Newsarama Is Bad And Matt Brady Should Feel Bad Part 1: In Which Standards Are Tested

Yes, I stole this title. Deal with it.

If you know me, you know I get pissed off easily. It's not that I'm a contrary, mean-spirited bastard … okay, I guess it is, but the reason I'm that way is because I have standards, dammit. I expect things from people, things I don't think it's too much to ask, and when people fail to deliver them, I get pissed off.

It's been said to me that certain things come easier to me than to others, and it's unfair to expect my levels of performance and ability from them. I can see a point there. I've got certain knacks and lack others, language being one of the former and visual art being one of the latter. People don't get pissed at me because I can't even draw a passable stick figure.

But, and these are some damn big buts, so big I have to put them in bold lettering:

(A) I don't try to make a living as an artist, and

(B) Some standards are universal, and there's just no damn excuse for failing to meet them.

Which brings us to Matt Brady's Newsarama. The 'Rama, as I'm sure it's called by someone, is the to the Digital Age as Wizard was to the age that preceded it; it's the 800-pound gorilla in a reporter's hat and trenchcoat, the biggest name in the game of comics news, reviews, commentary and hype.

And it's fucking terrible. By the standards of journalistic quality and professionalism, by the standards of the human desire for intellectual satisfaction, and often by the basic standards of spelling and grammar, it's a complete train wreck. Actually, I take that back; train wrecks aren't this depressing, because you can usually see someone's neck folded into an amusing shape, if nothing else.

Let me be clear about something here: I'm not talking about the forums. Yes, they suck, too, but that's just a higher-than-usual concentration of the same yo-yos you get everywhere on the Internet, from 4chan to the fucking New York Times. No, I'm talking about the content: the articles, the interviews, the reviews, the columns, the shit people actually sign their real names to. As if this kind of aliterate hackery is something to take pride in, rather than a worthy contribution to the oeuvre of Alan Smithee.

Last year, I included among my Comics Readers' Bill of Rights the right to "broad-ranging, unbiased and professional comics journalism and criticism from a healthily diverse range of sources." We don't have that yet online, and Newsarama is at the top of the list of reasons why. (It's a long list. You're probably on it.) And I just can't fucking take it anymore. My options are down to a week of the meanest blog posts I've ever written and you've ever read, or a pipe bomb in the press room at the next New York Comics Convention. For the sake of my anal virginity, I've opted for the former. Welcome, dear schadenfreudal reader, to "Newsarama Is Bad And Matt Brady Should Feel Bad" Week. I hope you'll like me when I'm angry.

Tomorrow: Why Pat Benatar would kick Troy Brownfield's ass.