(Preword: One of my less-brilliant ideas in 2007 was an online webcomic review contest where the reviews would be judged by three existing webcomic reviewers (myself, Steve Anderson, and Brett Hainley). Unfortunately, due to my having no funds to buy an actual prize that would encourage people to submit reviews, it petered out after only a couple of submissions, and was put out of its misery in April of 2008. Rather than strip the reviews of the commentary from Steve, Brett, and myself, I’m keeping the submissions as-is.)

Review:

The Wotch

This isn’t exactly one of those reviews that you recently called for, Tangent. Instead, I thought I’d chime in with some more insight into your recent exploration of (what is probably) an emerging relationship with Jason and Katie in The Wotch, which you determined with simple gestures and seemingly vague interpretations of dialogue in a couple of recent one-shots.

This isn’t exactly the first time when Katie and Jason’s relationship was touched upon. A much earlier one-shot from over a year ago has a recollection of a previous time when Katie was alone with Jason, which “still haunts [her].” Although their dialogue was obscured by the ensuing chaos of a lab accident, readers can basically read the undertones of what the strip may have been implying (especially when Katie grabs her hair, which Jason has a known fetish for). And at the end of the strip, they both agreed to forgive and forget. This may indicate that she still has feelings for him.

On a side note, I sometimes wonder if this “last time” was the reason why Jason (assuming the incident occurred before the much earlier Slumber Party of Doom arc) was refused invitation to the all-girl slumber party. It was Katie specifically who stated that Anne shouldn’t bring him over. Jason’s history with Samantha Wolf (another redhead and a good friend of Katie) was never stated in the comic if he even had one, so we’re uncertain if she was aware of his own actions, yet she nodded in agreement when Katie told Anne not to inform him of the party. Was Jason’s fetish too well-known across Tandy Gardens High School, or did Katie warn all the other redheads on campus and she just wants him to stay away? If it’s the latter, would Katie might’ve wanted Jason gone as a ruse to keep him from meeting and developing a relationship with other attractive redheads? It’s a long shot, I know, but Anne has thrown curveballs before (warning to new Wotch readers who are still catching up on the archives: that linked strip is spoilerific), so it makes you wonder…

Anyway, back to the present. What I found interesting in the latest one-shot was that the random girl who passed by the crew at the mall happened to be blonde, and “Kevin” couldn’t help but ogle at her. Could it be possible that Katie maybe has a personality that mirrors Jason’s, where she’s a redhead and has a fetish for blond hair, while Jason’s a blond and has a fetish for red hair? Again, I’m aware that this is just more wild speculation, but this can maybe grasp a piece of the puzzle as to why the incident from long ago happened in the first place. When she discovered Sonja, the fact that Jason was a girl probably wasn’t the only factor bothering her; she also probably disliked seeing someone she secretly (perhaps even unconsciously) admired constantly abandoning her own fetishes. She probably finds another redhead as anti-”eye-candy” just like the way Jason finds another blonde (even himself) as anti-”eye-candy.”

As you said in your editorial, this relationship is definitely intriguing.

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Steve Anderson: Are we speaking FARSI here? Is the concept just too damn vague for everyone to wrap his or her head around? It’s American REVIEWER! Not American Essayist or American Rebuttal or American Paint-a-Picture-With-Words or even American Primal Scream Therapy Hour (though that would kinda kick ass). It’s American. REVIEWER.

Write. A. Review! Send. It. To. Us! We. Will. Read. And. Discuss. It!

Hopefully now we’re all clear on the rules….

At least this one’s closer than the last one I read. Look…you’re within striking distance, okay? Next time, just leave previous works out of this, read a comic, and tell us about it. Granted, you’ve broken some interesting ground here and made some pretty damn nifty points, but you have not actually REVIEWED THE COMIC!! This is not the time to get all avant-garde on us. Review is a simple process designed to help people make a critical decision about their commercial choices. Read or not read? Buy or not buy? Watch or not watch? Yes, no, or maybe and a little space devoted to why.

That is review. And that is also exactly what this submittor has not done.

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Robert Howard: My vote is against it:

You have some very interesting points here. However, this reads more like a forum board post or a Letter to the Editor than a review. Of course, that’s a common complaint of a number of my reviews, but it’s a valid point. You touch upon some issues concerning the characters and raise some good points… but what about the comic itself? We don’t really gain any insight into The Wotch as a whole from your comments. Indeed, without having read my own review, the reader is left wondering just what is going on here.

This can work. However, what you’d need to do is craft this review around the comic, not around my own comments. Talk about the comic and about characterization… and then draw in this interaction between Jason and Katie to prove a point about characterization and the “ripple effect” that happens over time.
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Brett Hainley: This isn’t a review. It’s a critical analysis. Not only that, it’s a rebuttal of somebody else’s critical analysis.

No.

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