Morning,
Welcome to a bland new future. The year changes and a scan of newly released comics has me seriously scratching my head. See below for some ‘groundbreaking new comics’.
I’m back at my desk and getting ready for term to begin. Thanks to everyone who has been using the Christmas break to listen to the NIA podcast. Numbers have really been going up and that’s due to some great buddies who have joined me to talk about brilliant comics. You can have a listen to myself and Jonny Cannon talking craft on the home page of this very website.
If you go one post back you can also have a read of my favourite comics from 2023. It’s a real mixed back of mainstream, translated and small press/indie.
Back to the weekly task at hand. No money is made from these pages and all are used for review purposes.
Top.
I’m rereading Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters for an NIA with Alan this week and am again reminded of the power and craft that this story brings. We’ll also be supposed controversy that after some research may not be what you think. Grell is an absolute Master of comics, both art and story. Really excited to chat about this one.
Bottoms.
This is a subject that I’ve tackled before. Badly made comics. People seemingly have no shame what they put out there. I’ve been using the Global Comic comic reading app on my iPad for a few months now. I’ve found it to be great in the most part. Over the last month I’ve been picking an indie book to read and found some exceptional work. Have a listen to me talk about Ninja Kaidan from Black Box Comics on last week’s ACP for example.
But. Remember that quote about how ‘…it isn’t home taping that’s killing music, it’s bad music that’s killing music’ (or something similar, showing that even Bono can occasionally be right).
There seems to be a lot of extremely poorly made comics flooding the site. If you have an account then go to the ‘Indie’ tab and have a look at ‘New Releases’. You’ll find the. Below and other examples immediately. Here’s the first one I came across this morning. In fact, it was the first in the queue. It’s a two page comic called ‘Falling for Alpha’ by Silly Goober Comics.
Even the kindest comics ‘reviewer’ or promoter would find it had to recommend this crap.
Here’s another example.
And another. A lot of them are little more than smart phone photographs of doodles. In fact many have the table or a thumb or the edge of the book visible.
Here’s another. Who could possibly think this nonsense is worth reading and/or actually paying for?!
I could go on and on. These appear to be a massive grift. Global Comix is a pay to read site. You can pay to digitally buy an issue or a trade or you can pay a monthly subscription fee. I have chosen to do the latter, and in the most part it has been glorious. However, making it an open and easy to upload site has the doors banging off their hinges. Crap comics and some that seem like they are part of some kind of money grab are appearing daily on there.
One more for luck. Maybe this one is an experiment in realism by including the rings of the notebook? (Or some such other shite excuse).
These types of comics are not of a level where they can honestly ask a reader to pay for them! Some of them even have positive remarks like ‘Great Job’ or ‘Keep Going’ from ‘other’ account holders. This very much reminds me of another grift I found on another digital comics reading site a few years ago. Fake reviews to bump up reads.
Meanwhile, I’m sure someone out there is trying to claim that Silly Goober Comics are putting out groundbreaking material.
It’s important to spot this crap and say so.
Many thanks for reading.
Never Iron Anything - The Comics Review Website 