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About Us
Masthead
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Zabel
Art Director: Neal Von Flue (retired)
Associate Editors: A. G. Hopkins,
Michael Whitney, William G.
Glossary Editor: Alexander Danner
RSS Wrangler: Joe Zabel
Contributors: Rob Balder, Eric Burns, Welton Colbert, Barb Lien-Cooper, Miguel Estrugo, Alexander Danner, Brandy Danner, Ryan Estrada,
A. P. Furtado,
William G., Shaenon Garrity, Cat Garza, Tym Godek, David Hellman, A. G. Hopkins,
Mike Meginnis,
Jamar Nicholas, Philip Sandifer, Caleb Sevcik, Kirrily Schell, Bob Stevenson, Neal Von Flue, Andrew Wade,
Chris Watkins, Wednesday White, Michael Whitney, Joe Zabel
Advisory Board: Alexander Danner, Shaenon K. Garrity, William G.,
A.G. Hopkins, Mike M., Bob Stevenson, Neal Von Flue (retired),
Wednesday White (retired), Michael Whitney, Steven Withrow
Mission Statement
Examination of a New Golden Age
Webcomics entertain millions of people every day. But it is not widely recognized that they are also a medium of personal expression and experimental art. The easy access and wide distribution of the web has inspired an explosion of creativity, and digital art has opened the door to previously-impossible innovations in form. Indeed, we are in the midst of a new golden age of comics.
Webcomics journalism is progressing robustly. But the emphasis has been on 'covering the field.' What's missing are frank, sophisticated discussions of the boldest new works in the medium.
The Webcomics Examiner will fill that gap.
The Examiner will be a forum of reviews and critical articles evaluating webcomics as a fine art. We will strive to identify the most important new works, and further, to advance the dialog of what these works mean and why they matter.
The Examiner will also engage the medium's finest artists, with cover art and interviews exploring their work.
The Examiner will mostly ignore industry trends, payment systems, and html coding tips. It will not care who the best-selling artists are. It will acknowledge major events in the industry, but will leave their coverage to others.
The Examiner will not play it safe, but will follow recklessly into whatever provocative territory artists wish to penetrate.
We are embarking on an exciting journey. We invite you to join us!
Contributors Guidelines
The Examiner is looking for writers and cover artists. Please contact us if you're interested.
Payment, rights, etc.
* Contributors will not be paid. Your contribution has worth, you should be paid. But The Examiner has no source of income, so there is no money to pay you.
* The Examiner is an original content website. Therefore, we will not accept any article that has been previously published at another site. We consider it acceptable to have Examiner articles republished on other sites if a reasonable amount of time (a month or more) has passed since we published the work.
* Writers may request at any time, for any reason, to have their work removed from The Examiner. Under these circumstances, writers should understand that there may be technical difficulties and delays in extracting their work from the website code base.
Editorial focus
* The mission of The Examiner is to focus on quality works of the webcomics artform; accepted reviews and critical essays will have webcomics as their subject matter. We define a webcomic as a comic that can be viewed on the internet in its entirety (including works in progress).
* From an editorial standpoint, we are not concerned about whether the work being discussed has previously been printed, or whether it is presented in a 'web friendly' format; however, the individual author obviously might consider this important. Webcomics that currently may not be viewed on the web do not qualify for coverage in The Examiner.
* Reviews and critical essays may focus on a single webcomic, or on a number of webcomics that are considered together.
* The primary focus of The Examiner is the artistic evaluation of quality webcomics. We will consider articles concerned with other issues regarding webcomics; but these will have a lower editorial priority.
* The subject webcomics need not be newly-published. We welcome reviews and critical essays of 'classic' works like 'When I Am King.' However, when discussing a classic work, the author assumes an extra burden to uncover a new perspective, or to write a definitive assessment.
* Writers should always strive to be honest and frank in their reviews and critical articles. They should not avoid providing negative criticism.
Style, format, and editing
* Our target audience is composed of webcomics readers, including prospective readers who may not be experts on the subject. Writers should strive to be clear and understandable when using technical terms. The website will include a glossary of comics and webcomics terms and a list of notable artists to assist readers, and make it unnecessary to explain what infinite canvases are and who Jack Kirby is.
* We have no objection to reviews that use expletives, so long as the usage is appropriate to the circumstances.
* All articles should include the following information at the front of the article, in the following order. (In some cases the entry may be non-applicable.)
1) The title of the article
2) The name of the webcomic being discussed.
3) The URL for accessing the webcomic; this will not physically appear, but will be used to make the name of the webcomic into a hotlink.
4) The artists and writers responsible for creating the webcomic.
5) If payment or other restrictions apply to viewing the webcomic, indicate it here. Please use these standard designations: Subscription paysite; Requires registration; Bitpass (or other token system.)
6) The author of the article.
The title will appear in a larger font. The rest of the material will be formatted in a standard way at the top of the review.
* Review length should be based on the needs of the subject. Preferred length is 1000-3000 words.
* The editor reserves the right to modify or shorten the article as needed. Ideally the author may review the results before publication, but in some cases this may not be possible.
Graphics
* The writer should supply at least one graphic from the webcomic being reviewed. Reviewers are encouraged to provide additional graphics if they are useful in conveying the ideas of the review. The 'fair use' standard should apply to all use of graphics. Note: comics done in Macromedia Flash will require special techniques to extract a sample graphic; consult with us about this.
Responsibilities
* Writers should strive to be truthful and accurate in factual claims made in the course of a review. They should understand the legal meaning of libel, and steer clear of any statements that could be considered libelous.
* Please avoid reviewing webcomics in which you may be viewed as having a compelling interest. We do not consider it a 'compelling interest' if a webcomic is published on a site you participate in (such as Modern Tales artists reviewing other Modern Tales comics.) If you have extensively collaborated with the creator of the subject webcomic, if they are a close friend, a spouse or a blood relation, this should probably be considered a compelling interest.
Non-review features
* The Examiner is always interested in creator interviews. Please notify us in advance of prospective interviews, since we prefer to schedule one interview per issue. The 'compelling interest' consideration above does not apply to the relationship of interviewer and interviewee.
* News items-- The Examiner is not a news site. However, we will publish news items that are especially significant to quality webcomics. News items should be short, and preferably should contain a link to more comprehensive coverage of the news event elsewhere.
* Cover images-- We will solicit various webcomics artists for cover images to feature on the website. Artists are encouraged to contact us if they're interested in doing a cover. Artists will not be paid for cover work. We will supply a link to the artist's website on the cover credits for that issue.
Editorial contact
* joezabel@yahoo.com
FAQ
Q: Do you critics hate everything?
A: Yes, but we try to pretend we don't. We especially hate being criticized ourselves-- we cry for hours over every unkind remark.
Q: How do I let you know about my comic, so that you can review it?
A: The best place to post news about your comic is at TalkAboutComics' Webcomics News and Announcements Forum. Our staff checks it on a regular basis. We also recommend that you seek to have your comics listed in the major webcomics portal sites, such as the Comixpedia Links Database and Onlinecomics.net. See our links section for other great portal sites.
Q: How do I recommend other comics for you to review?
A: Our Examiner forum is the best place to do that. We discourage you from using that particular forum to hype your own comic, though.
Q: What is RSS? When I click on it, a screen of indecipherable code displays.
A: You can read a rather complicated explanation of RSS here, but the skinny is that it's a way for our readers to be automatically notified when we come out with a new edition of The Examiner, including a complete table of contents of the new issue. If you're not set up for it, all you see is the raw code when you click on it (you can spot our table of contents items if you look over the code.)
A number of free and/or inexpensive shareware
RSS readers are available at download.com. Search for 'RSS reader' or
'RSS Aggregator.'"
Q: Can you send me an email when the next issue comes out?
A: Sorry, we don't have the time to do that. We publish monthly, and the date of the next issue is shown on the home page in the lower left hand corner. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed (see above.)
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