Faith Manages: Critical Critics Criticizing Critical Critics..

Comic reviewer does review is not news, neither is being told your personal opinion is wrong by someone who feels aggrieved by that review.

I’ve had a negative response to one of my reviews before that was by the writer of the comic I reviewed. Somehow that was easier to respond to, the writer could potentially do something about the things I raised in the review, he wasn’t going to but it at least felt constructive.

A random person asking me “How do you live with yourself?” Left me a bit flummoxed though.

It didn“t upset me; everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if that ‘everyone’ feels the need to question someone else’s opinion, presumably because they need to validate their appreciation of something. Which you don’t, if you like something, fuck everyone else. It doesn’t make them wrong it just means you’re getting enjoyment out ofÂ something that they didn’t. It’s all subjective, sort of, I mean look at Liefeld.

Another response told me it was a poor review because for them it should be ‘comic of the year’. That’s the thing, FOR THEM. I reviewed the comic and thought it was a bit tripe, they didn’t. But instead of setting up a dialogue to elucidate his point of view and try to win me over, he just informed me I was ”˜wrong“.

I didn’t know how to respond at first. How do I live with myself? Really easily, should I have put the comic on the same pedestal as the other chap? No, it’s his pedestal and that would be rude, so how do I respond?

I don’t. I don’t need to. I don“t need to validate my opinion and it“s not my problem if they feel they do. I’m just lucky enough to have a soap box to shout my opinion from.

I think it’s that soap box that people really don’t like about critics. They have the ability to tell other people that something you love is tripe, and because you have no soapbox you attack the critic. It won’t do you any good but it gets it off your chest.

You see there can be things wrong with something, those things don’t matter to you if you enjoy it, but ignoring those things might lead to them being compounded and detracting from the quality further. Creators need critics, we’re the knives they use to get rid of the unwanted gristle.

So please, keep up the negative responses, it has bugger all effect on me but it’s very therapeutic for you.