Review it!

In recent times, most of us would have come across a lot of young talents who take up online (mostly video) reviews. For the complexity of it, let us leave out the world of tinsel and orient more towards Tamil Comics in this post.

While it is the social responsibility of the generation with more experience and expertise to mould and prepare the young generation for such an essential work of an industry, we do not see much of an organised activity in Tamil comics. And thus, here we go:

For beginners, first we need to understand that:

1. Review is not news;
   (Do not just give the names, details and more breaking-information, while these could be included to make the review interesting – these by itself could not hold ground to bring success)
2. Review is not feedback;
   (Do not base the review on your personal preferences [likes and dislikes] – it can be included in the review but it just cannot be the complete work)
3. Review is not critique;
   (Unless you are dexterous/ specialist do not judge technical merits)
4. Review is not synopsis;
   (Do not just give out the story in your own words to call it a review)
5. Review is not just data;
   (Do not just keep rolling out the years, months, names, teams unwanted statistical data – as almost everything can be found on google these days)

The above will give us an idea that, while we immerse into the book to review, our un-biased, neutral, well-informed alter-ego’s experiences form the base of the review.

What to review?

There are many layers in which a mind is awakened in an individual. Depending upon the macroscopic view that we have, the realm of the review could go for each of the following sections. Usually the following in separate sections or even just a couple of them as stand-alone specialities could form the base of ‘review’:

For these sections, example for the section ‘Book production’ – knowledge can stretch from carbon points for paper used for printing till optometrical knowledge on font-size, the brightness of a font on the paper-colour that depends on room lighting, yes almost all the disciples under the Sun can be used for meaningful review!!

Just to briefly explain the above points to help a novice get started:

1. Read through the full story,
2. Understand the various sub-plots – any references they have to real-world events
3. Try to understand ‘why’ the hero is hero and ‘villain’ is villain in the story – this will usually 90% of the time give us the bigger picture

After the above, come out of the ‘story world’ completely. Refresh your mind; Now, try to link your understanding to the following:

Did the book raise any concerns or address the concerns you already had or you feel it is misguiding people on any of the following:

Environment
Society
Politics
History
Equality / Equity
Economics
Philosophy
Psychology
Religion
Law and order – it can be anything (like a speeding bike shown as heroism could actually mean unmindful portrayal of traffic violation)
Vigilantism
Etc (Any college degree specialisation that comes to mind, any burning issue, any important event can be used in this checklist)

Based on the above personal contemplation and noting the points, we will be able to draft review for the following:

Story
Characterization
Illustration style
Actual Illustrations
Coloring
Layout

Apart from this, we can also include comments on:

Book production – book format/ price / availability / etc.
Associated news – comparisons / adaptations / etc
Personal info – about author or illustrator or colourist etc

What does it take for a good review?

With the advent of Search engines, it is true that we do not need to be an erudite to write intelligent review. But, we should be able to link various disciplines, compare one subject with another subject, find the common link between different expertise – to use the keywords intelligently in search engine for an interesting analysis. A good review will be as interesting to read as the original book itself! Wish all the young youtubers a grand success in their ‘Review’ endeavours!

If you have recently come across any interesting review of tamil comics, please do share it with us!