Simple, Sweet
Lately I’ve been thinking about webcomics sites, specifically how they’re being hosted. What’s really caught my eye are the very basic, DIY kinds of hosting. Of these, I’ve of late been transfixed with webcomics that are available through Livejournal (or those to which I’ve been introduced through Livejournal). Many webcomics have RSS feeds, so updates and new comics and such appear more or less automatically. I’m a major fan of this technology, in part because I have a job which requires me to be online a fair amount as it is (which means when I’m home getting online’s less attractive as an option).
And there’s always the question of remembering to click; there’s a small handful of webcomics that I click to on a daily basis, but it’s becoming more and more common for me to just get them through my friends page if they aren’t ones I read regularly (and some of those are ones I read regularly because they pop up over there). In my defense, I’m getting settled at the new place: I can’t find my flash drive and I’m still painting over the paneling. It’s all making me a little crazy–I’m really ready to be done with it all–and has caused me to space out a bit on important things (for starters, I’ll be at MoCCA later this month; stop by the Trees and Hills table…!)
So things like “simple” and “sweet” are even more so given the state of disrepair, boxes, and so forth in my immediate surroundings. Lately I’ve been really into the totally compelling Normal Life by Natasha Allegri. This site was one of those suggested way back in the beginning when I first started posting here, and it was one I’d always meant to name-check. When I first looked at it, I found that her color work was so breathtaking and her linework so crisp that I immediately wanted to try color work to see if I could capture some of that same emotion, the easy, evocative grace of her images. They remind me a little of Hope Larson‘s work and Leela Corman’s as well. It’s amazing stuff, and I feel like I ought to have mentioned it earlier. I’m not sure how much other work she has out there–or if it’s somewhere other than Livejournal–but what I’ve seen basically just makes me want to see more of her work. It’s gorgeous, and sweet, and straightforward in a way that’s, weirdly, exactly what I want to see.
One of my big gripes is with sites which provide an RSS feed containing text links to the daily comic strip.
I appreciate that they have a feed (quite a few sites don’t have one at all) but the difference between a feed with the image embedded and one with a link is night and day.
Especially for those of us who use aggregators, it’s a big waste of time opening up a new tab just to view the image.
LJ is more suited towards embedding the images, but some sites—especially those using WordPress and posting both comics and blogs—seem to default to a link containing the title of the comic. :(
By Nathan B. on 06.07.07 2:05 pm
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