Scrapyard Cover Teaser
Posted February 7th, 2009 by Howard TaylerI’m done with the foreground elements for the cover of Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance. Here is one of them.
I’ll post the other one once I’ve got the background done. There’s a glow effect that won’t look right otherwise. Meanwhile, enjoy speculating!
In unrelated news, I’ve done some tweaking to the left-hand sidebar at schlockmercenary.com. The navigation, donation, and facebook widgets are all in iframes now, which should make the main page content load a little faster.
I’ve also re-worked the navigation a bit so that all the various Schlock communities can be linked from one place without cluttering the front page. Yes, I took buttons away from you. Begin whining…. NOW.
Explore posts in the same categories: Books, Merchandise, Site News
February 7th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
We are not worthy.
D.
February 7th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Looks like Chef Ch’vorthq just announced that we’re out of Ovalqwik and we’re having toast again… :p
February 7th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Something about Kevyn just Screams “SMASH IT! SMASH IT WITH A HAMMAH!!!”
But I can’t quite put my finger on it.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Is that the ClueHammer 40,000 that Kevin’s holding?
February 7th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
I think it’s an improvement. It’s cleaner, and the shop button is much easier to find now. :)
February 8th, 2009 at 12:21 am
better. but there should be only one official place.
see this :
http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/09/barry-schwartz-on-why-too-much-choice.php
fragmenting a community is NOT the way to build loyal readership (& presumably sell more books which is the objective). its ok to have many forums but there should be just ONE OFFICIAL(TM) one. it could be this one, but less bloggy style, more phpbb style.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:12 am
I have a mallet like Kevyn’s.
It has engraved on it a single word:
“OFF”.
>:)
February 8th, 2009 at 1:14 am
Oh, and about those old dead files: Thumb Drives Are Cheap, And
Small…. >;)
February 8th, 2009 at 4:00 am
I agree with iman. I’d prefer a single official Schlock forum as well. Keep the others running, but just only really promote one of them. Although I’d still say promote the Facebook and Livejournal groups and let other people know about the other forums, since community’s a good thing, but a single official Schlock Forum would look more professional.
Also, all the other webcomics are doing it!
February 8th, 2009 at 6:40 am
Actually, what are you all going to say if he picked the forum you are not part of to be the “Official” one?
There are a lot of people who are part of one community but not another for one reason or another.
It is far better to let those who support the comic fall where they may and honor all the supporters.
Just tell yourself that you are part of the “Official” one and that all the others are just front’n. Then start a war of who can buy the most books when the next volume comes out. Then whichever community posts the most sales can scream, “We”re Number ONE!” until the next book comes out and the battle restarts. That way, everyone can have that nice sense of community, and Howard sells lots of books and can feed his kids, (and fund his Wii habit) everyone wins.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Mmmmmm Toast.
It’s a noun, a verb, a command, (TOAST!) and how to refer to your fallen comrade, “Dude, toast.”
February 8th, 2009 at 7:36 am
Ah, the whining began already. And you’re trying to support it with references.
Wusses.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Howard – LOVE the hammer; reminds me of Doc’s version on _The Whiteboard_. ;)
And I agree with you on the communities. You’ve done a superb job on that, getting them in one place where folk can choose on *which* Forum they want to join. (Just go look at _Girl Genius_ as an example. They’ve got a Yahoo!Group, a couple of LJ ones, and something else I can’t remember. As well as the humorous Twitter of Othar’s Journal…. ) I’ll have to look on Gaia to see if you’ve got a following there…. ;)
BTW – love the new page layout as well. YOUR ad, then the comic, then everything else. Purrrfect! ;)
February 8th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Ooh, Kevin’s got a LART! Shiny!! Looks like somebody else had a minor explodes-in-face moment, though.
No Twitter widget, Howard?
February 8th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Howard, dude, honestly, that foreground element thingy……it would kick some serious tale as my desktop wallpaper. lol.
February 8th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Tagon’s soot is beautiful!
And the little doohickey on the bottom of the hammer makes me wonder what exactly Kevyn has up his sleeve.
February 8th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Loving the hammer. Why hasn’t anyone picked up a giant hammer like that for use in melee combat? I can so totally see the new Loxy with one.. though, I digress.
I like the new layout. Fewer buttons makes it easy on people like me who can never decide which one to push. ;)
Ketira, I believe his ad up at the top was something he was forced to do because of some bad ads that got into the system, not him trying to make a permanent place up at the top for his stuff – though, I do agree, it looks a whole lot better than any other ad on the site.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I’m torn. Do I want the Hammer more, or that plasgun? Decisions decisions….:(
February 8th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
The somewhat blasted-looking Tagon piques my curiousity :) That’s awesome.
With regards to the new communities link, I like how it uses up less space, and makes the frontpage less cluttered.
I was going to suggest CSS sub-menus when you moved your mouse over it. However, most people wouldn’t know which one to pick. Your approach makes things easier.
A few suggestions / constructive feedback:
1.) The communities page seems hard to read, for some reason. I had trouble looking at it and saying, “Oh, these are separate forums.” Then the reason why occurred to me.
The different forum icons are different sizes and shapes. It’s hard for your eye to scan down and say, “Item, item, item”. If you were to move all the forum images over to the *right* side, and put bullet points at the left, it would be consistent and easier to scan.
I had to deal with this “consistent bullet points” thing on my webcomics page, and I think moving the images over to the right really helped:
http://wireball.com/webcomics.htm
2.) Opening a new window or tab when clicking the Community link is unexpected when navigating to another part of a website. But when one clicks on one of the forum links, which is another site, it just uses the same window/tab.
I can see some logic behind it, but it /feels/ inconsistent. Pages on the same site should, I think, not open new windows. Whereas it’s more expected for links to other sites to open new windows.
Of course, I’m one to talk. I think it’s easier to offer suggestions for other people’s sites than to improve my own ;)
February 8th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
The “Community” page, as it’s laid out now, is a place-holder. I was in a hurry, and I used Wordpress. Wordpress is awful when you want specific formatting. At one point I did have that page looking good, but then Wordpress ate my HTML formatting and wouldn’t acknowledge it.
(Note: This is not to be taken as an opportunity for anyone to try to help me troubleshoot Wordpress, nor to defend the idiosyncrasies of a product with some really, really bad ones.)
This is not the site redesign I was alluding to in earlier posts. This is a minor tweak. It’s already accelerated the loading of the front page, and that’s good enough for me. No, the full redesign is something you’ll know (and probably hate) when you see it. And then you’ll get used to it, and you’ll love it.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
What I find triple nifty about the site tweak is it looks *identical* in IE7, Firefox 3.0.6 and Google Chrome 1.0.154.48.
Soooo many sites out there ‘optimized’ for IE or not-IE that render all screwy in any other browser.
February 8th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
1.0.154.48? Wow, Google loves perpetual betas don’t they?
February 8th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
/* enter whine mode */
Now something non community related… me wants poster of nice picture
/* add puppy eyes mode */
pleeeeeaaaaase
/* close whine mode but leave puppy eyes open */
…
please ?
February 8th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
oh dear, I do wonder what the other foreground element will look like.
Possibly the beings Tagon, Kevyn and Schlok are looking at?
February 9th, 2009 at 12:48 am
@WEKM: That line just scream Robin Williams to me
February 9th, 2009 at 2:30 am
Since Tagon is singed, I suspect they’re hunting rogue toasters.
February 9th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Vonriel: I *know* that. He could have something for Project Wonderful up there and I’d *still* say that.
I was just telling *Howard* that. :p :)
Oh, and Howard? Format the communities page to be compatible with Firefox first and let every other browser try to catch up. I’ve used Opera, FF & IE — and I love Firefox. At least when something gets broken in the browser, they’re the quickest to release a patched version.