And so it begins.

Recently Paul O'Brien, the author of the X-Axis Reviews, announced he'd be taking a short break and restructuring the way he'll be doing reviews. And this, quite frankly, bummed me out a bit on account of he writes the best comic book reviews out there, for my money.

Okay, it's the Internet. There is no money. Just shut up a minute and let me use my figures of speech, huh?

I've noticed a definite trend in comic reviews on the Internet over the past couple of years. They've gotten... well... serious. I mean, The Savage Critic is a brilliant site and all, with some really insightful reviews, but I'm looking for reviews of comic books that illustrate to me whether or not I might enjoy said comic books. Three-thousand-word opuses on a landmark manga series does not help out a guy who's just looking to know whether or not the current run of The Immortal Iron Fist is any good.

That's not a shot at anyone, really - just a statement of purpose. Those opuses are damned good opuses, very informative and interesting, but I don't want opuses. I want "the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man was kinda awesome and here's what was awesome about it." And I don't see a lot of that out there these days. I see a lot of excellent criticism... but not a lot of "awesome/not awesome."

Well, except for The ISB, but Chris Sims can't do this alone, people.

So, after a lot of dithering and a lot of wondering whether or not I had the gumption, I girded my proverbial loins and decided it was time I had my shot at remedying this situation. Thus, Four-Color Geekosity.

The idea here is that this will be a site designed for comics fans. People who like comics and like to talk about them. People who regard them primarily, not as an art form and not as childish nonsense, but as fun.

I'll be writing reviews on a semi-regular basis, with the goal of getting the week's output reviewed by the Saturday after publication; this is a soft deadline, and I'm not sure yet just how well I'll pull it off, but that's the goal. Comics will be graded on a scale of one to ten, with ten being awesome and one being a horrendous atrocity that the publishers should be paying you money to burn unread. I'll also be putting together irregular features in the early part of the week, musings on current comics storylines and events and goings-on. The format is still up in the air just now, and suggestions for improvement are always welcome.


I'm Shawn. Welcome aboard. I hope it'll be a fun ride.