There’s one comic book company who gives me review copies. He gives everyone review copies, so I’m not special. I did just get another reviewer’s copy from someone else, but it’s a one time deal. From the other company, I get them all the time.
I just posted a review, based on said reviewers’ copy. When I started getting these copies, last summer I think, I was worried. I had signed up just because I wanted early dibs on a particular comic book, but then I got a different comic book first, to review. It wasn’t my preferred genre (horror), but it turned out to be excellent (for the most part), and I published an honest review about it.
Nicely, all of this company’s books–to a point–were good and I could post honest, positive reviews about them. Eventually, the inevitable happened, and they published something bad. Here’s where my problem came in–I have no problem being positive about anything, as long as it’s good. I have no problem being negative about bad work, but this negative work is stuff I pay for. This company pays for these reviewers’ copies. But I’m not going to lie either. I used to lie a lot when I was writing for a comic book review website and I hated it so much I had to quit.
Then I came up with a solution. And it hasn’t bitten me on the ass yet. Ignore the bad ones. So far it’s worked–and when I post a review with something moderately negative in it, now it doesn’t get a link anyway, so what would the point be?
Still, whenever I do review one of these reviewer copies, I always worry if the company guy wonders about the other comic in the review packet….
