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WebsnarkWebsnark refers to a webcomic that has been reviewed on Websnark.com, a critical and popular culture commentary website and blog, thereby increasing traffic to the site. It is in use mostly in webcomic circles, although its endurance is yet to be determined. Websnark.com began in August 2004 by Eric A. Burns as his commentary blog, which quickly migrated towards a webcomics theme. Currently, it has two authors, the aforementioned Eric Burns, and Wednesday White, who joined the regular writing team in February 2005. Although Eric has written a few reviews for Comixpedia, and has a monthly column on the same site, the Websnark site tends not to contain reviews of full comic runs, but will instead focus on the day's comic. For the most part, the commentary centres around particular elements of the strip that the commentator found noteworthy (whether good or bad) and the ones s/he finds particularly outstanding earn their creators "a tasty, tasty biscuit." Being a blog format, occasionally the site will also include some of Eric's novel-writing or webcomic projects, an essay or a personal update. The longest webcomic essays on the Websnark site are in the You Had Me And You Lost Me series. These essays detail the author's discovery of a particular webcomic and what they liked about it, how it grew and changed over the comic's run, and the point where the author eventually stopped reading it. A webcomic which is close to being lost is put on the "Why Do I Read This Webcomic, Again?" list. Also included in the site's lexicon is the phrase "Cerebus Syndrome" (named after Dave Sim's Cerebus the Aardvark), which describes the scenario when a light, gag-a-day comic adds layer after layer of sophistication to its characters and set-up. Eventually, the strip comes to the point where the strip bears little resemblance to its roots and is the greater for it (on the web, the seminal example is Sluggy Freelance). There is also "First and Ten Syndrome," named after an early HBO program which shifted directions abruptly between seasons, losing its old viewers and failing to attract new ones. The phrase describes when a comic does just that (or something similar), often the result of a failed attempt at "Cerebus Syndrome." The recent success of Websnark seems to have a number of roots: firstly, the Websnark site is clean, accessable and has a personal voice which is hard to find in webcomic circles. Secondly, the webcomic community is quite small, so a well-written person who says intelligent and nice things about a comic will often find the creator giving them a good word in return. Thirdly, Websnark occasionally dabbles in in-depth analysis, which probably kickstarted its success when an analysis of PvP was linked by Scott Kurtz, PvP's author. Finally, Websnark is well-written, and is interesting to read in its own right, which tends to keep visitors returning to the site. Snark comes from the Lewis Carroll classic, The Hunting of the Snark.
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