Blood Orange Gets The Business @ Eye On Comics

Don MacPherson was kind enough to review Blood Orange over at Eye On Comics, but with a rating of 4/10 it felt like a bit of the “Stink Eye On Our Comics.” With my luck, it figures that the lowest score we’ve received so far (we’ve been running solid 8/10’s to date) would also get the biggest exposure, invariably getting picked up in a linkblog post at The Comics Journal. While there were some mildly positive comments offered about the evolution of my writing over time or instances of Grant’s strong figure and still work, I can’t say that I agree with or understand all of Don’s generous feedback. For example, of Blood Orange, he stated that “the first part of the story boasts a deceivingly sinister tone.” I was surprised and unaware that it could be interpreted that way, and it was never my conscious intent. Of The Mercy Killing, he felt it started off with a “Dick and Jane-like approach to the narration,” which was simply intended as omniscient third person narration, with short, crisp, declarative sentences to state some facts. But at the end of the day, I’m primarily in the review business myself, so I deeply understand that everyone is entitled to their opinion and their own subjective read of a book. I genuinely meant it when I thanked Don for the review and said that he’d given us a thorough bit of feedback and some things to think about that we probably never would have considered otherwise. I know that Grant is a big football fan, so I couldn’t resist sending him an email this morning to tell him that Don really “gave us the business!”