To dive in and write, one has to either be unaware or believe we can offer readers a distinctive voice. So in that sense we have already passed judgement on the work of other authors. We talked about this in our list axioms.

On a similar note, we came across this complaint by Anthony Falcone: “I’ve been reading a lot of comic book reviews while prepping this article and while I won’t provide any links (I’m not trying to call out specific writers here), I will say that the majority of them are mostly story summaries with brief discussion of the art. If the review is positive there will be some sort of acknowledgement of the artist’s skill, but if the review is negative the art will be briefly dismissed with an amusing quip. At times an artist will receive a negative comment on the neutrality of their work; it is functional, satisfactory, or pedestrian.” (Anthony Falcone, “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative?,” October 10, 2013, http://www.comicbookdaily.com)

The Internet doesn’t foster constructive dialogue, since negative and incendiary comments are the ones that get attention.  So we really appreciate reviews that have some breadth, that don’t limit their comments to the title being reviewed but rather looks at it (or its writer or genre) in context, or that adopt a unique point of view, one that isn’t commonly heard.  For instance, some of our favourites are the team at  A.V. Club for TV, some writers at Badass Digest for movies, Christine Duffee for her work on Daredevil, Darren for film (and comic books) and Sylvain Lavallée for comic books.