Title: ONE TIME ONLY
Print Status: Available
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Comic ID #2072
Title: ONE TIME ONLY
Print Status: Available
Title: ONE TIME ONLY
Print Status: Available
Discussion (20) ¬
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Awesome that so many of your fans backed your paper! But you seriously shouldn’t feel guilty for having to quickly put a strip together, I mean we love your work and all but I think most people would agree that on rare occassions such as this, our incredibly important internet lives can be excused for taking a backseat 😀
Tom,
Are you taking Friday off? Not that you’re not allowed, just wondering.
Am I taking Friday off? No, why do you ask?
Tom, I would guess wren1313 thinks that because you wrote “see you again on Monday” at the end of your post.
Good news on your research paper, and I’m amazed you wrote so much in a day, I’ve been struggling with my final year project for ages and am only a few thousand above your count.
I would say you may want to be careful drawing too strong a conclusions from the research though, I’m assuming nearly all your respondents are readers of your webcomic so clearly already enjoy (and probably use regularly) online reviews and no doubt biasing the data.
Gah, this is reminding me I haven’t done much revision for my business research methods exam this Friday.
Martin,
Whoops! Looks like I said Monday after all. Typo corrected!
Yeah… There will be a new comic on Friday about Angels & Demons and the (non) controversy it’s caused.
RE: the research paper… Yeah, I guess I have the gift for gab. I like writing papers. I like exploring my own logic. It’s narcissistic to a degree. I suppose this site and it’s 1,000+ entries would be “Exhibit A” in the trail…
By the same token, I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere writing the paper piecemeal. The only free time I have available is Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. By the time 7:00 o’clock rolls around, I don’t want to do anything. I needed a day, uninterrupted, to put my thoughts to paper. I think it worked out pretty well.
I totally know where you’re coming from about the data being biased. I identified the source of the polling and admitted their bias. I mean, over 90% of respondents said they liked reading reviews online. That’s pretty skewed. I talked about doing a follow up research project that attempts to poll more “analog” media consumers. Maybe people who are a little older who prefer traditional media.
Our final paper wasn’t so much about drawing concrete conclusions as it was about representing what we had learned over the course of the semester. It was our task to ask a question, identify and pre-existing research that could give us a leg up on our own research, conduct our own data gathering, analyze it and provide recommendations based on that data. If the recommendation was “more research is needed,” that was an acceptable answer (in context).
I’d read your paper.
I was thinking about the survey after I took it, and realized there may have been a slight problem with it. You didn’t distinguish between reading a movie review in a traditional print source and reading the same review online. I think some people may have lumped Manohla Dargis and Harry Knowles together into “online reviews” if they read nytimes.com, while some might have considered that a print source, like I did. I technically only read reviews “online,” but I tend to prefer those reviews coming from traditional media sources. Not to disparage any of the research you did. It might be just as fascinating, though, to see how people would categorize something like a newspaper’s website, and whether or not that affects anything.
Jon, that’s an excellent point – one I certainly didn’t take into account.
Although, reflexively, if I think about it, any review that appears online undercuts the objectives of print. That’s my opinion.
I’m basing that off the research I did before conducting the survey. A lot of of it spoke toward the animosity between print and online media.
Personally, I think print is a dying animal. Online media is a legitimate threat. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t crossover. Some online critics go on to have jobs in print and vice versa.
A newspaper’s website is an opportunity to monetize existing content through new revenue streams. But ultimately they’re shooting themselves in the foot. They are complicit to the death of print because they are chasing revenue – providing content to the reader in the manner they want to assimilate it.
If newspapers were sincere about protecting the “sanctity” of print, they wouldn’t have online editions.
Ultimately, ad revenue (online or off) dictates these decisions.
I wouldn’t mind checking out that paper – your brief description of it sounded very interesting. Do you have the survey results as an appendix? I’d like to see how everyone else’s responses compared to mine.
Mike,
I have a PDF report of the complete survey that I can include along with the research paper.
The paper includes snippets of the report – the high hits and results that surprised me – but the report itself has all 30 questions.
I think I’ll post the report later tonight. Check the site later.
‘devalued the art form’, wow… I never really thought of movie reviewing as an art form. Isn’t that like calling an art critic an artist?
“Isn’t that like calling an art critic an artist?”
I wouldn’t think so, and I can understand calling reviewing film an art in itself. I’d think that in order to be respected as a reviewer, you’d have to have good points to bring up about a film, and in the same stroke be creative in how your review is presented. Would you consistently read a reviewer who simply wrote, “It was good. The acting was nice. The effects were good, too. 5/5”? More often than not, readers (and publishers) are looking for critics with the talent to consistently fill a page with entertaining writing, even if the target of the criticism itself isn’t very entertaining. Sounds like an art to me!
I don’t want to overstate the value of film criticism. After all, it takes more to create than destroy.
But at the same time, to be able communicate an idea in the written word charismatically, to cultivate an audience based on those skills… it could be considered an art form.
Okay, I understand your argument then. I just don’t classify so many things as “art” personally.
I think an argument could be made that if most internet movie reviews were of the stilted and unimaginative variety, then the truly talented reviewers would become lost in the mix. A devaluation of the art form ( I agree criticism can be an art in deft hands.) would inevitably occur.
Print reviewers have been vetted by the process of selection and saleability by their publishers. The people who sign their pay-checks want the person who can drive the greatest readership. The internet has no such vetting process. Anyone with a computer connection, an opinion, and a web building kit can now become a movie reviewer.
On the other hand. Online movie reviewers who lack an informative or entertaining review can expect little return traffic to their site. The internet creates a forum where everyone has a voice, but only the most talented and desirable reviewers develop a following. Additionally, the internet is not limited to a word count, as print is. A review can be as in depth as it need to be, without restriction.
I have often found myself reading a print review of a movie and though.” That didn’t tell me anything about the movie.” I then found myself online at aintitcool.com reading Harry Knowles or rottentomatoes.com. Just to get a more complete understanding of the movie reviewed.
It seems even the print movie reviews have admitted the superiority of online reviewing. My local paper gives very brief reviews of the movies. Often less than a paragraph each. At the end of the review is a sentence that reads something like,” For the full review read us online at http://www.yourlocalnewspaper.com/film_review .”
I would be very excited to read your paper on this subject, and see what your polling uncovered. Please upload it soon.
I think that the internet is a better place to find both comics and reviews (hence the reason I’m here). The reason being, you can serve yourself more to a focused niche of people who are like minded, or at least get and enjoy where you’re coming from.
I’m very particular about my reviews, and it takes a lot for me to pick up a new writer. For me it takes at least 10 reviews on various types of movies so that I can “feel out” what the reviewers tastes are, because I don’t care what a person is reviewing (or how objective they claim to be) personal preference always plays a part in any review.
The trick is finding someone who can tell you how the movie feels without being too spoilery, whether they liked it or not. Basically saying, “if you like this type of movie, then this is probably a good movie for you.” I like James Berardinelli for that very reason. He and I only agree on how good or bad a film is about half the time, but I always get a good idea about whether or not I’ll like a film from his review, be it good or bad.
You should upload that article, it sounds very interesting. I’m getting ready to major in film so it’d be a good one to read.
I for one would love to see the paper. It sounds like you had an interesting research project, and can’t wait to see what the data gave you.
As for traditional print critics being abe to “go digital,” there’s David Bianculli’s “TV Worth Watching” site(http://tvworthwatching.com/), where he took up his trade after having been at the NY DAILY NEWS as former chief TV critic. So yes, there’s a few efforts being made to make the switch, but admittedly few at the moment.
Must have been rushed
the character said the star trek movie was “good”??
Zing?