Book Six Behind the Scenes Page 01…
Hi all!
We’re almost done with the site update.
Please let me know if there’s any major glitches.
The script for the last 4 chapters is coming along really well.
Ending a story after 10 years is a daunting task. And I don’t want it to in any way disappoint.
I think I’ve got something that will be a nice ending.
Looks like we’re still on schedule for the beginning of the year.
That’s 5 weeks from now.
This will give me time to work on new assets…and tighten up the script.
It will also help me get ahead on my other projects (which are helping fund the last 4 chapters).
So it’s all good.
🙂
Thank you for being so patient.
Scott
I was thinking that the new font is annoying, but then I thought to myself, “At least it’s not Comic-Sans.” It fits the style of the site, just feels like I need to squint to read, is all.
I’m having a bit of a hard time with it too.
If anyone else can find a more suitable one here…please let me know.
http://www.google.com/webfonts
We’re currently using http://www.google.com/webfonts/specimen/MedievalSharp
I agree the new font is hard to read. But also: the blue font for links on top of the blue-ish grey background for comments (like your comment above, Scott) is extremely difficult. Not enough color contrast.
I don’t like the way it cuts off Alex and the Dwarf King on the sides of the page. :/ Alex’s head and half his torso is missing, and the Dwarf King’s face is completely missing. I’d suggest moving them around, to be honest.
Oldenburg is legible down to 9pt for me.
So long as Alex and Nastajia get to stay together and perhaps Dan is able to visit Dreamland as well, I think I’ll probably be happy with the ending.
Count me as another one who must squint to read the font.
I don’t have a better suggestion, tho if you really like this one, perhaps making it a touch bigger would make it more readable, I really don’t know.
I like the new layout and design, tho I think it would be nice to see the Dwarf King too. Seems cut off.
Hope your family had a great Thanksgiving and getting ready for an awesome winter!
Cheers mate!
~Demitri
It is nice enough. But I have to zoom to see the page decently. It seems… squished from the size the pages used to be.
Also, the background texture for the blog and comments is pretty, but with the size of the font on top of the texture, it is making it difficult to read without zooming the page at least one click if not two. I am seeing links as red font and that’s even harder. Maybe a bolded font might be useful for the black? It might help for the links, too, or just having a flat background where the text is and leave the texture for between.
The problem with zooming in, is it pushes out even more of the background graphic, which is rather sad. I miss the day/night cityscape one. Also, because the background is pretty much using the same modeling as the pages, I can see that they may start conflicting with each other for drawing the eye. It might need a thicker border to separate it from the background image.
In terms of fonts, I’d suggest:-
Metamorphous (http://www.google.com/webfonts/specimen/Metamorphous)
or
Eagle Lake (http://www.google.com/webfonts/specimen/Eagle+Lake)
Both of those were pretty legible to me. The problem with the background I imagine is that it was designed with proper widescreens in mind (I’m guessing above 17″) which results in folks like me (with my humble 15″ laptop screen) getting the it cut off. But if he pulls Alex & Bognak in closer, bigger monitors would probably end up with a noticeable void at the edges – not sure how it would affect the aesthetics.
Given the font size, I’d probably go with the mouse-over blue for the links, or something else in that tone, given the darker background – It stands out better
Hi, Scott, I think there are some things in the website that could improve:
1) As already said, the background is built for 16:9 screens or for people that use the browser maximized. Or for tablet/smartphone viewings. But all who reads it on a 5:4 or 4:3 screen or just doesn’t like to maximize the browser window, lacks the full picture.
2) Font is nice but hardly readable. Still I have no further suggestions ’cause it’s bit of a let down to browse all the fonts Google expose in its webfonts gallery.
3) Colours are not completely matched or well-contrasted sometimes: ie, the blue of links on darker backgrounds makes you squinting your eyes.
Nothing too much to worry, I think, but this is to just let you know.
Wow! What this font style you’re using? Looks nice. 🙂
New font needs to be about 2 size larger. Hard to read.
Look forward to reading conclusion of story. Glad you have made it this far. Disappointing how often web comic artist stop a project and do not finish their story. Yoo HOO to you and your team for sticking through to the end.
Thank you all!
I think we’ll first try enlarging the font. Then…we’ll try another.
As for the background…
My intention is that it should be just Nastajia and Nicodemus for most (it works great on my ipad). But for those in a widescreen format (like myself and many others) you can see Alex and Bognok.
Kind of like a little extra for those with wider screens.
🙂
I love that Kiwi’s on the page now! 🙂 I agree with the other posts about the font being troublesome. I did a quick browse of Google’s web fonts, and I liked Medieval Sharp, but it definitely needs to be bigger to be legible (it starts getting easier for me to read at 16 pt). Uncial Antiqua could work at 13 pt size…Macondo also looks kind of neat, but it would probably need to be at least 14 pt…
I feel as though I’m the only one here who can read the font…
I also see Alex and Bognok, but only a third of them (I actually didn’t know who it was until you mentioned it)
Hey Scott,
Long time reader, love this comic. 🙂
First time commenter and I have few sugestions for the new look:
The comments font, try to increase the size up to 15px, if you’re using this font.
and the background, how about something like:
#page-wrap {background-attachment: fixed;
background-image: url("images/page-wrap.jpg");
background-position: 50% 0;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-size: 100% auto;
}
to make it more friendly to all screens, whatever their dimension…
Just tyrying to help. 😉
Take care. 🙂
Agreed. Marko One and Eagle Lake are others that I find legible down to 9pt that might fit the bill, depending on how they fit the background.
Also, I agree that the shade of blue for the links is a bit difficult; I think it would work better if it were darker. I also concur with Psycotic Pink that it seems very strange to cut off Alex and the Dwarf King without at least being able to see their face, especially since Alex is the main character.
Playing with font sizes in firebug, comment-text>font-size starts to get easier to read at 16px, but (at least for my eyes) 20px is really the smallest size that is most readable.
I think it depends on the size of your monitor. I can only see Nastajia and Nicodemous as well. But if I pull the window across both of my monitors, then I can see everyone. So…without a larger screen, you won’t be able to see the other characters.
Yes! Kiwi! 🙂
That makes sense, but I’m using a wide screen monitor and am not getting their faces.
Meh. I’ve got enough trouble reading fonts with no serifs and other stuff. This font is just eye-wrenching. :/ It’s just not accessible for me this way. Said already, some plain font like helvetica or tahoma just does the trick of making it readable. There ain no friggin’ necessity to distract from awesome content with a half-assed gothic font. Might as well try cyrillic or short-hand. *grumble*
I don’t want to come along cross or grumpy, so please be so kind as to accept my apologies for gruffyness, being edgy and not in the wake of the “oooo-mi-gosh, how woooondafuul”-wave. ^^
apart from the font issue: I do understand how you feel. This is a bereavement, this letting go of a inner world full of life and inspiration. I’ve written several stories and one big book – took me about seven years to finish, that one. So, yes, I know the situation.
as for fonts: Open Sans or Adamina seem good choices for me. Form follers function and the eyes don’t get wrenched out. ^^
The background is ideally sized for someone with a 1920×1080 (or taller) monitor, since it is 1920 pixels wide. I happen to have such a monitor on my 15″ laptop so I’m fine, but a good deal of people have 1280×720 or similar resolutions. I guess it’s ok, but perhaps a more ideal background would be one that dynamically resizes.
Take this arbitrary website for example: http://guysfromandromeda.com/svrewards/
Its background image is actually smaller than my monitor, but it resizes when the page fully loads and when I change my window size.
Then again, a dynamically sizing background might not work so well with this background image because shrinking it as is would cause Nastajia and Nic to end up being behind the page content… It could be done if you split it up and resized and aligned each side separately though.
Ryan Sohmer and Lar Desouza? Aren’t they from LFG and LICD? Huh…
WEll, anyways. I can’t wait until the next page!