Another Birthday

Howdy, Folks. My birthday is this weekend. This year, it's even a work holiday (called Sunday!) No need for gifts, I'm actually pretty good on moderately priced stuff. However, there is a traditional gift webcartoonists often ask for on special occasions and it's surprisingly affordable. It fact, it's free. Tell one person about my website. Give them the URL if you can. Did my birthday pass you by already? It's okay, you can still tell a friend about the site any time. See, with web stuff, word of mouth is really powerful. Internet sites and businesses often build their audience one member at a time. If people don't pass them along, they have a hard time growing. Networking, comic lists, even paid advertisements can't stack up to a recommendation from a trusted friend.

So spread the word and thanks in advance.

And Happy Birthday to you too (whenever your birthday is.)

-Marj

The Great Lepus Blackout

Welcome back everyone. If any of you tried to visit us late last week, you may have noticed something funny. The site didn’t exist for a few days. Thanks to a server glitch, we were down on Wednesday afternoon, all day Thursday, all day Friday, and Saturday morning (with a few flickers on Saturday evening and Sunday evening).
This was not the result of anything I had done wrong. The blame rests with my host server. For those of you who are unfamiliar with how the internet operates, a website is just a collection of files contained in a folder or a set of folders. These files are written in a code that your web browser translates and displays. In order for web browsers to access these files, the folders have to be kept on a computer that is turned on and connected 24 hours a day. These computers are called servers. It’s too expensive and inefficient for each website owner to own and operate their own server, so we rent space on a server that is owned by a hosting company.
So last week, my server crashed and needed to be rebuilt and reloaded. There is never a good time for something like this to happen, but last week was especially lousy for a couple of reasons:
1.) I’ve recently started buying advertising. Now, new readers who have only just found Lepus Studios from my new ads are going to wonder if my site is unreliable.
2.) I’ve recently started selling advertising. I had to suspend all the ads I was selling until the matter was resolved. As a result, I’ve sort of had to start over with my sponsors. My web ads are not commanding the prices they used to. Last week, I was earning 3 to 5 cents per ad each day. Now I’m back to 0 to 2 cents. It’s a sad day when you need to work your way back up to 5 cents.
3.) I was invited to draw another guest comic for the SuperFogeys. (This time, it’s for their fifth anniversary celebration. Twelve different artists are each drawing a wacky chapter summary. Here’s my contribution: http://superfogeys.webcomicsonline.com/2011/09/26/chapter-3-the-techno-shuffle-recap-by-marjorie-rishel/) When people read guest comics that they like, they often want to visit the guest artist’s site. If my site isn’t working, I could miss my chance to draw in new readers. Luckily, the site repairs were finished on time for my part of the event, but it was a close shave.
4.) Did anyone read the latest Urban Underbrush? That week’s comic brought us to a fairly important point in the story where I spelled out some fairly important character information. (I got to draw people making out). I would rather people not have missed that.
I’m not too angry at my hosts over the server crash. I understand that accidents like this are unavoidable (Murphy’s law and all that). I am a little annoyed by the way they handled it. They did not notify any of their customers about the crash and have yet to make an effort to compensate us for the time we lost (time that we paid for.) My server contract runs out in March. Unless these guys do something to really impress me in the next five months, I’m backing my bags and heading for greener pastures and bluer waters
-Marj

Website Make Over

Well, we've had the old Lepus Site for a year now, and it's time for some changes. I've kept most of the old design, but I tried to get rid of some of the clutter.

I suspected that the site needed an overhaul when I added Draconis Wicked to the mix. Right from the beginning, I had always expected to add Draconis Wicked to the existing site. When Draconis finally joined us, I thought it would be like adding a second story to an existing house. It was more like suspending a brick from a sculpture made from wire. It can be done, but it should be done carefully or everything collapses under it's own weight.

So here's a breakdown of our new features:
1.) The Home Page is now a hub for the site's most important features.
2.) The Draconis Wicked page is now a mini home page for all things Draconis and the Urban Underbrush page does the same for the Urban Underbrush comics.
3.) The Blog is no longer stuck to the comics. I now write the blogs on Google's Blogger and run them to the site via Feedburner. Older posts should be stored on Blogger, including all past blogs. (I moved them to blogger last week. It took too long.)

Other things may have moved around or changed color or something, but I think you'll be able to find everything. If you spot any flaws or broken links, feel free to email me or leave a message on Facebook.

This seemed like the perfect time to kick up the site a little because this is one of those rare times when both Urban Underbrush and Draconis Wicked are starting new chapters at the same time. We'll be meeting some new characters and following new adventures and there will be some shifts in the current dynamics. I hope you'll follow long.

Enjoy.

-Marj

Lepus Studios

Webcomics Community

(Originally posted Aug. 25, 2011)

I love this website. Working on the comics and site makes me happy and keeps me sane. In spite of this passion, Lepus Studios has not been a huge presence on the web. Lately, I’ve been playing at networking and marketing. I’ve joined some artist groups for fun and profit. I’ve got some outside work (I’ll give you more details as they become relevant). And I’ve created a new batch of advertisements.

Want to get in on the action? You can help grow the comics by continuing to visit the site and by recommending the comics to other people. Word-of-mouth goes a long way for website, especially comic sites. If you want to get more involved, you can join our community on Facebook (while you’re at it, why not join our “cousin site’s” Facebook fan page as well? If you like Draconis Wicked, you’ll probably like Wave Tyrant too.) And don't be shy about commenting on posts or voting in polls. That kind of thing improves our standing on Facebook.

Thanks for reading.

-Marj

P.S. Hey, comics fans! Here's another project that deserves your support more than I do (for now). I'm super excited about this. Watch the video (it's fascinating) and see what you can do.

We're Changing the Schedule

(Originally posted Feb. 4, 2011)

The Short Version:

Starting next week, Urban Underbrush will update on Thursdays. Our next comic will be posted on February 10.

The Long Version:

Like most webcartoonists, I am on an eternal quest to find more readers. So I was reading some articles on webcomics.com and happened to stumble over an old forum discussion on the best days to post new work. The webcomics experts suggested that Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are usually the worst days to update because less people are surfing the web on weekends.

I took a quick survey on the Lepus Studios Facebook page to see what the fans thought about my update schedule. Most people didn’t think I needed to change the schedule, but they didn’t seem devoted to the current schedule either. Of course, the folks who commented on Facebook are already committed fans. Things that keep their attention might not be the best for capturing new readers' attention.

So how can I be more available to new readers while still being fair to the faithful followers? Switching to Thursdays seems like the best compromise. It’s only one day earlier, so Friday readers won’t miss anything, and it’s more accessible to the Monday through Thursday crowd.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the Facebook survey. Your feedback is important to me.

See you next week on our new day.

-Marj

P.S. Not only is today our last Friday update, it’s also my sister’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Liz.

Hey, How 'Ya Doing?

(Originally posted Nov. 19, 2010)

Comics

Technology

Recently, I've had some nice websites link to me (always awesome) so chances are good that I have some new readers this week. If you are new, you have picked an excellent time to join us (you lucky devil). We are two comic strips into an awesome new story that is going to explain a lot about how this world works.

New and old readers, don't forget to visit the Lepus Studios Facebook Page. I try to post some fun stuff there, so please join in if you can. It's always nice to have more friends.

-Marj

New Site Design

(Originally posted Aug. 27, 2010)

The new site is up, as promised. I think the new design is easier to use, makes better use of space, and is easier on the eyes. What do you think?

I think the old design was trying to be more like this one. I always wanted the theme to be "earth touches sky." I just didn't know how to make it work yet. A friend of mine suggested that I should take a more literal approach to the concept but I was not quite sure of how to do this. Three weeks ago, I finally had a good idea for how to make the theme work. I did some concept drawings, made some new images in Photoshop, and began moving data around. I was sure everything new would be up and running by August 13, but then something happened. What is the best and worst thing that can happen when you are making steady progress on a good idea? You come up with a better idea. Parts of this new design started coming into my head and I knew I had to start over, even if that meant delaying the site's upgrades. The toughest part was working on the new templates, then having to check back on my old site, which would still be online until I could finish adapting all the old pages for the new style. My old site looked awful. Every mistake stood out like a zit on prom night. In the words of Stephen Colbert "how could we stand to look at that beast?" This is not to say that I always hated my old site. I just always knew that it could have been better somehow. I think I now have a design that accurately reflects my work and my artistic style. I hope to keep this design around for a while. Maybe forever. Maybe until I get a better idea. (My thanks to Matt and Chris, who gave some valuable suggestions.)

As you may have noticed, I have also drawn up some icons to tag my blogs. From now on, each blog will be accompanied by an image, which will let you know what topics it will address.

Here are some of the icons I will be using:

Comics

Noko Noko

Friends/ Family

Literature

Video Games

Music

World Events

Education

Nature

Movies

Technology

TV

Root Beer

There. I have most of the basics covered. See how nicely they brighten up the page?

So with my new designs, I have lived up to about half of the promises I made at the beginning of the month. Everything else is still coming together, but I am making more progress every day (or every other day. Every third day? At any rate, something's gettin' done.)

Stay Tuned.

-Marj

Odds and Ends

(Originally posted Aug. 13, 2010)

As you can see, I have not finished the new site design just yet. I didn't want to switch to the new site until I fixed all the little glitches. The new design looks pretty good, but some of the links are broken and the tables need to be resized and the backgrounds are inconsistent and there are big pieces of useless code left over and some of the Div sections are being held together by a paper clip. How did a paper clip get into my source code, which was completely authored on the computer and does not exist in any physical form? I don't know, but I'll be up all night fixing it. I'll be working bit by bit on the new design. In the meantime, pardon my dust.

This week, I finished one of my more exciting extra projects, an animated segment for the up-and-coming new opera "Evenings in Quarantine: The Zombie Opera" (Visit them). My piece is an animated instructional video on how survivors can protect themselves from infection. I don't want to give to much away, but I'll tell you that it ain't pretty. (Well, the animation is kind of pretty. It's probably the finest animated zombie I ever drew.) If you are in Pittsburgh this October, I strongly suggest that you make some time to go see that opera.

So I got a lot of things done and there's still a lot left to do. All in all, it's not a bad place to be.

-Marj

The Near Future

(Originally posted July 23, 2010)

Here we are at comic number 30. That's one comic a week for 30 weeks without ever missing an update. Yeah, it's not the most challenging schedule on the web, but I'm still pretty pleased with how it's turning out.

Back in January, I built this site from the ground up. But it hasn't changed much since. Sure, I've made a few small improvements over the last seven months, but nothing too dramatic. I want to add more content and features, but work and school are about all I can handle for now.

Usually, when people say "I'm too busy to do this now, I'll do it later" no one knows if they really mean it. Sometimes people genuinely are too busy to take on extra projects, other times they're waiting for some perfect moment in their lives that will probably never come. Sometimes they are lying to appear productive. I think the trick to getting things done is to plan for real, concrete moments instead of just waiting for your schedule to free up (schedules never free up) or for the time to feel right (geez, I sound like I'm giving dating advice - scary thought).

For example, I had been drafting this website for ages before I actually launched it. People would ask me if I was ever going to get it started. I told them that I would launch as soon as I had enough HTML background to build and maintain a proper site. I think several people believed that I was never going to finish it (you know you you are), but, two weeks after finished my first web design class, I went live as promised.

Now, I am setting some new concrete goals for myself: to make revisions before the end of August. Right now, the summer art class I am teaching is coming to a close. Then, I should finish graduate school at the end of the month. After that, I'm set to do a little freelance project for The Zombie Opera. That will still leave me with a good chunk of August set aside for building more website.

I can't tell you about everything I've planned, but here are some of the improvements I have in mind:

• New character desktops
• Standard icons and images to break up those large text areas
• An animation section
• Additions to the Art Gallery
• More behind-the-scenes comic notes
• More Noko Noko pictures (everyone loves Noko)

And...(saving the best for last)...news on the Draconis Wicked project.

All that and more, coming soon to an internet near you. Stay tuned.

-Marj

P.S. Hey, have you noticed how many web comics are taking a short hiatus for San Diego Comic Con? With so many of the good cartoonists gone, people will have no choice but to read my comic! I'm reaping all the benefits!