As the name suggests, The Hub City Review does one thing and one thing only: reviews.
Except that’s not really true. Those so called reviews are many things. Occasionally they’ll be a recommendation on whether to consume a particular piece of media, and even more rarely they’ll include a summary of its content. Instead of a consistency of form, my one and only concern in each and every article for the site is this: to say something interesting.
Sometimes that will mean offering historical contextualization, or comparing the piece in question to another famous or important work. Other times that will mean political, philosophical, or theological musings [my degree is in Philosophy, with a minor in ancient languages (Latin, Greek, and Hebrew), after which I attended seminary (though I forewent ordination)]. Or, as you just noticed, I’ll include autobiographical details. These reviews are in many ways a personal journal, open for all the world to read.
I cover any and all types of media, including: Books, Comics, Movies, and Television. The vast majority of the site’s content is currently devoted to comics, the reason being two-fold:
- It’s the medium with which I have the most familiarity, having learned to read from old issues of John Byrne’s Man of Steel miniseries and immersing myself in the canons and continuities of comic book universes ever since.
- Comics are a quickly digestible medium, and are released on a regular basis. I read half a dozen or more comics every week, whereas I only watch about fifteen movies in theaters a year and play ten to twenty games to completion.
The Scoring System
I don’t believe in assigning quantitative scores to any piece of art whatsoever. However, in order for my comic reviews to be featured on Comic Book Round Up, through which a significant amount of the site’s traffic is generated, it was required that a scoring system be implemented. As a result, I began employing a forty-point scale (0.25 – 10.0). I don’t regard these numbers part of the review proper. As opposed to the written review, very little thought is expended on the score, sometimes nothing more than a spur of the moment gut feeling. As such, I’d advise you pay such no mind.
The Secret Origin
Before I had the notion to review media, I had been commissioned by an organization affiliated with Rutgers University to review the various restaurants in the college town of New Brunswick, the polinym of which is “Hub City,” given my status as a minor local celebrity and known authority on its cuisine and nightlife. Such was part of a larger project of creating a survival guide for incoming students, and once that fell through I thought to publish the work I’d already done on the project online.
Some months later I began writing user reviews at ComicVine in order to develop a portfolio which could be shown to prospective employers in the fields of media journalism and the enthusiast press. It was after a flurry of reviews one fateful Wednesday when I remembered I had the platform of my own site, at which point The Hub City Review entered its current incarnation. I like to consider the name as homage to the fictional Hub City, from which hails the Charleston Comics character The Question, upon whom Alan Moore based Rorschach of Watchman fame.
The Hub City Review is still first and foremost a portfolio. If you run a paying site and would like to consider me for freelance work or full time employment, you can contact me at:
You can also follow me on Twitter @MattJTheriault
The Hub City Review 