For longtime commenters, as well as new ones, the comments appear to be back. So if you see anything you feel like talking about, please feel free.
A lot of the big changes are on the backside. The website should definitely run a lot faster and be able to handle a lot more traffic.
Still need to add a little bit of windowdressing, particularly to the top, but pretty much this is the way the website is going to look like from now on. Hope you like it. It’s certainly a lot cleaner. If you have any suggestions or serious complaints, please post your comments in this thread.
Once again thanks to everybody for donating to help make this possible. It should be a big improvement in a lot of ways.
14 Comments.
But Ted, surely that is what is meant by democracy in the best of all possible worlds – a choice every four years or so between a figure fronting for the far right and one fronting for the even further right ?…
No wonder this model is taken to be universal, which all countries which want to be considered within the pale must follow !…
Henri
Damn! I’m not first! Curse you, mhenriday.
looks good. 🙂
I hate it, I demand that you return us to the old rall.com or the internet gets shut down!
Ha, Aggie, best timed comment ever!
The scrollbar at the end is so thick that it makes it difficult to know you’re at the bottom of the screen. It also makes it harder to get to the bottom of the comments and read up without extra finagling. The autoscroll movement is annoying, and it bugs me on other sites when I see it.* You have to push product and all that, but it’s not the best solution.
The site’s brightness is probably a good thing, though I found the cooler, darker colors of the past version preferable. If I were good at graphic design, I’d give you a clever suggestion about how to keep the smooth, clean impression that lots of white space gives while dialing down the intensity of the entire presentation below the nuclear fusion in the heart of a motherfucking star. But I’m not good at graphic design, so no such suggestion is forthcoming.
All that said, this is an objective improvement. Allowing for scrolling between recent comics is a Good Thing.
*Would it bother me as much if the transition was a dissolve/fade instead of a scroll? I wonder.
Much faster
I think this is a good first step toward making lots of money. The website is the base of operations for you, and having it load fast, look good, and be useful to visitors is important.
I used to cringe over some of the “internet is destroying the economy” essays because the old site was a major obstacle (in my view) in your way. It could take 30 seconds or more to begin loading, which must have causing lower traffic than deserved.
It was hard to find a way to contact you with the old design. I really like your page that lays out all the ways people can hire you. I think that’s going to answer a lot of questions and lead to new work.
And, it’s good to see that your TedStarter campaign to raise money for the new site paid off. It’s not $30k for a book, but you have a nice new virtual home because of your fans. You connected, provided a reason to buy in, and it paid off.
Anyhow, congratulations. New sites continue to evolve. You have a great place for the next phase of Rallness.
(Did you design your handwritten font? How did that go?)
Thanks, although I hate to do it, and I’m trying not to wallow in crass commercialism, a major goal of the website is to try to generate direct revenue from readers who like my work. Unfortunately, unless I get hired by some new outfit like the journalism venture being started by Glenn Greenwald, it’s going to be up to readers to decide whether or not my career goes on.
The font that is on the website being used in the headers is not something that I designed, but something provided by the hosting service.
I do have my own font, which I created using a website called fontifier.com. It was incredibly cheap and although not that easy certainly more economical than spending $400 to a font designer.
Increase the size of the blue (“Comic”?) title font (which becomes red when a specific article page is opened.)
Somehow it doesn’t stand out from the text that follows.
Don’t know if its the font type or color or both?
Ads all over the place, scrolling promotions, stock white background, etc … what’s to like?
In seriousness, I like the new site, it’s ‘cleaner’ looking, easier on the eyes, faster. I agree with Falco that increasing size of the blue cartoon block at the top might look nice, but it’s minor.
Please put Petraeus with lipstick stains on the character portrait title header!!!
Speaking of characters on the header, I’d love to see that crazy guy with the martini glass toasting the government from your 5-17-13 cartoon. But really, where are Generalissimo El Busho and Edward Snowden? 🙁 I like that you have a grunt and a Syrian up there though!
I like some of the new features and miss the darker colors too but it is nothing I won’t get used to. Well done on the transition!