Before I start reviewing Angela Melick’s Wasted Talent, let’s talk a little about journal webcomics.
The Webcomic Overlook doesn’t typically review journal webcomics. (Out of 150+ reviews, this is only my fourth journal comic review.) To be honest, I don’t think most sites do. Journal webcomics are a tricky thing: part comic, part blog, part diary. I’ll admit this site is often cruel, but more often than not I try not to directly attack the creator behind the comic. The line between creator and creation, though, becomes exceedingly tricky when the the characters in the comic represent an actual person.
There’s the issue of the nature of the comic. Who in the world would want to read something that’s the equivalent of someone’s diary? I suppose a snarkier reviewer would say “voyeurs,” but I should mention that autobiographies have been around since the beginning of time. Those, though, tend to be written after the events depicted have passed, and there’s a certain distance between the author and the narrative. As a counterpoint, I suppose you can say that blogging is no different… yet most of these blogs get very few readers, and the one that do succeed at least have a unique quality about them — like, say, putting funny outfits on a pug.
