Gunnerkrigg Court reviewed on Alpha Rant

[hairyzlumke]

Alpha Shade is bringing back their webcomic review segment, and first up is Gunnerkrigg Court. Its a great discussion. Link to podcast is in first post of the thread I'm linking here.

www.alpha-shade.com/Forum3/index.php?showtopic=1032

Also recommend checking out Alpha Shade itself, its a great webcomic.

www.alpha-shade.com/

[Boksha]

I'm at 12 minutes now. They're going to go on for 40 minutes?

[popo]

God, they over analyze worse than us.
(Don't quote me on this)

[Neon]

Is there a script of that anywhere? Or at least a summary of the main points? Because I don't think I have the ability to listen to that thing for a whole forty minutes.

[nikita]

They did a good job with their review. I basically agree with them except I don't think Annies breakdown* on page 93 was that forced. It certainly came as a surprise but I can imagine that something like this can happen when you loose your parent(s) and never talk about it to anyone and then all of a sudden you're having fun with someone and it just overwhelms you.

I agree with their critique about the two-week uh pseudo hiatus. It was a good idea to have that break though.


*it's probably not the right word to use here but I don't know a better one

[Boksha]

Breakdown sounds right.
It's also quite important to remember that at that point it wasn't long ago at all that her mother died.
I do think that audio-review is kind of... inefficient. They could've at least cut out some dead-air in there they needed to look things up. I prefer planning over spontaneousity (eh?) when it comes to things like reviews.

[Yin]

Couldn't they have like... typed out their ramblings?

[Tom Siddell]

I thought it was a good review. It was well balanced and I agree with most of what they said. I'll have to send them an email to say thanks. Also thanks to hairyzlumke, as I wasn't aware of the podcast and would have missed it if it wasn't pointed out.

I'll listen to it again this weekend and try to post some stuff in response to various things brought up in the review.

[tonie]

boksha said:

I do think that audio-review is kind of... inefficient. They could've at least cut out some dead-air in there they needed to look things up. I prefer planning over spontaneousity (eh?) when it comes to things like reviews.

I fully agree! It was fun to listen to, but also overly long/repetitive about their general points - and it came across as not very substantiated when they rambled along and mispronounced several character names - how CAN one forget the name of wonderful Reynardine?? not that I am biased or anything - and I also found it a bit patronising that they seemed to struggle with a non-US schooling system, immediately typecasting the comic as "harry potter-imitation" simply for being set in a UK boarding school. And they completely failed to engage with the "underlying" plot?

[Tom Siddell]

In fairness; one of the guys said he liked the one-off chapters, while the other said he preferred the underlying plot. A 50/50 is not bad, I feel.

[tonie]

Yes, in terms of their overall critique it was very positive, they definitely recommended the comic, and I like how they really got into the art side of things. Although I completely disagree that Eglamore is ugly, which they claim! From his first appearance onward he is a handsome super-hero type, with classic good looking film star features, I side with Kat on that one... But that's what you get from two straight male reviewers, I guess

[alynna]

sli said:

Couldn't they have like... typed out their ramblings?

I agree, but I am a Alpha Shade reader myself, and if you knew the Brudlos' style, you'd realize that ramblings are par for the course in their rants.

And here I was worried that Tom hadn't heard about the review yet, silly me!