Promises To Keep. . .

Best laid plans of mice and bloggers.  January kicked my butt at work, so this is going up a bit later than I wanted.

So first of all, this is NOT the last post of this blog.  But really, it kind of is.

For a little over 8 years I've written this blog, but I started doing reviews back in 2003.  It's been a long time.

As I said, way back here, I started this blog to have something to do after I got laid off from a really great job.  I had a long list of topics, and lots of comics and I wanted to read more of them.

And I did it.  I managed to repost all of my old reviews, with updates, I covered 100 different topics in articles and added 100 comics to the list in that time.  I also created 9 special long series articles which spanned over multiple posts.

I cobbled together my own version of a webcomic reward series, posted my own writing, and got so many comics that I couldn't even read them all any more.

My current job, however, has been a pain in the butt.  The only reason I have the time to write this and the last Can't Live Without is because I managed to roll a couple days off in my schedule.  Hell, most of the articles posted in December was because I didn't have any jobs at all.

Still, my job just doesn't give me the free time I needed for this blog, and breaking with the weekly schedule actually made it harder to come back to it.  I WANT to keep this running, but I can't live off of it.  I like to eat you know?

I have promises to keep, however, and I want to fulfill them.  First is a retrospective on Blue Blaster, which will hopefully come sooner rather than later.  Kind of surprised me ending at just the right moment.  Another month of strips, and I wouldn't bother.  I'm aiming to get that done before March.

Zebra Girl is planning to start it's last chapter Feb 23rd, and I doubt it'll wrap up too quickly.  Fast enough though.  I think it deserves a detailed finale look and I committed to it last year, so I'm going to follow through.

And finally, there's Sluggy Freelance.  I made a promise, a long time ago, that I would be there and write about the finale of Sluggy, and I intend to still.  It may not be for a while, a LONG while, but I don't think they take down blogs for inactivity, so once it ends, the post goes up.  Assuming I can remember the password to this thing.

That will be it though.  No more new reviews, no more long series, no more random essays.  I'm sad to stop, but really, I'm happy with what I have done.  This blog goes on my resume now, even if it never made me a dime.  It gave me something to look forward to week after week when jobs were scarce and I was desperate.  Now though, I'm doing much better.  Maybe if I get fired from this job (unlikely as hell, btw) I'll come back.  Maybe not.

I do have ideas for another, slower paced blog, nothing to do with webcomics, but I think I'll hold off for now.  No sense making more promises when I have issues keeping the current ones.

So thank you for reading, each and every one of you.  Until next time, no, until we meet again.  Good bye.

Cleaning Up a Bit / Touching Base #27

Funny how before we finished a move, we always cleaned the now empty house.  Except the last time, but that had other reasons.

In this case, it's time to clean up the read list one last time in preparation for next week's big post.  So let's get started.

From Hiatus, I'm pulling everything and swapping in some new blood, namely Broodhollow, Commander Kitty, Hark, a Vagrant! and Little Guardians.  All the old stuff is either dead, or dead and gone.  Yes, even Perry Bible Fellowship, which gets reruns on Go Comics, but that's about it.

Monthly sees the departure of The Wotch to Non-Read (I don't know what's going on with any more) and Out There to dead.  I've added Head Trip, but that's about the only addition there.

Weekly sees the addition of Chainsawsuit, Exiern and Ava's Demon (it's new and all).  I probably COULD move Derelict to Hiatus, but not yet.

Legends of Wholeterra had a website failure and is gone, so it gets pulled from T-Th-S, while Not a Villain gets added.

Bug Martini was daily but now is 3 times a week, so it went to M-W-F along with Metacarpolis.  It Hurts! ended (forgot to do a retrospective on it, whoops) so it's gone from the list as well.

Daily's biggest departure is Station V3 which never did answer the question what happened to it.  The other removals I've already commented on.

There are some comics that will likely be ending in the next few months.  Zebra Girl is nearly done but won't be finished until the start of next year.  Blue Blaster looks to be wrapping up it's storyline, so that's nice.  Marry Me, um, could be ending or it could just be taking a 2 year break, hard to say.

Eeire Cuties and Magick Chicks HAVE updated, but it's sporadic and looks like Archie comics.  I don't know if this is long term or not.

Cosmic Dash actually started putting up strips again.  I really don't understand how or why it updates the way it does, as in it doesn't.  Annoyed.

Sunstone (NSFW) has it's second, book?  Volume.   That sounds good.  Second Volume called Mercy finally getting back up to speed.

PopChromatic stopped updating in July due to life reasons.  They're hopping to get it up and running again in the new year.

Not much else to talk about honestly.  I do want to get back and do an It Hurt's retrospective, so I might do that as part of next year's final wind down (I definitely want to write about Zebra Girl ending).  It'll depend on if I get time.

Next week I'll see about doing that It Hurt's! retrospective.  See you then kiddies.

Future of The Wild Webcomic Review

So I meant this for the beginning of February.  I also meant for the Dr. McNinja Retrospective to be at the beginning of February, but bleh.

If you hadn't noticed, I've been kind of falling off updates for the last couple of years.  My job is SO chaotic in it's scheduling even a "regular" set of hours can range from 10 to 50 if things go rotten really quickly.  I honestly spend most of my off time staring into space because I can barely move.

That's not a bad thing, really.  The reason this blog exists at all is because I got laid off from a 5 day a week job and I needed something, ANYTHING to do besides stare at the computer screen.  First thing I did was travel cross country, then I started a blog about webcomics.  I had lots of topics, comics I wanted to review, things I wanted to say.

Ultimately, though, I've just about run out of topics.  That plus the job that requires more attention and energy anything I've done before has made it so I just don't have much to say or time to say it.  Which has made me very sad, actually.  I love doing this, but in the end, I'm near the end of it.

I'm not ending it NOW, obviously.  That's silly.  I have a promise to keep, to write about Sluggy Freelance when it ends (well, kind of ends, I really don't think he's going to wrap it up by August at this rate).  And I want to squeeze in ONE last set of reviews.  Nothing special, of course, just 5 comics that catch my attention (I've got two so far).

Also, I've got one more long series I want to do, which will dominate the bulk of the year.  Then, that's it.

The blog will stop regular updates probably at the end of the year (one last Can't Live Without post).  Will I never update again?  Can't say.  Something stupid is bound to happen.  Maybe I'll actually sort out the articles into topics so I can find them easier later, or not.  The point is, I won't be going out of my way even for a monthly update.

So now you know the plan.  I've enjoyed doing this and will have a nice big long thank you thing at the end, but for now, this is the plan.  And hey, things could change.  I could get fired tomorrow and have nothing better to do again.  We'll see.

In any case, next time I begin my next and last long series of a comic that I love, and actually finished rereading very recently.  Hopefully it goes well.  Until then kiddies.

Announcement

Okay, time to do this.  If it hasn't been obvious for the last year or so, I really haven't been able to keep up the weekly schedule.  My stupid, stupid work schedule has made it hard to even keep up with comics, let alone keep this blog updated.

I've tried, of course, but most of the time I've posted a Nothing post.  It's driving me crazy, and making me miserable.

That said, I have promises to keep.  So I won't be ending this blog, though I did consider it.  Instead, I'll be pushing toward a monthly schedule instead.  I'm pretty sure I can do that.  So starting next week, with the first Friday of every month, this blog will update.  If I can squeeze in another post in between, I will, of course, but if I can't, at least there should be something once in a while.

I may eventually end this blog, but not yet, not yet.

Straightening Things Out

Hey look, an update.  That's mostly about maintenance.  Yeah, I'm trying to get back into comics but between the move and going back to work, I just haven't had the time.  Working on it kiddies, I swear.

In the meantime, it's site maintenance time!  Most of this is shuffling comics around the list and figuring out which ones are still alive and kicking, as it were.

So let's start with the Daily strips.

Legends of Whoelterra, which I'm surprised I'm still reading, has slacked from daily down to twice a week.  That means T-Th-S is a better fit for it so off it goes.

The Fifth Circle hasn't updated in quite a while, and I think it's time to accept it won't for a while longer.  Hiatus.

The M-W-F strips

Cerintha is actually on a Weekly schedule any more, though which day of the week seems to float around for some reason even the artist is unsure of.

The Whiteboard recently went Daily (as in 5 days a week) so it gets to go over there.

Eerie Cuties is updating, though what the schedule is I'm unsure.  I'm going to leave it where it is for now.

The T-Th-S strips

Skullkickers is, of course, Complete, so that's where it needs to go, mostly so I stop checking it.  Also apparently I was linking to the Keenspot site, and when it finished, Keen dropped it.  Annoying, this link works though.

Since their return, Licensed Heroes is mostly Weekly, so it heads there.

The Weekly strips

God damn it Elsie Hooper, just finish already.  To Hiatus with you until you do so.

Kiwis By Beat is still MIA, and no one knows what happened.  For no Hiatus, but I'm not confident it'll be back any time soon.

Out There recently announced that the comic will be wrapping up, but on an undetermined schedule.  Good news is he plans to finish In Here, before dropping off the face of the comic map.  Sad times.  Out There will be in Monthly until it's done.

Sister Claire has been updating more regularly than Weekly for a while (and it's easier since they broke off Missing Moments), so I'm moving it to T-Th-S.

The Monthly strips

Aptitude Test is Dead.  I'll be doing a Retrospective on it in the near future.

City of Reality's hosting is down, but at least I can track what's going on with it via other means.  It's moving to Hiatus.

I still don't know what happened with Kawaii Not.  I think it's actually Dead.

The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon is moving to Haitus since it probably should have been there for a while now.  Very sporadic updates and a message about burnout.

White Noise should have moved to Weekly a while ago.  No time like the present.

Hiatus Comics

The Wotch is updating regularly again.  Like I said in the last Touching Base, I do intend to do some catch up, and the best way to do so is to move it to Weekly for the time being.  We'll see how it goes.

And that's all the work I needed to do.  Next time, something, maybe, we'll see.  Until then kiddies.

Personal Stuff

So with December well underway, I have some news.  You may remember a random nothing post a few months ago where I was making a point that there were personal reasons for not having a post.  I won't go into details, but ultimately it's leading to what's coming in January.

I'm moving.  My physical location, the blog is staying here.  Moving from central New York State to Texas.  Yeah, I'm going halfway across the country.  This move will have a serious impact on the blog as I won't be around to update it much at the beginning of the year.

So my plan for the rest of December is thus:  I have a couple follow up posts for The Standard and Best Overall series, and then I'll do another edition of Can't Live Without.  After that, the blog will likely be dark for a month or so.  I'll TRY to do something, even a review batch, but I make no promises as a move of this magnitude will take most of my time.  Once I'm back, I will start another long series (once I figure out the structure) and get back into posting.

So that's my heads up, the rest of the year will have posts, next year, won't start right away.  I hope you don't wander off (all 3 of you) in the meantime.  Until next time kiddies.

Touching Base #21

Well, I derped and forgot to hit PUBLISH for this article.  Thus it's going up rather late.  Ah well.

This edition of Touching Base is also a site maintenance thing as well.  There's a lot of good news in this edition, for once, and a couple of duds.

Vampire Cheerleaders finished it's last storyline back in January or so, and hasn't done much else since.  Is it dead?  Laying the ground work for another story line?  Forgotten?  No idea, but it's going in the hiatus folder for the time being.

Short Stories is annoying me more than it probably should.  Several of the shorts have been removed from the comic and I suspect published, which is great for them, annoying for me.  It also hasn't updated in a while.  I'm moving it to hiatus along with Vampire Cheerleaders because I'm not sure if it will update again.

Remember in my review of Wapsi Square I talked about that odd pool storyline?  Yeah, it went away from it for a bit, then came back.  Seriously, just STICK with it for a bit, I think your readers can handle a story that lasts more than a week at a time.

It seems technical difficulties and health issues have been keeping Sunstone (NSFW) from updating for some time.  The tech issues appear to be resolved, health not so much, but he's planning to power through, so updates should be back soon.

Eerie Cuties and Magick Chicks are at their respective climaxes, and are looking to end at, um, nearly the same time from the looks.  Depends on how much epiloge they're planning to use in each.  As I said when I first mentioned the end of both comics, I'll do a Retrospective on both at the same time as one is the spin off of the other and the timing and comparisons are too great to simply let go.

The Non-Adventures of Wonderella is updating regularly again.  After a short plot arc involving her coming back from the dead, they vowed never to speak of it again and moved back to general nonsense the comic is known for.

Broodhollow is ALSO updating again (I told you there's a lot of good news this time, but the best is yet to come).  Took long enough honestly.  Still, it's Broodhollow, so it should be pretty damn good, even after the wait.

The best news, and I do mean the best, is that The Meek is back.  After years of inactivity, the comic is updating once again.  Looks like weekly for the time being and I can't be happier.  Hope it updates for a long time to come.

I want to comment on Gunnerkrigg Court for a moment.  I know more than a few people are unhappy with the current direction of the story, to the point of anger.  Those people need to get a grip.  For one, this is a natural development of the characters given the situation, and two, when Annie does decide to assert herself once again, the results shall be GLORIOUS.  So just keep reading.

Too the site management side of things.  I'm making some slight changes to the side bar.  I will be adding a few extra categories to the Quick Reference section.  The Categories page is being split into two pages.  General Categories (best name I can think of right now) will have all the reviews, articles and Retrospectives in it, while the Special Series page will have all my multi-part articles.

This is in preperation for this year's long series wherein I talk way too much about a comic.  Which comic?  You'll have to wait and see.  In any case, unlike the previous ones, it won't be straight out series, but broken up as I find other topics and possibly reviews to write about.  It's not really much longer than The Standard or Best Overall, but unlike them, it will be a full look at the comic, so it might take a bit longer to write up.

Next week I hope to have the introduction up for it, but I make no promises as I actually got a promotion at my job, so that means, of course, more work.  So I hope I find time to write it.  Until next time kiddies.

2014 Year In Review Type Thing

Well it's the end of the year.  And what a year.

I do want to apologize for the many Nothing posts I've had this year.  11 over the course of the year (not counting a day I skipped Dreams of Stars).  I only have 37 for the entire run of the blog, so that feels like a lot more than it should have been.  But I've also been working, a lot, and making money again.  Good for my self esteem at the very least (and my bank account).  I still have the job, so I will likely miss more updates, but I'll make every effort to avoid it.

Despite this, I managed 4 batches of Reviews, adding 20 comics to the list.  Not bad as my highest was back in 2010 with 5 batches.  I do intend to keep adding more, I certainly have enough in the Future Read and Email Suggestion bookmark folders to do so for a long time to come.

I also posted some of my own work, and then promptly slacked off on it.  Yeah, I kept meaning to get back to posting My Stuff, but time to myself was in short supply.  When I did have free time, I played Star Trek Online, though there have been issues there.

I did complete another big series, Best Overall, which went NOTHING like I thought it would.  I expected it to be a kind of clone of The Standard, but instead of being about Sluggy Freelance, it would be about Schlock Mercenary.  Couldn't quite do that.  I also expected to be able to write the whole thing in a couple of days and have a month or so free.  That didn't work out either.  In fact, I was writing much of it long after I had re-read the various bits.  Came out alright, I think, but was still not as good as I wanted.

That said, there was a lot I did want to do, and didn't get to, including a Newspaper Comic review that I should have had done at the beginning of the year.  I blame much of it on the fact that I would have good ideas, at 3 am, while driving to work for 40 minutes.  By the time I got home, 10 hours later, it would all be forgotten, or I'd be too tired to write.  I'm working on a way to avoid that this year, but I make no promises.

Those plans should come to fruition starting next week.  I'm going to start the new year with a new tradition.  Last year I did my Can't Live Without series, but I'm keeping that once every two years, my tastes change at about that rate so it's worth the time.  Instead, I'll be bringing back the Wild Webcomic Quasi-Awards every other year.  There will be some minor changes, but I'll go through that next week.

After that, a Retrospective on Gunshow, whose last strip should be up by the time you read this.  Then, well, I'll leave that a secret for now.  Do know there will be more reviews, and I hope to get started on the next batch, um, today if I can.  There's a comic I've wanted to read and damn near did it last week, but the theme of it didn't quite match what I was looking for (and I nearly forgot about Bloodstain entirely, whoops).  Slight reminder to those submitting email requests:  Yes, I do check it, but if I don't reply it's mostly because I don't check it that often.  Also, I tend not to review comics that have paywalls in them because I want to share them with others, others who probably don't have money.  If it's obvious, no big loss, if it's hidden away, I get annoyed.  The comic has to be very special (Serenity Rose was partially paywalled for a while) to get around this rule.

In any case, I'm still here, still posting and will do so for as long as I'm able.  Until next time kiddies, and happy new year.

Shuffling Stuff

For those in the US of A, hope your Thanksgiving was good.  While I spend time not going to any Black Friday sales, I need to do some shuffling and sorting.  As always, my side bar and list don't get updated as frequently as I would like (I blame lazy, and it's quicker to move things in the bookmarks), so it's time once again.  Also, time to go through all those Hiatus comics and see what's going on.

Several comics are returning from Hiatus/Monthly status to Weekly.

Commander Kitty, backed by Pateron dollars, is back to updating.
Deep Fried has shifted to a weekly update.
Kiwi's By Beat, home of Minus and other comics, moves back because I kept forgetting to check it
Same with Hark, a Vagrant! and
What Birds Know


Moving to Monthly status are a few comics

City of Reality is still MIA, wish he would get back to it.
Not sure what's going on with Kawaii Not.
Marry Me, once again, has ground to a halt.

Hiatus gets a few addtions too

Perry Bible Fellowship updates so rarely that I don't know why I would check it frequently at all.
The Wotch and City of Reality are really tied together, but I give CoR leeway since it is the artist's comic.
On the Edge's artist is busy with other projects, still worth keeping tabs on.

I've had to, regretfully, add to the Non-Read list.

Templar, Arizona had 6 MONTHS between updates.  Even Dresden Codak does better than that.
Alex Ze Pirate has nothing consistent and I'm tired of waiting for it.
Book of Biff goes here on a technicality.  It was dead, then not, and might not be later.

Even more sadly, several comics are going to Dead.

The Pain has basically been dead for a while, I'm stubborn.
Same with No Rest for the Wicked.
So Damn Bright just hasn't gone anywhere.
Toilet Genie just stopped some time ago.
Same with Winters in Lavelle.

I'm officially moving a couple of comics to Complete.

Out at Home, naturally.
And Errant Story, whose rerun/commentary stopped cold.  If it restarts I'll move it back.

Unofficially Living to Death is on my T-Th-S list, replacing Out at Home, but until I review it it won't appear on the actual sidebar (it has 9 strips as of this writing, not reviewable yet).

And finally, The Fifth Circle, for some reason, wasn't on the sidebar at all.  It's going into Daily because I never know when the damn thing will update, but when it does it takes a good chunk of a day to catch up on.

To catch up on other news, Shi Long Pang is still on Hiatus because of other projects, Aptitude Test and The Meek are expecting to restart in full sometime next year and The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon is slowly getting back to a regular update schedule.

Of the new, active comics, Pole Dancing Adventures is going to Weekly for now, Blindsprings is under T-Th-S and Stand Still, Stay Silent is, of all things, DAILY.  Yeah, I was just as shocked.

Of course, I'll have to do this AGAIN with the new year as Gunshow is planning to end then, and Sorcery 101 is on a crash course to end itself I guess.  We'll see how it goes.  Until next time kiddies.

The Culling

More site maintenance this week

You see, with last week's entry to the Wild Webcomic Review, I'm over 100 comics on my read list.  Well, maybe.  The status category of the New List hasn't been updated properly, so I need to sort that first then get things straightened out on the official read list, because if it's still over 100, that cannot be allowed to stand.

First, though, I need to clear up my Hiatus folder.

Does Not Play Well With Others now has all of Poe's focus, so it's going into the read list, weekly for now, might move it later.

Templar, Arizona updated a bit, back in December and February.  I'll move it to Monthly rather than outright Hiatus for now.

The Meek and The Pain will stay in Haitus status.  The Meek because, I'm sure when and if the artist gets time, he'll draw it again and The Pain because, well, it did update reasonably recently apparently.

Edible Dirt and Gypsy!, however, are going directly to the Dead file.  They're gone.

Okay, that's done.

Serenity Rose, aka Heart Shaped Skull is being moved to the Complete category, it's finished for now.  I'll try to keep tabs on it in the future.

Shi Long Pang is going to Hiatus until it starts up again.  Alex Ze Pirate has also been moved to Hiatus, because it hasn't done anything since announcing it would be updating more.  Since Poe has changed his focus for a bit, Errant Story, though complete, will be listed in the Hiatus folder on the side.  It's more so I remember to check it than anything else.

Makeshift Miracle is moving to Non-Read because I just can't get back into it for some reason.

Haru-Sari is being moved to the Dead folder because it looks like it's done for.  Shame.

Several random comics were listed as Read, even though I didn't read them.  I won't go through all of them, but I needed to do something about it.  I've also added missing Retrospective links for Exploitation Now! and Life of Riley, I kind of forgot them.  Whoops.

Okay, after all that, I'm down to 90 comics, plus 4 Hiatus comics.  That's good.  If it goes over 100 though, not counting newspaper strips, I'll have to cull.  I'm not sure the form it'll take at this time, but it will be a big deal when I start trimming comics because of time.  I don't look forward to it, I assure you.

Until next week kiddies when I'll be doing, um, something.  I hope.

Coming Reviewspolsion

Hey everyone.  I need to apologize.  I'm terrible at checking comments and email.  I mean, awful and terrible.  Almost 2 months passed before I remembered, hey, I have an email account for this site.  So I just checked it and several people sent me suggestions for comics, typically their own.

I feel all kinds of terrible about it, so I need to do something about it.  First, I need to try to remember to check the freaking email account.  Second, I need to review those comics.  I actually have 10 of them, so two batches to review.  However, my work schedule is all kinds of stupid, so I need time to do them.

I'm reading the first one now, so I'm hoping to have at least the first batch done by, um, two weeks from now.  Hopefully, possibly, maybe.  I'll do what I can.

So, in the spare time I have (which is shockingly little, damn early mornings and long hours), I'll be reading comics and hopefully have at least one batch of reviews up, followed by quickly by another one.  Biggest explosion of reviews I've had in quite a while, possibly ever.  Then I'll have to tap into my rather lengthy actual future read list.

That will take a long time though.  Until next time kiddies, when I'll have something.  The time after that will be the reviews, I hope.

Just a General Update Thingy

So hi, how's it going?  I'm fine.  I'm working.

That's really what this rather brief post will be about, that I'm working.  A lot.  It shouldn't interfere with site updates, but it might.

The scheduling isn't really weird, but annoyingly early in the morning.  And long hours.  My point is, despite me working, I do intend to keep updating the blog.  The issue is finding time to come up with articles or reading comics for reviews.

Still, work means money, money means food which means I live longer, so that's positive.

In the meantime, I'll try to at least keep Dreams of Stars updated.  I've got ideas for articles, just need to sit down and write them.  Reading comics for reviews might be a little rougher though.  We'll see as things go on.  Until then kiddies.

Fourth Anniversary

You know, last year I kind of skipped an official Anniversary post and instead had a new patch of reviews.  This year?  Yeah, not so much.

Actually, quite a bit.  The last month and a half have been mostly prepping for this anniversary.  The site redesign, the New List, sorting comics, looking at old favorites, all of this has been about this anniversary.  I've been doing reviews of comics for over 10 years now, and only the last 4 have been with this blog, but it still feels like I'm just getting started.

And yet, I apparently have a following of sorts.  I never really paid attention to the stats Blogspot keeps on traffic, mostly because it really didn't matter to me.  I was posting this stuff for myself at the very least, somewhere to vent my ideas and try to get out the things I wanted to talk about.  Looking now, though, wow do I have a lot of people visiting my site.  I mean, I'm not bringing in thousands every week, but even 50 or so is more than I'd expect.  So I want to thank you all for reading.

Which means I need to return the favor a bit.  I really, REALLY haven't looked at the back end stuff for Blogspot until now, and missed things like, a way to catch all the comments made on my blog.  As in I generally miss them all.  My apologies about that.  I still find it hard to remember that this is MY site, not some other site that happens to link everything I read in one convenient location.  So I will make an much more concerted effort to keep up on comments, even if they are few and far between.

On top of that, there really isn't a great way to send me suggestions or other things.  As such, I've created a new gmail account just for this site.  It is wildwebcomicreviewer@gmail.com  This will be linked on the About page so that should make it easier for people to contact me.  Do note if you send a suggestion, or are promoting yourself, my method of reviewing might mean it takes a great deal of time for it to get on the site.  New comics will suffer great deal from this as I prefer to give them time to take root before I dive in.  I don't always, but I do try.

Finally, you probably noticed a new addition to the site.  Yeah, those are ads, I signed up for Ad-Sense..  I probably wouldn't do it, but not to long ago I was on a computer that was not my own and randomly googled for "webcomic review."  I was fourth on the list.  Not fourth page, fourth.  That may mean nothing, there aren't a lot of webcoimc review sites out there (Webcomic Overlook is at the top, BTW, go El Santo), but it does mean something to me, it means I might actually, you know, get something out of this site besides satisfaction.  I've been unemployed for almost a year now, and any form of income, even the few cents a week this site might bring in, would be helpful.  I'll try to place the ads so they won't be too intrusive, but tell me if you find it so and I'll look to move it around a bit.

Again, I thank all of you for visiting my humble little page.  Which is getting a lot less humble now that I think about it.  Still, I will try to keep weekly updates going, even as I plan a month long trip to Texas of all places (it's a job hunting trip).  I'm taking my laptop, so I will still be updating with something.  Next week I'm driving out there, in fact.  It's a hell of a way to celebrate my birthday, which is the birthday of this site as well.  Officially that's the 16th by the way, but I update on Fridays, and I don't intend to change that.

Until next week kiddies, and for as long as I'm able.

Something's Different

Can't quite put my finger on it. . .

Just kidding.  Well, what do you think of the new look?  It's been LONG in coming.  As in, the day after I created the damn thing.  I held off because I had a dream of making a decent logo image for the name and base the look off of that.  I didn't, so I didn't change the look, until now.

Why?  Well, a couple of reasons.  One, the green/brown/white combo was getting old, but I just said that.  No, the real reason is The New List.   The table format I used on it looked like crap on the old site design, on this new one it looks OH so much better. Look at it, is it not magnificent?  I wasn't kidding when I said a lot of links.  245 comic links, 49 review links and 21 assorted links put on that page.

Sadly, 24 are dead and gone, missing from the internet.  That said, counting my hiatus comics, I read 90 comics right now.  I shouldn't be surprised at that number, but I am.  Dumbfounded even.  It's less than half, sure, but with 34 complete comics, I'm damn near close to half of all my reviews being at least worth reading, if not active.

I spent a lot of time rechecking links and, much to my surprise, some comics I called dead AREN'T any more, ones I like even.  So next week, I'll be doing a Touching Base and bringing back comics that I thought for sure were gone forever.  I'm actually kind of excited by this.  Almost want to just do it now, but there are other fish to fry.

I made one minor change to the Newspaper List, removing Buckles.  Never thought I'd see a DEAD newspaper comic link, but there it is.  I think a lot of it has to do with the syndicates (King Syndicate specifically) and how they wrangle their comics.  The strong strips can keep and maintain their own sites, but the weaker ones (like Buckles) are at their mercy.  Or the artist is just too damn lazy to update the site.  Likely a bit of both if the few news posts there are to be believed.

I've updated the Categories Page to more accurately reflect the proliferation of labels for my various articles.  Specifically, I made a handy link for things like The Standard series amongst other things, and any future series will have a link there.  I've added a lot of links, refined some, and updated some other stuff (at one point, there was 2 Touching Base #11's for some reason).  I even broke out my Nothing posts because it makes it easier to sort in the background.  I've thought about adding more series links in the future, generally on similar topics, but for now this will work.

There is another minor change to come, but I'm saving that for the anniversary.  It's nothing major, but something I probably should have done a while ago.  Next week, Touching Base wherein I resurrect some long dead favorites.  Until then kiddies.

Comic Management Time

Well, it's time to do something I've been putting off:  rearranging my comic lists.

Why?  Well a lot of my comics are starting to only update weekly.  Which is fine, most of these comics can handle that, but it also means my weekly list is getting very, VERY long.  And many of those comics don't actually update weekly, more like monthly, or longer.

My current idea in sorting this mess is to add a new category:  Monthly.  A lot of comics are going to end up here because quite a few of them kind of are Monthly, and have been for a long time.  My issue is remembering to check them at least once a month.  At least with the Weekly category, I did it on Sunday, every Sunday.  I guess I'll just have to try to remember to check them every month.

So in the great reordering, where does everything go?  Well, let's take a look.

Daily - Not much has changed here, only Gunshow has moved (it wasn't quite daily to begin with)

• Bug Martini
• Chainsawsuit
• Cyanide and Happiness
• Deep Fried (Weapon Brown)
• Devil's Panties
• Dumbing of Age
• Errant Story
• Girls with Slingshots
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Ceral
• Schlock Mercenary
• Sinfest
• Sluggy Freelance
• Station V3
• The Book of Biff
• Wapsi Square

M-W-F - Lots of rearrangement here, most strips that left here went to Sunday.

• Between Failures
• Eerie Cuties
• Gaia
• Girl Genius
• Gunshow
• Gunnerkrigg Court
• heart shaped skull
• The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
• The Whiteboard
• Twilight Lady
• Vampire Cheerleaders

T-Th-Sat - Like M-W-F, lots of changes here too.

• Devilbear: The Grimoires of Bearalzebub
• Exiern
• Magic Chicks
• Menage a 3
• Out at Home
• Sandra and Woo
• Shi Long Pang
• Skullkickers
• Spinnerette
• UnCONventional

Sunday (Weekly) - Did you know Elsie Hooper was updating again?  I just found out.  Also I said screw it and added Sunstone and Demon Candy to the side bar.  They're marked.

• Bob the Angry Flower
• Brainslug
• Cat and Girl
• City of Reality
• Conny Van Ehlsing, Monster Hunter
• Contemplating Reiko
• Dead Winter
• Demon Candy (NSFW)
• Derelict
• Elise Hooper
• Footloose! 
• Head Trip
• Kawaii Not
• Legend of Zelda:  El Rey
• Out There
• Punch an'Pie
• Romantically Apocalyptic
• Sister Claire
• Sorcery 101
• String Theory
• Sunstone (NSFW)
• The Non-Adventures of Wonderella
• The Wotch
• Three Panel Soul
• Trying Human
• Two Kinds
• Winters in Lavelle
• Zebra Girl    

Monthly - Much shorter list than I thought, but these comics seems to be on long schedules now.

• Alex Ze Pirate
• Aptitude Test
• Dresden Codak
• Hari-Sari 
• Hark, a vagrant!
• KIWIS BY BEAT! 
• Makeshift Miracle 
• No Rest for the Wicked
• So Damn Bright  
• The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon
• Toilet Genie
• What Birds Know 
• White Noise

Hiatus - Revamped Hiatus list, with only Does Not returning for another round.

• Does Not Play Well With Others
• Edible Dirt
• Gypsy!
• Templar, Arizona
• The Meek
• The Pain

Yes, the new Hiatus list means Blip, Bunny, Cleopatra in SPAAACE! and The Adventures of Superhero Girl have all now been moved to the DEAD list.  Cleo and Superhero Girl are likely to return , but the other two look dead as doornails.  Honestly, though, most of the current Hiatus list look about dead as well, with Does Not still occasionally getting random updates, to the news page (at least I know Poe is alive).

Most of this stuff should be finished sometime this weekend.  But I'm not done yet.  Got some more things coming next week as well.  Until next week kiddies.

The Newspaper List

At the end of August, my local paper (Syracuse Post Standard) declared that as of January 1st, they will shift to a 3 day a week publishing cycle, instead of a daily one.  That sucks, as reading the paper is how I wake up in the morning.  Oh, there's another local paper we could get, but, it's not that great.  Either way, I will still miss the funny pages, which is how I ACTUALLY wake up.  No, I don't drink coffee.

This is actually starting to emerge as a growing problem.  Newspapers are losing readers quickly because they're no longer the heart and soul of the American news media.  That goes to the 24 hour cable news networks, and Google News.  This means that the traditional avenue for comic artists to get popular is shrinking at an alarming rate.  Luckily, they know where to go:  The web.

Which is where I'm going for my newspaper comics starting the first of the new year.  It's very likely that we will be canceling our subscription to all but the Sunday edition of the paper (coupons!), so I'll need a source for daily strips.  Or sources as the case may be.  In any case, this article will cover where I've found the comics and be the set up for a new list on the site:  Newspaper Comics, which I'll be using daily to check strips because not all of them are in the same place.

A lot of them, however, ARE in the same place.  For this site, I actually have to thank my newspaper because of their issues with a particular comic, it led me to finding this site.  The comic in question is 9 Chickweed Lane, which I have covered in a newspaper review before.  The issue:  The comic page is in color, but at the time of the issue, the comic had a series of strips in black and white.  It was a story telling point (it took place during World War II, before they discovered color), but the paper was annoyed that their bright colorful funny pages had one lone, black and white strip.  So they shipped it off to the classifieds and replaced it with another strip (Mutts, I believe).  There have been days, however, where finding this strip has been more of a challenge than others, so I went looking for it online.

This led me to GoComics, a site FILLED with comics.  230+ comics, plus editorials, plus classics that aren't in papers any more (Calvin and Hobbes anyone?).  Most of my comic reading will come from this site as it includes comics that aren't my current paper, but ones I loved.  It even offers a FREE account feature to keep track of comics.  As of this moment, my current list has:

Garfield, Peanuts, Foxtrot, Pearls Before Swine, Adam@Home, The Boondocks, Close to Home, Fraz, Get Fuzzy, Grand Avenue, Overboard, Shoe, U.S. Acres, The Duplex, Wizard of Id, Non Sequitur, 9 Chickweed Lane, Ripley's Believe It or Not and, of course, Calvin and Hobbes.

Quite a list isn't it?  And there are far, FAR more comics there, I just haven't gone through them all yet.  At the very least, I'll have new comics to look at all the time.

But, there are quite a few comics missing.  For example, Dilbert.  There's two listings for Dilbert on GoComics.  One says "Dilbert Classics" and links to comics hosted by GoComics itself.  The other, which just says "Dilbert" leads to the official Dilbert webiste.  Odd, but I like Dilbert, so I'll have to link to the website for that.

Still others, though, are COMPLETELY missing.  And many share the same thing in common:  the same syndicate.  Syndicates, for those who don't know, are the comic middle men of the industry.  They buy comics from artists and sell them to newspapers.  Aside from sounding damn sinister, the syndicates are the reason zombie and legacy comics continue to exist in papers, and why new comics don't get into papers much, because those other comics have made the syndicates a lot of money so they pay those same comics to keep producing.  For good or ill, they'll be around as long as newspapers, and those days may be very numbered indeed.

Alright, so most of the comics that aren't on GoComics are from King Features, the syndicate that produces Blondie, Spiderman (not the comic book version) Family Circle and many others.  Why?  Because King has it's own comic site, DailyINK.  Only one small problem with it.  When I mentioned GoComics and it's accounts, I mentioned it was free.  There is a premium version of the account, which gets rid of ads, lets you access more than a week's worth of archives and a couple other features for about 12 bucks a year.  DailyINK?  There is no free account and it's 20 bucks a year.  So I'll have to find another source for these.

Which is what will mostly fill the Newspaper Comics List as most of these comics do have their own websites and I'll link directly to them.  That said, many (like Baby Blues) are two weeks behind the newspapers (which won't matter after a couple weeks of reading them, honestly).  Others are a touch harder to find stand alone (The Amazing Spiderman strip is going to be a pain to find), but I'll do my best.  This is going to be an ongoing process over the next few months as I try to find most of the comics I like reading, not just for me, but for my entire family.

As for the news?  Google News all the way.

Anyway, that's enough of that for now.  The new list will probably start going up in the next couple weeks.  Until next time kiddies.

Update Week

As in, I have updated the site, a bit.

The biggest addition is The List, which lists all 225 comics I have currently reviewed.  I've included status and links for each.  If one of the links doesn't work despite me saying it should, please tell me.

I have gone through and resorted my read lists as well.  Many comics (Shadowgirls, Lizzy, etc) have been removed and newer comics have been added.  I will make every effort to keep this list updated properly.

Suggestions on new look, colors or pictures are welcome and accepted.

And that's about it.  Not sure yet what next week's article will be, but I'll think of something.  Until then kiddies.

Second Year Anniversary

Two years?  TWO YEARS?!  Seriously, it's been that long?  How did that happen?

Yeah, I know, the last couple of weeks have been a bit rough, but at least I posted SOMETHING for them, which a lot of sites, comic, blog or otherwise, don't often do.  Still, two years of posting something at least once a week?  That's a feat I didn't think I'd pull off.

I started this blog as a birthday present to myself, I've wanted to do it for a long time and finally had the time to do it.  Because I didn't have a job.  I have a job, at the moment, but it's highly seasonal so soon I won't have a job at all.  Again.

Yet I keep posting something, even if it's to say I'm posting nothing.  This week is more like a nothing week, but it's a happy nothing week.

So when is the next new batch of reviews?  Um, I don't know, I'll try to get some out before Christmas at least.  Champions Online has eaten a lot of my spare time (it IS fun, go try it).  More Not-So-Wild Reviews will be going up as I finally sit down and write them as well as more Newspaper ones.  I'm thinking of starting a "Reflection" batch of articles that will review dead/ended comics (which means I may have to reread them, it has been a while), and the first of these will be for Shadowgirls.

Going beyond webcomics, I'll probably post another book review soon, and maybe get into a few other things.  Don't know about the later, but I went to a book fair and got more books, so maybe some reviews of them are in order.

Anyway, thank you for reading my silly blog about webcomics.  All 3 of you.  Oh, okay, there are probably a few more than that.  Like 5 or 6, but still, thanks.  Until next time kiddies.

PS:  BTW, today is my birthday.  I am old. 

First Anniversary!

Well, it's been a full year, and one day, since I started this blog.

It really did start as a birthday gift for myself, to see if I could do it and keep it up, and I'm glad to say I did.  If I hadn't gotten a steady job, I think I could have maintained the twice a week thing, maybe, but at the same time, I think I prefer doing this once a week.  Easier on me that way.

I want to thank everyone (which is about 3 people, I think) who read it, and even those few of you who actually left comments.  Hell, I even got one of the artists to comment, that makes me feel pretty good (of course, his comic was ending at the time, sigh).

So what's the future of this?  Well, I don't know.  I'm looking at changing up the color scheme a bit, maybe I'll even start, you know, advertising it or something.  Maybe.  I do intend to have a new batch of reviews before the end of the year.  Maybe before Halloween even, wouldn't that be neat?  Yeah.

Of course, once I run out of old reviews to post, I'll have to get even more creative with recycling old updates.  Or maybe I'll go in a different direction and expand out the scope of the blog.  I've thought about it at least.  We'll see.  In the mean time, there will be more reviews, more articles and more whatever.  Thanks for reading this thing, and I hope I can keep it going for another year.

Until next time kiddies.

The List to Your Right

If you haven't noticed it by now, please direct your attention to the list of comics on your right.

This is my list of my "current reads."  I review all the comics I read regularly, and so each of these has "survived" my review process and have found themselves in one of these honored categories in my bookmarks.

Which basically means I like reading these and still do.

That said, don't trust the subtitles there.  M-W-F does indeed mean Monday-Wednesday-Friday, but that's not necessarily when the comic updates.  Those headings generally just mean when I check those comics.

For example, Wapsi Square and Book of Biff don't update everyday, but only on Monday-Friday, but that's more frequent than the other three categories, so they get put under daily.  But comics like Achewood, which actually only seems to update once a week, still sit in the Daily spot because I'm to lazy to move them.  Others, like The Meek have varying update schedules (was three times a week for a while and now is back to once a week) so they are in places that don't even match their actual update schedules.

And let's not get into some of the weekly comics, madness lies there.

The vast majority of comics I read do, eventually, find a spot in my current read list, at least for a little while.  Some even leave the list only to return later as the comics status (and possibly style) changes.

The rest of the comics end up in one of three categories:

Hiatus:  Which is another way of saying "they haven't updated in forever, but I haven't given up on them yet."

Dead Comics:  Which means "I have given up on them," or "they were like that when I got here."  Damn, I seem to say that too often.

And finally, Non-Reads:  Comics I don't read for one reason or another.  

Most comics end up in the Dead category, but Non-Reads can also be dead ones, I just don't read them so I don't know.

There are two other categories, and they happen to be my favorites:  Future Reads and TBReviwed.  These are where the new comics come from.  I spot a link or an ad, look over the initial strip and then bookmark them if it looks like I might be interested.  Right now there are about 20 strips in my Future Read folder, and I usually add one every couple of weeks, so I'm not without comics to read, but I always take recommendations (unless you ask for Penny Arcade).

So I won't be posting those comics on part of my current read list as it would just make that sidebar far more cluttered than I would like.  In any case, I do read THESE comics, so I have to recommend each and every one of them, at least a little.  As I post the reviews, you'll see my specific opinions on each one, but please feel free to form your own with my token recommendation.

Well anyway, I know I should post something more substantial for my weekly examination, but since I often use my current reads as my references for things. . .

Ah, who am I kidding, I'm just showing off all the comics I read.  Anyway, next week will likely have 5 new reviews and an actual decent article, with the ominous title "Death by Hiatus."  Until then kiddies.