I’ve detailed here our guide for CmX499. While we have no plans on changing the guidelines, stuff happens and everything evolves. We will always strive to keep these guidelines current should they fall to any personal Darwinian changes.

Unless otherwise specified, CmX499 reviews, and the the guidelines for those reviews, deal only with digital editions and/or distributions of issues and books.

Reviews

CmX499 will not have a ratings system for reviews. We have only one reason for this. While we will be reviewing as many books as possible from the larger established houses we will also have quite a number of smaller houses and independent works here.

Ratings systems strongly influence purchasing decisions. We all know this. Studies have proven this.

We will strive for honesty and some level of objectivity (however much is possible in a written opinion) in our reviews, no matter the writer, artist or publisher. However with so many small publishers and creators working so hard to make a real living from their work in comic books, it would be unfair to overly influence purchasing decisions with a simple thumb, star or number scale system. We won’t be having Good, Bad and Final Conclusion sections either.

Free Comics Section

  • Always being free and not free only during a promotion.

  • An actual issue of a comic book. We will not be review previews nor #0 issues.

  • Issues should have at least 22 pages (or the digital equivalent).

99¢ Comics Section

  • Issues must have at least 22 pages (or the digital equivalent)

  • Comics regularly priced at 99¢ or below.

  • Larger editions, collections or graphic novels whose standard price (or SRP) averages at most 99¢ an issue (ie. one dollar per 22 pages).

99¢ Sales & Bargains

  • All special-offer free issues must meet the criteria of the our Free Section

  • All issues, collections and graphic novels must meet the criteria of our 99¢ Section

  • We will only publish reviews of issues/books that will be on sale for at least 24 hours after the publication of the review.

    • We will only publish reviews of issues and books in one-day sales if we an publish them at or before 00:00 (12:00am) the day of the sale.

Blog

Our blog section(s) will contain any posts dealing with

  • News

  • Interviews

  • Reviews on comics that don’t meet the guidelines of the other sections

  • Updates to any reviews

  • Opinions

  • Any and everything else that does not fall into the other sections

Objectivity is important. Transparency is vital.

We will try to be as objective as possible. However we know that pure objectivity is almost impossible.

For example should a publisher send us (digitally) comics that meet our review criteria it’s very probable that we will be reviewing their material. That doesn’t mean we do it in detriment of others. But they would be facilitating a process that would allow us to get our readers reviews much faster. While our reviews themselves would continue to be 100% objective we’d be lying if said that the order of our reviews had not been influenced in some way. Sure this is the standard pretty much with any and all review magazines. We still want to be upfront about this.

Another example would concern sales, especially one-day or short term sales. Reporting and reviewing any issues on sale and within our guidelines will be a priority for us as these fall directly within our core philosophy. However, again, we’d be lying to not think that these reviews (which we will most likely be linking) do not benefit whoever is running the sale. Should they be the ones notifying us in advance, well, they’ve certainly just taken steps that have us helping our cause.

Again, our reviews themselves will not be influenced in any way. But we can all agree that these situations do influence overall objectivity at least on some level.

Therefore we believe we must strive even more for transparency. That means honestly answering any of your questions. It means stating certain facts should they have a strong influence on overall objectivity.

Linking

Let’s start with one area we feel requires absolute transparency: our liking policy.

  • We will be linking our reviews whenever possible.

  • Should more than one retailer have the issue we are reviewing within our criteria we will strive to link each and every one of them.

  • Should only a single retailer have the issue/book being reviewed we will still be providing a link.

  • We will always strive to provide a link without exception.

  • However, due to financial concerns and until otherwise stated, we will be using affiliate links whenever possible.

We recognize that these last two guidelines require a very delicate balance. And we will do everything we can to maintain that balance and especially be transparent about the process.

We will be putting (affiliate link) next to those specific ones. The reader will then know that we will be receiving some form of commision for purchases made through that link.

Once again we reiterate that we will always to strive to include any and all links to issues/books that we are reviewing regardless of the type of link.

Our long-term hope is to not use affiliate links at all. They bring up too many questions about overall objectivity. However, at this point, we need the economic support. The moment our other means of revenue (advertising, donations, etc.) allow for it, we will discontinue our use of affiliate links.

If you have any questions or thoughts about our Guide please feel free to contact us at cmx499(at)gmail(dot)com.