I’m just going to take your view of what you like in a girl’s behaviour as stated (as it’s your view and we weren’t invited to read your column with the set-up that you have to be a girl-cliché yourself) and enjoy your impressions of something I’ve been reading since I was 13 or 14 myself 25 years ago.

It’s just not how I read comics these days (then again I basically only read manga now) and especially interesting and different because of that.

I hope you’re enjoying your experience!

@LadyMink: je pense que tu parle bien le francais! J’ai tout compris.

Je parle un peu de francais. J’adore Buffy! Vraiment, elle n’est pas chichiteuse! Bandes dessinées n’ayez pas beaucoup des fort elles. Nous avons besoin de plus de héroïnes comme Buffy.

Excusez mon français faible. J’ai dû compter sur l’Internet pour un certain vocabulaire.

HC is picking up issues that catch her eye. A reader shouldn’t have to read an entire series or arc or do research to decide whether he or she likes a comic. If a reader has to do that, the writer and artist failed.

“If this is truly an effort to review comics carte blanche, without knowing anything about them, then maybe a review of more than 5 sentences would have a better impact.”

It’s an effort to learn what a girl likes and dislikes about the comics she picks up. We could speculate as much as we want about that, like many others on the internets, but felt it would be more efficient and accurate to ask an actual girl.

“Admin – Jumping to the rescue a little quick around here, aren’t we?”

We’re online all day and felt you deserved a swift response. HC is 11 years old, on summer vacation and doesn’t have an umbilical cord connecting her to the computer like we do. I’m a little jealous of her because of that.

How many 11 year olds do you know that have a spare ten dollars/week to spend at a comic shop, and of those 11 year olds, how many do you think might actually come back week after week to spend their money on comics that fail them in some way or another?

Before comic book shops, kids picked up comics with no hope of ever reading what came before. Therefore, each issue had to be able to stand alone, and capture the reader enough to bring them back the next month. This is no longer the case – comics are written with the trade collection in mind, or part of some over-arching, super-convoluted storyline that requires WELL above $10.00/week to read.

The first issue of BTVS Season 8 goes for $5.00 plus shipping through Amazon. I don’t know about the availability at cover price through local comic shops. Would an average kid spend their entire weekly budget hunting down back issues that have been hiked up in price, just so they can understand the new comic in their hand at cover price?

But that’s part of the experiment we’re doing with Haileyscomic this summer. We have, in Hailey, a girl who’s interested enough in comics to take part in this. Will she still be interested enough at the end of August to keep on buying with her own money? Or will she just give up in frustration?

We’ll see.

Anyway, Hailey mentions in her reviews of Ghost Rider, Supergirl and the Legion of the Super Heroes, and Buffy that the storyline jumps around or uses quick cuts. Even though she doesn’t come right out and say it, after reading all of her reviews, it appears to the reader that the jumps and cuts are confusing to her.

As far as “every issue is somebody’s first” – sure. What other way is there to attract new readers? However, readers should expect that they’re missing out on something. I don’t expect to pick up a book, comic or manga in the middle of the series and get everything.

I’m just saying, as a reviewer, Hailey could do a bit more homework to make her reviews a little more robust. If this is truly an effort to review comics carte blanche, without knowing anything about them, then maybe a review of more than 5 sentences would have a better impact.

For example, I’m very disappointed that you did not take the time to go back and read Buffy 1-3 before reviewing #4. Issue 4 was the completion of a story arc that had been running since issue 1.

I notice that the only comic you really liked was Electric Girl, and you read several issues of that one. Maybe you would have liked some of the others a bit more if you’d given them the same chance.

“Fray” is a one-shot that you may like, although it does contain “someone trying to save the world,” which doesn’t seem to be your cup of tea. Anyway, it’s about a strong woman who isn’t prissy. Yes, it is by the same writer as Buffy, and it is about a slayer, but the whole story is in one graphic novel. I’d like to see what you have to say about Joss Whedon’s work after reading an entire story of his, not just bits and pieces.

What Hailey criticized was the excessive use of quick-cuts in the story – the structure like a TV show rather than what she expected in a book or comic book was enough for her to notice. As soon as a reader notices the writing, they've been pulled out of the story, which means that the fiction has failed.

So, you are obviously a very astute reviewer! Did you ever watch the Buffy TV show?