I’ve been kind of dazed about this “war on criticism” people seem to have, where they argue that if you have ANYTHING bad to say about something (and this ranges from constructive, helpful advice to flat out “this sucks and didn’t work for me”), you shouldn’t be allowed to comment on it at all. You aren’t allowed to publicly dislike anything, or else you’re just a poopy doopy meany head who hates art. Where did this idea come from?

It’s because I care about art, webcomics, etc. that I critique them. I hold art to the standards I know it can reach. When you make your work public and expose it to the masses, you’re asking for ALL kinds of feedback, not just asspats.

Eventually, those who are serious about their craft will realize this, stop taking criticism personally, and start improving.

I just don’t have time to read through every webcomic out there.

Something I’ve noticed is that most people are much, much too lenient when they talk about webcomics. When I read ‘What webcomics are good?” message board threads, I invariably find people praising comics that range from the mediocre to the outright bad.

Last time I actually called somebody out for praising Dominic Deegan as really good, because it’s just objectively not.

I mean, if nothing else, the art is mediocre and derivative. That should disqualify it from being labeled ‘great”

This quote of Ebert’s really gets to the heart of it, for me:

“the notion that it was permitted to have opinions, and expected that you should explain them.”

I think it’s important to understand the distinction between things that are good, and things that you like.

For example, Tezuka is probably the finest cartoonist that has ever lived. He massively expanded the limits of the art. But that doesn’t mean that I, personally, always prefer to read Tezuka books. There are lots of cartoonists who are inarguably worse who I still enjoy more.

Or, on the other side, I like watching the old Transformers cartoon even though it is objectively terrible.

The thing is, lots of people don’t understand this. The thought process is simply “I like Dominic Deegan, therefore, Dominic Deegan must be great.”

This is true of everything people talk about on the internet, but I find it especially true of webcomics.

That’s why I loved Your Webcomic is Bad; it was just so cathartic to see somebody who was actually willing to say that some things are bad, and not praise mediocrity as brilliance.

The only way your recommendations can really mean anything is if you’re capable of looking beyond yourself, of asking, “What about this do I like? Will other people also enjoy those qualities?”

A critic kind of has to do that, just because otherwise there’s nothing for them to talk about. If you read a given critic enough, you start to understand what things they like and what they don’t like, so that you can say to yourself, “Okay, this critic thinks that Movie X doesn’t have enough of a plot, but I like mindless action movies.”

But, as Altman said, if a critic never gives a bad review, part of the puzzle is gone; if they just like everything then it’s impossible to figure out what standards they use to judge things, and then it’s impossible to know whether their standards match yours.

That’s the crux of it, for me; I read critics so that I don’t waste my time looking at crap I won’t like. Anybody can publish a webcomic, and I don’t want to personally sift through a huge pile of crap looking for the good ones. I want some help.

I think it’s odd how in all these talks there’s always lots of discussion about how criticism effects the critics or the webcomic artists, but very little about how it effects webcomic readers.

And, personally, I think that the whole purpose of criticism is to help the people who look at art, not the people who make it.

Steve Anderson for a bit was doing reviews at Panel2panel (before the site went down), and he was quite caustic when talking about comics. Indeed, even comics he rated with three or four stars he’d be critical about. However, he didn’t attack the cartoonist. He kept his ire to the work rather than the artist. (Indeed, outside of Uwe Boll and one or two other horrible movie producers, his Reel Advice column is much the same, taking a hard look at the movies while leaving personal remarks on the back burner.)

I’ve stared down some truly horrible comics in my time. But what matters isn’t the fact the artist might have some issues or might not exactly be the most polite of people, but the work itself. It’s far better to focus on that work rather than the artist, especially if you’re being critical of it. That way, the attacks aren’t personal; they’re subject-specific.

And while the cartoonist may have put their soul into that work and feel upset that you said those “horrible” things about their baby (and I’ve had cartoonists quite upset at some of my reviews in the past, including Dan Shive), when they take a step back and look at what’s said, they realize that the review contains the tools they need to improve their craft.

Rob H.

Writing “this sucks” doesn’t tell anything but a personal opinion. Writing “the artwork lacks any consistency and is confusing” is a far better way of articulating the problem, and might help the cartoonist find ways to improve.

That’s true, but the thing is that John Solomon never stopped at just “this sucks.” This may be a bit of a stretch, but it seems reasonable to assume that all negative criticism can be boiled down to the formula “X is bad” with varying degrees of specificity for X. For example, saying “the artwork lacks consistency and is confusing” is simply saying the way in which the artwork is bad and detrimentally affects the comic’s quality. Solomon frequently went into the details of comic badness: “You do not create a WALL OF TEXT with a few illustrations,” “let’s get back to the point of explaining why this story is bad – as if “the main character is a crappy Mary Sue” isn’t enough,” and “If you’re competent, then…what [your stupid character] will do next is obvious, because you know their personality like it’s your own” are all excerpts from the most recent entry, all of which have a high degree of specificity. Just because John Solomon was acerbic as all hell in delivering his criticism doesn’t mean that the criticism wasn’t based on valid standards of comic analysis.

In other words (and I say this as a creator as well as a reviewer) I feel the entitlement complex works in the other direction–not the critic feeling entitled to a place at the same level as the creator, but the creator feeling entitled to positive feedback or ‘constructive criticism.’

I put constructive criticism in quotes because all artists ask for it, but not all artists define it the same. For far too many, ‘constructive criticism’ is code for ‘effusive praise, just with fewer smilies and exclamation marks.’ I cut my Internet teeth on a community where anything approaching serious critique was absolutely verboten. And guess what kind of art that community produced? The most artless, incompetent, derivative sub-pabulum this side of DeviantART.

It was only when I got away from that community that I started to grow as an artist. And I think, similarly, the culture needs to get away from the attitude it represents. There’s no elixir for the bad creator, the good creator, any creator interested in personal growth like a grounded, realistic self-assessment. Maintaining that is the responsibility of both creator and critic.

I have to say, there are a lot of well-reasoned insights here. I think the most valuable thing to take away is that everyone has to define their own set of rules on how to approach webcomics and to be consistent when reviewing.

I’d say more, but I already devoted 2000+ words and copy-paste above, and I don’t want to sound like I’m repeating myself.