I’ve just relaunched the BugPowder Weblog with a spangly new design. BugPowder, if you didn’t know, is the group blog I’ve been running with Jez since 2000 for the British small press and self-published comics community. I used to be a pretty active figure on that scene back in the 90s, reviewing things, publishing zines and running a mail order distro, but in recent years I’ve taken something of a back seat, retiring to the comfy chairs with my pipe and slippers while the next generation took over, and that’s how it’s supposed to be.
However, BugPowder (which evolved out of my distro) refused to join me in the old scenesters home and despite my best efforts kept jumping around me demanding attention like a caffeinated puppy. I tried to give it away but hit a major problem – anyone who is involved and enthused enough to run something like this will already have their own thing going on that takes up all their energies. Back in the day when I started growing my little empire I had no interest in taking over someone else’s setup – I wanted to develop my own.
The obvious answer is to just mothball the whole thing and let it die, but as far as I can tell there isn’t really anything like BugPowder out there, at least in weblog form. And most frustratingly whenever I go to some small press comics event at least one person will gush to me about how BugPowder introduced them to the scene and how essential the site is for them. So if I can’t kill it then it might as well live a good life.
Since I don’t have the time or inclination to run BugPowder as a full-on comics resource (like, for example, Tom Spurgeon’s excellent Comics Reporter), and since there’s plenty of activity going on scattered around the web (as opposed to when BugPowder started in 2000 and hardly anyone had their own site), the best solution I can see is to rejig BugPowder as more of a linklog with quick and, most importantly, easy to post pointers to what’s going on. An aggregator of activity, if you like. We’ll see if it works.
And, of course, since it’s now a lot more streamlined it’s much easier for those involved in the community to post to it without detracting from their personal projects. Get in touch if you’d like to join or collar me at Caption this weekend.
I hope you think it looks nice That background image will be replaced soon by something that actually looks like piles of comics rather than an indistinct red smudge and do let me know if you think the hover-for-legibility sidebar is a really bad idea (doesn’t work in IE). If you’re interested in the more techy design aspects, the permalink structure now goes to Daily archives with Monthly as a secondary option while the RSS feed comes in daily chunks. Do let me know if anything is broken.
The link goes to the old Bugpowder site.
Yeah, same site – new design. Redesigned. Not moved.
Um…
What I meant was that when you followed the link you went to the old site with the old design, not the new site that you got when you searched on Google.
Now, when you follow the link you get the new design.
Oh, f**k it. Life’s too short…
Ah, you wanted to do a Refresh/Reload of your browser there. Rule of thumb – if you’re not seeing what you think you should be seeing, refresh just in case.
Cheers for that. Didn’t know that. Am a bit of a luddite/technophobe.
My bad.
Mea culpa.
If you’re interested, here’s how it works.
In order to speed things up the browser will usually keep a copy of any images and the CSS file (which says how the page should be displayed). That way when you next load the page it only has to grab the raw HTML. Sometimes it doesn’t even do that (due to slightly more complex ways of checking if the page has changed).
For example, I have an photo of a dog on my site called “image.jpg”. You load that page and the image is stored on your computer. I then change that image to a photo of a cat but don’t change the filename. The next time you come to the page you’ll still see the dog unless you force the browser to go and get a fresh copy of every element.
And that’s how it works. Well, a small part of how it works.
Looks great though Pete. Cheers for the plug too.
Yep, really looks the biz, Pete. I particularly like the faded greys and reds. I’m almost inclined to post!
I don’t the logo Pete. It looks really clinical and not like it’s about comics at all but scart leads or something. I was thinking, that seeing as how it’s about Brit small press, why not get a bunch of British cartoonists to each do a cartoon-y Bugpowder banner for you, and swap ‘em around sporadically. I’d love to see a Jeremy Dennis ‘Bugpowder’ typeface for September. And a Mooncat in June!
Hmm, the logo was supposed to evoke the spirit of zines, all typewriter and that. I guess it doesn’t. Neat idea for getting cartoonists to do them. I’ve been wanting to have some kind of comicy thing on there…
Yeah! Cartoonists draw banners! You know how much I’ve been yearning to make Bugpowder all pretty. Talking of typewriters I was reading about the Dr Seuss dictionary and the review said that it was really cute despite the archaic vocabulary such as ‘typewriter’. The word typewriter is archaic! Futeure generations of kids will never recieve Fisher Price cruddy typewriter as christmas presents. That seems so sad somehow.
Apologies for being my usual contrary self, but I really like the typewriter logo. I know you’re probably all at caption redesigning it as I speak, but it does lend it a nice professional clean look, and I do think it evokes the spirit of zines as intended. Another cartoonist person I spoke to yesterday also mentioned how much he liked the new look too.
Hey Mardou, I keep meaning to tell you; you’re weblinks for your name on bugpowder and TRS2 never seem to work, so there might be a bit of a problem there somewhere!
Like the faster updating, I’ll be checking it more often. Also think farming out the work is a good idea. I would recommend posting images whenever possible, something that may not work with the linklog concept.
I’ve been encouraging image/word contributions to comicslifestyle.com but the majority of its focus is on cartoonists who are not net-active. So I sometimes get one or two meg attachments, that I have to download here in Cambodia over a relatively slow connection. Argh. Thank gawd for Flickr.
Maybe work some way to post via email with attachments? (And encourage them to optimize).
I like it. Sorry I haven’t been up to much cop in updating lately, I got into wiki quite heavily the last few months.
Heh, Steve illustrates my troubles with BugPowder – he got hooked on the concept and now has his own fish to fry. It’s all good but rather frustrating. Still, I seem to be posting fairly well at the moment so it’s no biggy.
Logo: I’m going to go with Mardou’s cartoonist’s logos BUT I’m going to include at least one ziney-typewriter one. Currently working on a way to switch them over on a daily basis, so we’re going to need at least 30 of the things!