overview - Ew.

art - There really isn't much I can comment on in regards to the artwork, other than to say that I think it fits the comic perfectly. I believe five wouldn't be half as dark and disturbing if it didn't the twisted images and surrealistic landscapes and figures.  The narrator as a five-year-old manages to be look both helpless and alien.  It's difficult to decide whether you should feel sorry for him, or disgusted (I think this was the intent, but I could be wrong).  Anyway, I don't really have the knowledge or experience to be able to recommend any improvements, so I'll move on.

writing -  five evokes a reaction.  For me, this was disgust.  Collecting shit in boxes, hooks through various parts of the human anatomy, and stories which focus on parasites are just a couple examples of how five manages to do this.  Additionally, I got a distinct feeling of alienation while reading through the books.  Again, I assume this was intentional.  Believing that, I can definitely say that five manages to accomplish what it set out to do.  My only other comment is that it seemed to sometimes slip into being overly-pretentious; I'm not sure whether or not this was also intentional. 

website - Very professional looking.  I'm still trying to decide what the overall look reminds me of.  A grimy industrial factory, or really rundown used bookstore, maybe.  The way it's set up probably discourages visitors who are just browsing, since the artwork isn't immediatley available.   That's not to say it's difficult to navigate the site.  Most everything is pretty obviously marked and labelled.  But for those who are just scanning through comic listings probably will keep on moving, since there's no obvious front image to give them an idea of what to expect from five.  Then again, I doubt the site is meant to attract viewers looking for another comic containing big-eyed girls and lesbians.  

overall - five is unique.  I'm fairly certain I've never seen anything like it before.  I'm still not entirely certain what five is, or the reasoning behind it.   Still, whatever it's trying to accomplish, I'm fairly certain it's doing a good job of it.  Whether I like it or not, I can easily state that it is definitely a memorable creation.

I read through five way back when it first hit Keenspace and enjoyed it, but I didn't check back much.  I think this has to do with it not having a more regular daily format.   The site is very stylish and attractive, way more so than most comic sites.   Indeed, I can't think offhand of any other comic site that looks slicker.  It feels more like a collection of completed independent comics (since that's more or less what it is) instead of an ongoing comic strip, and I think that made me get less hooked, for what that's worth.  I like to come to a comic site and see the newest stuff on the front page instead of having to go clicking further to get to it; at least if it's a site I visit regularly.  I see you've got news blurbs set up to help direct the reader to the latest stuff; that helps some.  There doesn't seem to be much screen real estate for these news blurbs; you might want to show further into the past on the home page to let an occasional reader more easily see what to catch up on.  They've already had to click past a couple "warning, mature" buttons (surely 1 would be sufficient), so I'd not make them keep clicking (to Old News) to have to find stuff.

The schtick of combined jaded cynical self-loathing and disdain for the reader sometimes wears thin.  I have no idea how "real" that is versus a put-on persona, but certainly some of it goes a long way, and I know some folks have a very negative reaction to it.  This is of course subjective; you also do the overblown arrogant intellectual schtick which I know is offputting to a lot of people, but I love it.  As for the comics themselves: a variety of styles.  I least enjoyed the recent He-Man paste-up stuff.  Like you say in the news blurbs, they're ridiculously lazy/easy... they were occasionally funny, but after seeing some of your other stuff, they didn't grab me nearly as much. Nothing wrong with doing silly spoofy romps, but the stuff that really impressed me was the comics that used your own art.

"The comics" are the great stuff.  These have the feel of cool interesting pretentious altcomics and Eurocomics, with quirky consistently creepy art (and very nifty photoshop work on some of them), especially A Spectacle (with its funky little 23 references and Chick tracts etc.), that teeter in the gray area around literary pretentiousness and disturbing weirdness (a place I enjoy).  Obviously the grotesqueness and scatological art will be offputting to many, not to mention some of the seemingly intentionally offensive language/themes, but then you knew that.