Friday, January 25, 2013

New Year, New Beginning: Some Slight Changes to Illegitimate Children of the Atom

If you’re a regular reader, first off thank you, and second off you’ll notice that my posts have not been coming as frequently as usual.  I am very sorry for the long hiatus; part of this was due to being busy with life, but I’ve also been putting a lot of thought into my writing here and the idea of criticism in general.

I worry that criticism has become synonymous with “hating and  disliking” to the point that I often read reviews of things and wonder if whoever wrote the pieces even likes movies or video games or whatever is being reviewed to begin with.  Many focus on the dozen things they don’t like, while ignoring everything that does work.

Being an introspective and sensitive guy, I’m concerned I might come off as self-entitled and jaded—taking for granted the bounty of entertainment available to me because it doesn’t fit within a narrow category that I’ve deemed acceptable.  At the end of the day I want people to like comics, and more importantly I want to like them.  All the issues I’ve read had some merit, and I like to think that even though I am quite fond of the X-Men, I hope I can still be fair, logical, and somewhat objective.  And so I sit here typing, pondering if the majority of reviews and criticisms today are spoiled people holding modern creations to unobtainable standards or if they actually push artists and creators to be better and more relevant.  Does this current climate automatically lead to toxic cynicism and negativity for the sake of negativity, or does it in fact hold creators and audiences to a higher standard of quality?  And where on the spectrum does my writing fall?

I can’t change my opinions, and really I don’t think that my reviews up to this point have been that mean-spirited, but I can change the way I rate issues.  Letter grades are so open to interpretation, and often carry negative associations, so I decided to try creating a more accurate way of measuring the quality of an issue.  I want to create a system that better reflects my enthusiasm and appreciation as a fan, and hopefully makes the issues more accessible.  I’m not claiming I’m the first one to come up with a system like this; this is just what I came up with.  So, without further ado, my new rating system.

Everyone Should Read: When I was an undergrad in college, I always had between one and seven roommates, and I went to the comic store every Wednesday.  Although none of my roommates read comics habitually as I did, all were open to the medium as they were fans of the various comic book based-movies and cartoons that have come out.  The only problem was they didn’t know where to start.  And as comic fans, we should all realize that it is our duty to pick out books that not only we like, but that we can share with non-fans to keep our hobby alive.  Long story short, I actually got some of them to subscribe to a few titles at my local comic store thanks to  the likes of Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, Brian K. Vaughn’s Runaways, and Bendis’s New Avengers because of their quality and universal appeal.  Looking back on my reviews, the one’s I’ve rated highest are, for the most part, the ones I’d most likely share to grow appreciation for comics.
 
For X-Men Fans: There are a lot of comics out there, each with their own audience and appeal.  The X-books are no different in that respect.  In my mind, being an X-Men fan doesn’t mean having read every issue—it means having an appreciation for the characters and the universe, and being able to put up with some flaws as long as it leads to some great character moments.  Or being able to put up with some lousy character moments for some amazing events.  It means that you’re willing to overlook some minor problems for the big picture, as long as it leads to something true to the themes and characters of the X-Men.  And this label is for books you might appreciate that others might scoff at.

Completionists Only:  I place myself firmly in this category.  Even if you don’t own every X-book out there… if you own a couple hundred issues, you’re probably in this category.  If you’ve ever found a story dreadful, but continued to buy it every month, whether for the little moments you might enjoy, or because you just needed to know how it ended, this is the category for you.  These are books that may not be the favorites, or may’ve been ill-conceived, but still fit into the texture of the X-Men one way or the other.

So there you have it, my new rating system.  Was it necessary?  I have no idea, but I figure it’s something new.  Plus I like how instead of qualifying a book as good or bad, it instead breaks down the appeal the book might have to different audiences.  Some might argue that this is just a different looking good to bad scale, and they’d probably be right, but I promise my intentions are pure.  So happy reading.

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