OMG!!! My mum so doesn't understand me!!! She's such a bitch! I hate her!!! I wish I was dead and...
Woah, there, my angst-filled friend. You appear to be labouring under a slightly retrogressive preconception about blogs. No longer the exclusive domain of whiny goth girls pretending they're the lead in Carrie just because their mum won't let them get a lip-ring, they're now the Future Of Journalism.

Erm... Really?
Well, last year's Future Of Journalism, anyway. This year's Future Of Journalism appears to be militant toga embroidery, where people sew "Bush is a big meanie" on the front of a tea-towel. Very big in the mid-West, or so my style guru assures me.

Right... But seriously, why is the comics blogosphere even dignified with a name? What do they actually do?
Mainly ground level, reactive criticism; reviews; critiques; and linking to things of interest.

Such as?
Well, mostly each other. Wherein they analyse each others' opinions about the importance of Gwen Stacey's death after the End of History. Or something.

So it's all superhero stuff, then?
Shhh!

... What?
They're a little touchy about that one. And it's not entirely accurate, anyway. Every blog is as individual as its creator, dealing with a slightly different array of work... Though, speaking generally, most blogosphere writers definition of "everything" does gravitate heavily around the skin-tight flying folk.

Now hang on, didn't they all recently spend pages and pages talking about Dan Clowes' EIGHTBALL #23?
Have you read EIGHTBALL #23?

Erm... No.
It's the one with a superhero.

Ah. So do they cover anything else?
Well, lots of AIT/PlanetLar stuff.

Any particular reason?
A good way of deciding whether a new media outlet is gaining acceptance is whether the industry starts actually treating them like an outlet worth taking time over. And slowly but surely, publishers are actively courting blogs. AiT/PlanetLar is very much ahead of the curve, here, recently giving exclusive images for their 2004-2005 line to a number of prominent comics blogs. Cue huge amounts of buzz, heat, word-of-mouth viral infection and other exciting marketing gobbledigook.

So people actually read these things??
It's hard not to, there are so bloody many of them. And they're so vociferous in their opinions that yes, people are taking them seriously as early opinion formers.

"Vociferous in their opinions"... You mean they're a bunch of loud-mouthed nerds?
You might say that. I couldn't possibly comment.

You see, the blogosphere reacts powerfully to any and all nay-sayers. Take the stormy reception which greeted Heidi McDonald's comment in Comic Buyer's Guide earlier this year with regard to blogging: "And except for a very few sites, I realized they can pretty much be safely ignored."

This didn't go down too well in the blogosphere, because clearly, all writing is of equal interest to read and anyone who claims otherwise is some kind of crypto-fascist.

Perish the thought.
Indeed, tovarisch.

... They're going to hate this piece, aren't they?
Of course they will. The blogosphere hates everything, and even the best examples score higher on insight than sense of humour.

Light blue touch paper, stand well back...

Not so different from their angst-filled forefathers after all, then. One more question: why "Blogosphere"?
Lord only knows. The writing appears in blogs, and the writers are largely spherical?

I still can't believe you made a Chris Claremont gag.
I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Now, about EIGHTBALL #23...

Hector Reeder is an expert.

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