by Brian Gott
News Archives
January-March, 2005
January 3,2005
SAFETY TIP FOR FLASH DRIVE USERS
Update: With a normal USB Port, this is not an issue. On closer inspection, the port in question is missing the little plastic tab that prevents you from plugging things in upside-down like an idiot.
It is very important that you insert the Flash drive into the USB port right-side-up -- that is, unless you enjoy the sight of smoke pouring out of your USB port!
I kid you not. This happened to me on Sunday afternoon. Fortunately, I think I managed to yank the drive out of the port before any real damage was done.
Both the PC and the Flash drive appear to be functioning normally. (The Flash drive smells kind of scorched, but seems to be working.)
Now that that's out of the way . . .
WELCOME TO 2005 -- THE YEAR OF THE DODO!
2004 is a year that I'm sure none of us will miss. After facing disaster heaped upon disaster, I think it's safe to say that we're all ready to welcome 2005 with open arms!
(I was going to insert a snide comment about Bush after the talk about disasters. But it seemed disrespectful to those who are truly suffering, as opposed to those of us who just have to put up with four more years of George "Let's you and him fight" Bush.)
So good riddance to 2004. And welcome to 2005, which I'm arbitrarily declaring to be the Year of the Dodo! I've got big plans for the strip this year.
You'll see new faces (some of whom are already on the cast page), new shenanigans, and more big changes about which I'll tell you more at the appropriate time.
Watch this site -- it's gonna be huge! And without steroids, too!
January 8,2005
OKAY, TRY THIS. DOES THIS WORK? GOOD.
stupid Netscape...
stupid Netscape...
I caught Netscape doing strange things with my Links page. It seems to be having a problem with multiple lines of text that were commented out, if the commented-out block contains HTML tags. It's as if Netscape gets confused about where the commented-out block is supposed to end. Most curious, indeed. These pages looked fine in IE and Safari.
Oh, well. I'll just wipe the egg off my face and fix it.
So far the Links page is the only thing affected. It's very odd, because it seems that Netscape can't handle commented-out text blocks containing HTML tags on the Links Page and nowhere else.
And by all means, let me know if you think something's still not working or not displaying right.
I guess the moral of the story is: if it looks good in IE, check it out in Netscape. If it looks good in Netscape, check it out in Safari. If it still looks good, upload it.
February 3, 2005
IT'S THE LIVING DEAD WEBCOMICS!
In the relatively short time that there have even been such a thing as Webcomics, plenty of them have come to an end. Some of those comics were given big sendoffs. Others just stopped updating. And some have vanished altogether, leaving nothing but fading memories (like that one comic . . . you know, the one with the guy, and he had that . . . you know . . . )
But now there's a new trend starting to appear. First Steve Troop brought Melonpool back after ending it. Now apparently David Willis has decided that It's Walky! isn't quite so over. While his new/old comic Roomies! runs during the week, he is running new IW! pages on Saturdays when he meets his fundraising goals.
Now if we can just get a few other cartoonists to brush the dust off their strips . . .
February 22, 2005
"WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS/ TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS/ WE'RE SO GLAD YOU COULD ATTEND/ COME INSIDE, COME INSIDE . . . "
I'd like to take a moment to welcome readers coming here from two sources:
First is a well-done Web comic called PC Weenies by Krishna Sadasivam. Go check it out (after you're done here, of course)!
The second is Dodo the Great, who lives in the Netherlands and keeps a blog here. Dodo was kind enough to link to this site (can't imagine why . . . )
(For future reference, anyone who wants to put up a link is welcome to do so. You don't need to ask, though I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know so I can acknowledge it!)
So welcome all, and pardon the uncharacteristic strangeness above. Once the fallout from the Pushing of the Big Red Button settles, things will be getting back to some semblance of normalcy here. Or what typically passes for normalcy anyway.
(Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a certain Emerson, Lake and Palmer song stuck in my head . . . )
GET READY TO LAUGH YOUR HEAD OFF!
(That ought to be a new experience for you regular readers!)
Seriously, I recently had the pleasure of discovering Phil Cho's Web comic Skinny Panda. Good, funny, simple, and barking crazy nicely eccentric. I highly recommend it.
March 7, 2005
PRESENTING THE NEW, IMPROVED WAY OF THE DODO!
And here it is -- the new look I've been building up to! I'm redesigning all the characters and changing the entire look of the strip. I'm also switching graphics programs. Corel Presentations was a good tool for learning to work with vector graphics, but doing a Web comic pushes it to (occasionally beyond) its limitations.
I'm still getting the hang of working with Illustrator. So I can't promise that updates won't become sporadic in the near future. (Nor that there won't be further changes as time goes by.)
Actually, I was hoping to do this a lot earlier than I actually did. I kept pushing the transition back further and further until finally I said, "No more. I'm running the transition sequence whether or not I'm ready."
(And yes, I'll admit that the three psychedelic-void strips were to stall for time as much as to clarify what had just happened. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to put the strip on hold at all, but there you go.)
March 19, 2005
@%$#!!
UPDATE: I'm in better shape than I thought, it turns out. I did find a couple of other Illustrator files that contained usable or nearly-usable versions of some of the characters. I've still got plenty to do before I can resume cranking out strips, though.
Having just spent a sizeable chunk of Wednesday tweaking the character designs and finishing the next strip, I decided I'd better back up my files. Unfortunately, I had me a massive case of the Stupids, and before I knew it I'd deleted the folder containing all my Illustrator files for Dodo -- and the backups. The strip template, the characters, the original artwork for these recent strips -- all gone.
I've got to completely start over. So there aren't going to be any new strips for a while. Although frankly, between this and Keenspace's recent server troubles, I'm not sure it's worth it.
I'm severely ticked off right now, and of course I've got no one to blame but myself.
March 23, 2005
THOSE MOLLUSC-HAT DAYS ARE BACK AGAIN!
If you enjoyed the work of cartoonist Charles Addams (Yes, the same guy who inspired the 1960s "Addams Family" sitcom), you should check out The Grimbles. The strip fell by the wayside for a while, but now it looks like it's back.