Archives 2013

UPDATE: I’ve moved most of my former Pair-hosted sites to Media Temple and I’m also managing a client’s hosting there as well. I’m pretty happy with MT overall for managed-hosting needs. Agghosting and its clients is running on its own server over at Linode and I’m super happy with this [unmanaged] machine.

I recently had to abandon ship from my preferred hosting company of some 12+ years, Pair Networks. Seriously. I once loved them and recommended them left and right. The falling apart started, I now recognize, once I moved from my old and no longer offered plan to their new shared hosting. It was fine for a while. I didn’t host everything there — this blog, for instance, isn’t — but a handful of sites for which speed mattered to me (and some I moved when space became an issue, prior to the move to the ‘new’ system) were there.

Now they’re at Media Temple and they’re fast and reliable again. And the price is the same. I just feel sad that Pair let me down. Like an old friend who suddenly snubs you. I was planning to move Ruining It for Everyone there, but the performance failures made that untenable. It’s still at Dreamhost which was meant to be temporary (and is still more reliable and faster than my Pair account had become). I’ll move it to Media Temple soon, too.

But back to my Pair problem… Sorry. This is long and I didn’t originally intend to spew all this, but it’s happening now so just hang in there…

Read More

Kickstarter projects I’m supporting (and maybe you will too). =)
I’m excited that some of these are local projects (Stompy, Brattle, Hexy and Modkit)

Active

Funded or Ended

Read More

I made some default comic page settings for myself in Manga Studio, so I thought I’d share the settings here so you can make your own.

Caveat: Bear in mind that the page dimensions are equal to the trim size, not the paper size. So, your bleed line is the edge of the [virtual] page. Register Mark = Margin Area and Basic Frame = Live Area. So, again, full bleed means fill the page completely. You could make them to paper dimensions if you wanted, but I didn’t see the point in it as that would make the printable area too large to print on the intended paper size. I hope that makes sense.

The first is the modern US comic page just as if you bought some blue-lined boards (see below for older page size). I triple-checked this using some blue-line (EonProd and BlueLinePro)… and then Manga Studio rounded up (If this really bugs you, convert to millimeters). I’m going to just live with it. The ‘exact’ dimensions in inches are: 10.5 x 15.875, 10 x 15.375, 9×14.875

Read More

Several years ago I illustrated a short piece written by my pal Liz Argall. It was a very simple B&W thing with very few words. I think it turned out OK. Well, today I ran across the files and decided to try out some digital brushes on my new tablet. So, here’s a blast from the past and a little surprise for Liz.

(click to enlarge)

Because of this

this now exists. I’m not saying it’s right… just that it exists.

Your desert pleasure barge ain’t truly pimped until you add some barge flaps. Show how hard you party and your love for space princesses, plus keep the dust from gettin’ all up in your grill while you entertain the peeps and maybe eliminate some pesky do-gooders.