage Critics is a great collection of reviews and commentary from some of the best comics writers on the internet. Nice hucksterism there Jeff.
By the way, I only occasionally read the old version of the site, but the new version is a near-daily stop for me. Well done, guys, and keep up the good work.
This is always the first thing I read in my RSS feeds, so hell yeah I'll donate some bread. I'll also donate beer to any of you here in SF.
And I'll echo a poster above and say that links to buy the stuff online would be a really cool idea, but then you'd have to get into online retailing and who knows how much of a mess that could be? But on the bright side, I'm sure it would be grist for many Tilting columns.
I can't believe people are being so negative about Abhay. I don't think I'd bother with SC if not for him -- sure, I read the other stuff, I even enjoy it, but it's not enough to raise SC above the level of all the other comics review blogs I can't be bothered reading. Abhay's hilarious. Abhay's worth it all by himself. (I used to read Title Bout, too, and I loved it and missed it when it was gone. Abhay's posts here are almost like having Title Bout back again.)
Though, if Douglas would post more often, that would also be cool. Reading Comics was just terrific and we need more stuff from the mind that produced it.
...but all that said, I'm not going to donate, because I review comics for a living. (For the Irish Times.) And it's not much of a living...
I swear to god, some people on the internet continue to choke me with their sense of entitlement. It's a free blog, and these people put a fair amount of work into it - and it just so happens that they have a little *donate* button over there on the side, and Jeff was just pointing that out, and nothing else. You actually find that idea offensive, that someone could provide you a service, and once in a while ASK if you wouldn't mind kicking in for something you theoretically enjoy?
Hey, guess what, the old version that you liked so much better had a donate button as well. How many times would you say you used it?
The selfishness is mind blowing. Don't contribute if you don't want to, but spare the rest of us your self-important whining. You wouldn't throw this kind of shit out to someone's face - so don't do it on here.
I don't get the hate either. And where's the love for Jog? Personally I think he's the best writer but everybody here turns in quality material. Plus, the new design showed me the way to Abhay Khosla, which I am eternally grateful for. You bet I'll donate.
I echo the sentiments that the site is nowhere near as entertaining or informative as it was before. I'll still donate though, simply because I've liked Graeme's writing for years now. But still, I *also* agree with sentiment that the sooner this site loses Abhay, the better off it will be. What an annoying prat...
First of all, let me state that my next comments are directed more to the ideas expressed in some of the comments, and not the blog itself. I find Hibbs, Jeff and Graeme to be the only ones I am interested in reading here, but I may be in the minority in that regard.
However, in response to blake's comment, I suggest blake reread the comments. Nobody says that they're offended by the suggestion that they COULD pay; they're saying that they won't pay if the product isn't, in their opinion, worth their money, and that IS something they're entitled to say. They have a right to decide if a product is worth their money. I myself don't "find that idea offensive, that someone could provide you a service, and once in a while ASK if you wouldn't mind kicking in for something you theoretically enjoy." However, I reserve the right not to kick in if the product has become less enjoyable.
As for the comment, "you wouldn't throw this kind of shit out to someone's face," it's not shit, and yes, I would. A couple of months back, my ISP decided to start limited bandwidth usage in our area, in violation of contract. (I'm not in the States now, so I'm not referring to Comcast.) The next day, I was down at the local customer service office, and I told them, politely, that they had to restore full service as per the contract within 24 hours, or I would cancel bill payment immediately. They didn't, so I did, and I switched providers.
I want to hear more from Johanna!
I contributed, so make no mistake that I enjoy the new format very much for the most part.
If i could provide one bit of feedback, it's that I would appreciate few more of the old capsule style reviews in the mix. Particularly the 'Pick of the week' and 'Trade of the week' selections. Which are always genuinely useful to me when looking for new stuff.
Lars, I'll ask again: The donate button was there in the old version, the one you so prefer, the one that you intimate you'd have been willing to shell out for - so I'm assuming you donated like crazy then? Since it's clearly just the changes that are preventing you from donating now.
Your argument is deeply flawed, and your defense of it makes it more so: Your internet service is a SERVICE. You pay for it; you have every right to expect certain things out of it. It is a two way obligation. This site is free, with a donation button. These two things are not analogous. Now, you're absolutely correct that you have a right to not donate, you have a right to say so, but if you can't see the difference between a BILL and a contribution, then you're just wildly off base. And again, it's absolutely your right to say, "I don't really like this, or anyway, I don't like it enough to donate cash, sorry," But when you intimate that it was the previous version that might have been deserving of your cash (which you do, by talking about how they should consider who likes what version before asking for money), and it had the EXACT SAME donation option, and you didn't take advantage of it? For that service that you really liked, evidentially? That's just plain hypocrisy.
Now, I included some aspersions to people who are being, and have been, outright rude in my previous post. That doesn't include everyone who doesn't want to donate (for instance, while I think Lars' posts have been inaccurate in their assertions, I wouldn't call them rude), it does include people who act like the very act of SCROLLING PAST the writing of someone they might not like is a huge burden on them. Is it beyond you guys to be polite? Sure it's your right to say whatever you want. That doesn't mean you SHOULD. But I guess civility goes out the window when you don't have to look someone in the eye.
For god's sake, people. Jeff semi-retired before, the change over didn't have anything to do with that. Brian has always been up and down with his posting regularity. The new site has nothing to do with that, and Graeme is literally writing more than he ever has before. So honest to god, what's your real beef? That this new version just offers more material that you don't like along with the stuff you do? SO JUST READ THE STUFF YOU DO. Do you need some sort of fucking V-Chip for your internet browser? A Critic-Chip?
Old site + more = new site. Seems simple enough to me. I'll take my new site, thank you, and say "Please, sir, may I have some more" and skip over what I don't like. I've never bought a magazine where I liked everything, and the fact that I can compare Savage Critic to a magazine instead of two and a half guys posting infrequently warms my heart.
But, I'll speak with my Paypal account instead. Thanks to Brian, Graeme, Jeff and the new crew for good reading!
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