Comics Daily is an ongoing comics blog that updates with a new piece of comics-related writing every weekday. It was created by James Hunt in November 2007 with the aim of posting a new single-issue review of around 500 words or so for every day of the week – his line of thinking being that, while stuck working in an office job, his favourite blogs were the ones that actually gave him something new to read each day, rather than simply once a week.

He was joined in December 2007 by frequent collaborator Seb Patrick , who in addition to finally introducing reviews of DC Universe titles also came up with the idea of the “Dusting Off” feature – in which, each Wednesday, the pair take turns to choose a random back-issue from their collections, and talk about the issue in isolation as well as in the context of its time of publication.

A second new feature was added in February 2008 with the launch of The Sunday Pages, a weekly column featuring the team’s thoughts on various relevant bits of industry-related news. This includes speculation about upcoming titles, analysis of online discussion and criticism, and any other miscellaneous content that doesn’t fit within the framework of a daily review. Later in the year we began adding capsule reviews to the segment, and it’s these that keep it rolling even when the team have very little to say about the goings-on in the industry itself.

In June 2008, the site’s third reviewer Julian Hazeldine came onboard. Already a regular commenter on the site, Julian was brought in to help ease the strain of keeping the site’s record of posting a fresh piece of comics commentary five times a week – his own personal remit being fairly similar to James’, with particular regard to the X-books, thus allowing James to continue to review books both here and in his new role at Comic Book Resources.

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The daily reviews on the site adhere to a few loose principles – with the odd exception, we like to focus on reviewing the product at hand rather than offering commentary on industry drama (indeed, our occasional need to pass comment on such matters was part of the inspiration for starting the Sunday Pages). We aim to be fair and impartial, and judge a book on its content, not on any external influences. You may notice threads of inherent dislike or affection for certain creators – but we will always attempt to approach each new issue with an open mind. Our reviews don’t follow a specific structure or layout, nor do we consider it necessary to discuss every single aspect of an issue in the space of such a short review. You may find, for example, that the ratio of discussion is sometimes skewed more towards writing than art – this is not an attempt to devalue the contribution of artists, but merely a reflection of our own backgrounds and the way we approach comics reading. We’re not saying that all comics reviews should be like this – it’s just the way ours happen to be.

Our policy on “spoilers” in our reviews, meanwhile, is simple – while we try and avoid reviews that consist of little more than a recap of the plot of an issue, there are instances where in order to share our thoughts and analysis, we will need to refer to events that have taken place, and we do so without putting big red WARNING tags all over the shop. Really, it boils down to the fact that in the fast-moving, weekly-shipping comics industry, anything that’s been in stores for a couple of days is fair game – and anyone who doesn’t want to be spoiled about something already on release should know better than to read reviews beforehand. There may be occasions when we feel a twist or reveal is genuinely worth preserving – but by and large, we’re writing the reviews from a post-reading viewpoint, and we expect them to be read in the same way.

Finally, we don’t have any kind of ratings system for our reviews. The reductive approach that ratings offer manages to devalue both the comic and review – and in any case, all we’re ultimately giving is our opinion. It’s up to the reader to decide whether they agree with it – a numerical score doesn’t really aid that.

We actively welcome debate and discussion of our reviews and commentary, so please feel free to leave comments – and don’t be afraid to disagree with us! And if you’re interested in getting in touch with the team with information, press, review copies, or anything along those lines, please contact us using ComicsDailyTeam@gmail.com