100 reviews!

Last Friday’s review, from what I can tell, was the 100th review post on Trade Talks. Yay.

By publishers, those reviews were about books from:

• 77 were Marvel (including three Conan collections reprinted by Dark Horse);
• 19 were DC (of which four were Vertigo and one was Wildstorm);
• 2 were Dark Horse (Usagi Yojimbo!);
• 1 was Eclipse; and
• 1 was First Second.

Well, I was right. It’s mostly Marvel.

The distribution of ratings favors the lower end, I’m pleased to report — more 1s than 5s,more 2s than 4s. In fact, more than a quarter of the books I reviewed got a 2. The mean of all the review is slightly above 2.5, though (2.7).

It’s taken me almost three years to get to 100 reviews. Hopefully, but this time next year, I’ll be passing 200.

Searching for a Way

I look at my Google Analytics page for this blog pretty much every day. This is not usually a heartening task, as I discover most people come to the site via Google Images. It is depressing that it isn’t what I’m saying or how I’m saying it that brings visitors — it’s simply filling in alt tags.

I know no one cares about that information from me, and I also know posts about funny search terms aren’t very interesting. But I have to bring up this one: Someone reached Trade Talks via the term “garfield + x-men + parody + shuma-gorath + giant pencil.” They didn’t visit any other pages or even spend any time on the site. But they got here. However, I cannot imagine what those terms have in common. Was the user looking for a Garfield parody of the X-Men? Or vice-versa? I can see where a giant pencil might fit in, but where does a demon lord created by Conan creator Robert E. Howard and shoehorned into the Marvel Universe manage to squirm into the plot? And do I really want to know?

Anyway, Trade Talks is the number one result for that search. Out of two results! Eat it, comics section of Heritage Auction Galleries!

Update best written with antacid

Two things:

1) As you’ve probably noticed, I missed this week’s Tuesday update. Sorry. The Labor Day weekend is traditionally the time I set aside for descending into the bowels of the Earth and subduing the Moloids for another year by defeating their leaders in a no-hold-barred, to-the-death chili cookoff. Every year, I spare their leaders’ lives; every year, when I return, they behave as if my act of mercy didn’t happen. This may be because of their cruel, tyrannical natures, or it could be that Moloids have the memory span of goldfish. Or that their generations last less than a year. It’s difficult to say, and between this blog and preparing for the annual cookoff, I have no time to research the subject. If any readers have the answer, I would love to hear it, because I don’t think it’s going to be long before Worcestershire sauce and tarragon won’t be enough to stave off tangy flavor of defeat.

That being said, here is the schedule for reviews:

• This week (or tomorrow, for practical purposes): Essential Defenders, v. 4
• Next week: Black and White Week, featuring Zot! and Usagi Yojimbo, v. 22: Tomoe’s Story.
• The week after that: Golden Oldies Week, with Watchmen and Agents of Atlas (it qualifies, since it reprints some comics from the ‘50s)

2) Hello to those who came to this site (specifically the review of Avengers West Coast: Darker than Scarlet) from When Fangirls Attack. It was startling, when looking at my Google Analytics account, to see the scale of the number of daily visitors change by nearly an order of magnitude. Welcome, hope to see you again, and this message has been posted after you’ve all left so I’m talking to myself.

This week: All Bendis!

Yes, this week will feature all Brian Michael Bendis, all the time. Of course, a week for me is only two reviews, so make of that what you will.

Delay

Sorry I'm a day behind. New review up tonight, and Friday's should be right on time.

Schedule

For the foreseeable future, there should be a new review every Tuesday and Friday. Enjoy!

Ratings (not the naval ones, the other kind)

All right, I got tired of letter grades, especially when I noted that all of my grades were falling in the C+ to B range. So here, never before seen by the American viewing public, is the new scale:

0: Horrible. This will rot your soul and cause us to lose the war.

1: Boring. You could be doing so much more with your life than reading this.

2: Mediocre. This is not a waste of shelf space, although it may be a waste of money.

3: Above average. This is enjoyable overall but with possible serious flaws or simply a guilty pleasure — much like your favorite childhood movies when viewed in the harsh light of the present day.

4: Excellent. If every book was this good, you wouldn’t need this site.

5: Sensational. A masterpiece of the genre / medium or the best story ever about a character or concept. If you don’t like this, you are a damn Communist who hates outstanding personal achievement.