The 2004 Buzzawards are announced! You can see the presentations and the winners at http://www.buzzawards.net/2004/ceremony.php.

Congratulations to Least I Could Do and Alien Dice for picking up three awards each!

The list of winners is as follows:

Here's an observation:

After the recent spate of discussion over the usefulness of webcomic reviews, some people have argued that webcomic reviews serve no purpose since (to borrow Alexander Danner's paraphrasing of the situation) "(most) webcomics are entirely free, reviews are rendered unnecessary".

If that's the case, then one would think reviews of pay comics would be more common, since they do actually serve a purpose in telling people about what they can't see for themselves straightaway.

But the fact is, there don't seem to be a lot of those kind of reviews out there. I've checked out a few review sites, including Korsil, Webcomics Examiner, Timewaster's Guide, Sequential Tart, Webcomics Fan and Comixpedia.

Of those, Sequential Tart seems to do the most reviews of pay comics, series like Gun Street Girl, Athena Voltaire, Fans!, Killroy and Tina, and Digger being a few who tend to pop up. In most sites there aren't any pay comics reviewed at all. Which seems like a pity, since there are a lot of good pay webcomics out there that IMHO, people ought to know about.

Here's a question:

Is because these comics are pay comics that reviewers shy away from them?

Or have they simply not heard of them at all?

Would complimentary subscriptions to reviewers make a difference?

(Ok, that was more than A question, but I can't count *grimaces* )

Anyone up for an answer?

r stevens has created a handy guide to the dumbrella booth at San Diego Comicon in comic format.