Intro to Reviews

Motivation and Background

This summer I started to read comics regularly when I heard about the New52. The only comics I had read were Watchmen and Civil War. I jumped into the New52 buying Batman: The Court of Owls then moved on to buy Animal Man, Wonder Woman, and Frankenstein I've loved reading comics and the ease of entry that the New52 reboot gave me was great. By now my monthly comic total has grown to about 30 per month which is why I have decided to start reviewing the books I’m reading so that I become more critical in my purchasing habits.

Method

I decided to attach scores to my reviews so that I can use a bit of math to help decide when I need to drop a book. I’ll use a 5 point system because the score isn’t the most important part of my review. A 100 point system like IGN or even a 40 point system like Game Informer isn’t needed here because it’s just a rough estimate of my opinion. I’m not trying science here.

A 3 point score is okay, enjoyable but not great.

A 2 point score is bad; I would have been just as well off not reading this book.

A 1 point score is crap; I hope I don’t read anything else like this again.

A 4 point score is pretty good; this will make me want to get more.

A 5 point score is great; this is a book that I recommend to others.

I’ve thought of a process for using scores to decide when to drop a book. It’ll probably be needlessly complex so simplifications are a probability. I’ll use a system of “credits” to see which books to drop which are used up when I buy a book or give it a 1 or 2 point score. A book earns credits when it gets a 4 or 5 point score. The number of credits (1pt = -4c, 2pt = -1c, 4pt = +2, 5pt = +5) might need refinement. I’ll have a cap on the number of credits (6?) so that the system can be influenced by harsh drops in quality more quickly. To decide what #1 book to pick up and give them a chance to build I’ll start each #1 with one credit and give up to 2 more (cap of 3) for liking the character, writer or artist. Apathy for a character will lose points. Long term changes in creative teams will be treated similarly to new issues.

Examples

JLA: I will pick up issue #1 because of the #1 point along with my interest in Geoff Johns and Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter. This reaches my new book cap of 3.

Katana: I won’t preorder issue #1 despite the initial point because I disliked Katana in Birds of Prey and care about the creative team.

Green Arrow: I’m jumping on at issue #17 for Ollie, Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino.

DCU Presents: Best described as a series of mini-series described as an ongoing series. I’ll treat this as a special case with each mini given unique consideration

Closing

While I get a few books outside of DC they aren’t dominating my pull list so I don’t feel any pressure to be as critical of those purchases. On January 9, 2013, I will start to review each book that I read. Between now and then I’ll be reading back issues and adding books I feel deserve 5 points into a list. I’ll be giving each book currently on my pull list initial credits I feel they have earned up to the new book cap of three.