News, Rants, and Other Stuff

Hi everyone! I’m very impressed if you found this page just by browsing online.

Welcome to ComicStripFan.com. It’s a humble attempt by me to share with all of you the beautiful world of art known as comic strips. Well, there is actually a little more art than that, but that’s the focus of my collection. You can read more about my “vision” by clicking on the “About” button above.

I know the site isn’t the prettiest. There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles, and the layout leaves a lot to be desired. But hey, I know nothing about html, nor about web page design. What I do know is that I love comic strips, and I hope to eventually get that across to everyone through this site. This site will grow, constantly evolve, while I learn more about web design and as I further my research with the strips. As my collection grows, so will the site. I want everyone to know the joy that is comic strip art. All the different styles, the beautiful linework, the writing, everything. I hope you get as much joy seeing all the different pieces as I do.

A lot of people read the paper, see the comics, get a laugh here or there, and then toss it away. Some will browse the web, click on a link, read a comic or two, and then move on. People often criticize the comics, stating “That strip wasn’t even funny.” “I don’t get it.” “What a waste of time.”

But realize this: each piece is unique, one of a kind, a work of art done painstakingly by hand. Much like a painter with canvas, or a sculptor with stone, these artists create individual masterpieces with paper (or a computer), many of them on a daily basis. Writing, penciling, inking, sometimes coloring. All of these steps to create a single strip.

Even if people cannot understand my passion for comic strips, my goal is to hopefully instill in everyone at least a deeper respect and appreciation for it. This is my plan. This is my mission.
The journey begins now.

~ E

PS Oh, please sign my guestbook before you leave! I know it’s ugly, but I’m still learning!

Well, my humble little site is generating a little bit of activity, thanks to links from a couple of cool comic creators out there (well, Jamie is cool anyway; DJ, you’re just plain retarded…heh). Thanks for visiting, Clan of the Cats and Yirmumah! fans out there! Realistically, I think those are the ONLY ways people are finding this site, as I haven’t even made an attempt to list it on any engines yet. How’d you folks like the pages I did of their art? I know it’s not the prettiest, but at least you can see the art…

So as you can see, this is my lame attempt at doing an update. Just typing on my home page. Seeing DJ’s blog I figured I’d try WordPress, but I’m so friggin’ clueless that I don’t know how to set it up on my page. I figure once I get the blog up, I can run updates on the site in it. At least that way people will know when I’ve got new art posted (I’m still updating the Humorama gallery, for example). If anybody has the slightest clue on how to help an html-and-web-design-challenged person, for the love of God help me! As listed on the contact page, my email is thefan (at) comicstripfan.com.

Another question: anybody willing to do a new logo for me? Well, not just new, ANY logo. That Comic Sans MS title at the top of my site just ain’t cutting it.

Oh, and please sign in the guestbook, folks! It’ll be nice to see feedback from the visitors to the site, and if nothing else at least to see that my struggles to create a site are not in vain. (And check out who signed it so far! All web comic creators! Woo hoo! Thanks, guys! Oops, and girl! Starline, I’ll be making a page for Candi soon! Be sure to visit all of their pages! There are links to all of them on my links page)

DJ Coffman is the man, folks. He taught me how to get this blog up and running on my website. So I take back my statement about him being retarded.

Anyway, I still don’t know how to change the font, so bear with me. This one is definitely hard to read, and I hope to be able to change it soon. Bah.

Well, I figured out how to change the font. Manually, anyway. We’ll see how replies or comments (if any) will appear.

So, I went ahead and inputted the earlier rants that I had on the page. Figured I should have it all in the blog, since it is a bunch of babbling. I think the first post that I did will be the ComicStripFan.com manifesto. Ha!

I finished doing the bulk of the Humorama art that I have. I now only have three large painted pieces to do and I’ll be done.

Oh, I got a couple of Idiot Box originals in the mail today from Matt Bors. They’ll be posted on the Idiot Box page shortly. There are also some handwritten descriptions from him about each strip of his that I have; I’ll be posting that as well; it’s really cool. Should be done within a couple hours. I’m gonna eat dinner first tho.

Hey DJ, this bloggy-thing is cool! Much easier than just typing messages directly on my homepage!

Well, my friend DJ came through again. I was whining to him about how this blog thing was so hard to change and customize, and he emails me a bunch of info on how to do it. So here’s the revamped look to my bloggy blog. Thanks as always, DJ!

Of course, there is no way in hell that I could have designed this look. This style is a template I got off of alexking.org, an excellent resource for WordPress users. Amazing what people with talent can do, huh? Sure wish I had some.

Okay, I finished updating a few pages. The two new Idiot Box original strips from Matt Bors have been added to the Idiot Box page, as well as his descriptions for each strip. In the newspaper section, I added the “Little Annie Rooney” page and did an update on the “Carnival” page. Also, in Humorama I added a few large (15″x19″!) art pieces under the “Unknown” category.

If you’re browsing through and you notice a “Coming Soon” in place of the art, it’s because I’m waiting for it to get here. As soon as I take pics of them the page will be updated.

I’m also going to start adding strip histories soon, especially for the newspaper strips. I’m thinking of only having maybe a paragraph of info on each strip, basically giving a very brief description. Any thoughts on that? Should I go more in depth?

Hi all. As you can see, I’m continually doing little tweaks and changes to my site. This time, I figured I’d better put my “ComicStripFan.com manifesto” above my blog, just so people know what the site is about. It’s basically taken directly out of my first blog entry.

Welcome, Penny & Aggie fans! I see that T linked the site via the P&A forum. You’ve GOT to see the P&A art (as well as the Cool Cat Studio art). Actually, everyone should see ALL the art.

Speaking of Penny & Aggie, I just did one more tweak; I added T Campbell’s name to the top of the P&A page in addition to Gisele’s. Sorry for the oversight, T. Oh, and Gisele, thanks for signing the guestbook! Everyone, please follow her example!

Oh, a question. I’m using Firefox as my web browser, and the page looks fine. However, when I tried going to my site via IE, the layout of my blog is a little messed up. Is this happening to anyone else out there?

Well, back to tweaking… (and back to the Minnesota/Philadelphia game)

Thanks to Mr. George Hagenauer, a great “art guy”, I’ve been able to remove one newspaper strip from the “Unknown” page. It’s “Mary Worth’s Family”, and it now has its own page. Thanks, George!

I’ve also been noticing the hit count for the site going up since Gisele linked my page on the Penny & Aggie homepage. Thanks for the support, Gisele! Welcome again, P&A fans!

Well, I STILL haven’t done much in the history department of the newspaper strips. Bleh. I’m an idiot. (Actually, I still have Christmas decorations outside of my house that I didn’t put away yet! What the heck?! I’ll get it done today!) Thankfully, today is a holiday for me so I think my priorities will be 1) Put away the Christmas decorations (if it would stop raining!), and 2) Start doing some of the newspaper strip histories. A lot to do.

One more thing…what the heck happened to the Colts yesterday?! I think the Patriots have their number. I mean, how can you explain Manning doing so bad against a Patriots defense that is missing its starting corners? What?! Not that I don’t like the Patriots or anything, but I really wanted to see Manning do it this year. (Personally, I’m a Cowboys fan…ugh, I know, shut up with your laughing. I’ve been a fan of theirs my whole life)

Here’s my hopes for the Superbowl: Philly vs. Pittsburgh. I’m stuck on who to root for though. I’d like to see the Eagles win just for Andy Reed’s sake (sure as heck not for TO’s sake). However, it would be cool to see Pitt win just to have Big Ben have an undefeated season as a starter and as a rookie! How cool is that? Did you know that Ben has not lossed a game he’s started since…sheesh…forever? Amazing.

Just wanted to wish DJ Coffman of “Yirmumah!” a happy 29th birthday today! Everyone, go to www.yirmumah.net (or just go to my link page and hit the first link you see; it’s to his site) and wish him a good one. He’s a crazy and highly opinionated (is that how you spell it?) individual, and isn’t afraid to speak his mind. That sometimes rubs people the wrong way, but once you get to know him he’s really a nice guy. Tell him I sent you!

I guess his birthday present must have been that win by the Steelers, ’cause man that was a gift if I ever saw one. Oh well, I guess they (the Jets) won when the Chargers missed their field goal and they made theirs, so I guess it was only fair to have it happen to them.