by Joey Manley
Confused? So am I …
4:24 pm in Uncategorized by Joey Manley
We upgraded ComicSpace to the WordPress platform over the past week. Things didn’t go as smoothly as planned and/or expected, and we are still working on the migration.
Members: if you are wondering where your stuff has gone to, here’s the way it works: you now have your own ComicSpace website, which will be located at http://[username].comicspace.com/ — so, for example, user cactuscomics’ site is at http://cactuscomics.comicspace.com. We’re working on fixing the template (it seems to be cutting some comics in half right now) and other assorted weirdnesses — but yeah. That’s how it’s supposed to work. This homepage itself, by the way, will also change once everything is sorted out, providing an entry-point to the vastness of the community, instead of a simple blog.
I expect the tech team will have all the problems sorted out soon, and will keep you posted, here, on our progress! Thanks!
I’ve tried every which way to access my favorite comics by using the example above and substituing my user name, but nothing works.
If there is an unusual character like an underscore in the old username, such as my chris_dee, the new url as well as the log-in seems to be gorked. I’m sure this is one of many small wrinkles which are being ironed out.
We appreciate the effort to redesign the site and to update it to reflect easier and more stylish use. Can I point out something that may sound petty though? It’s something that bothered me most about the upgrade. More than the lengthy wait for the site to regain its feet. More even, than my web address suddenly changing the very month I finally got some advertising in a printed edition of Novo vol. 4 by the great and up and coming artist Michael Bracco.
It’s that under the only comic I currently have left in my profile, and I do understand you are still migrating the other files, it’s that someone at Comicspace chose to write “Just another ComicSpace site” as a default subtitle. Do you have any idea how insulting that sounds? That demonstrates a very poor choice for a default subtitle. As an artist, the last thing I want people to think when they see my work is “oh, it’s just another comicspace site.” or “just another” anything. Even if it happens to be true- there’s a complete disregard there for what it is your customers want, and it just came across as heavy handed, callous, and inept.
Don’t get me wrong, Comicspace is a great concept, and has been a wonderful free service to guys like us. The very fact that you admit there is a “vastness” to the community here means that only gradual changes to a course are possible for you now. Like it or not, you are a giant battleship and not a tiny rowboat. Rowboats can make dramatic changes in direction and speed without capsizing. Battleships, not so much. It’s my hope these dramatic changes to your battleship do not permanently sink Comicspace, because it’d be a damn shame.
That’s the default for everyone’s. You have to go in and customize the new features that weren’t there before. What would be there? They can’t ask everyone ahead of time. Just login and update your account.
It’s a wordpress default. They changed “wordpress” to “Comicspace” so it would be appropriate.
Please don’t take technology defaults as personal attacks. You will never survive the internet that way.
Randyl: the “just another” tagline is something built into WordPress. I agree that we could and should ahve changed that. My apologies.
Rosie: I have asked the tech team to look into the matter.
Joey, thanks for the reply. I appreciate your letting me vent a little, and it’s reassuring that no human being chose to write that. Apology accepted, and no hard feelings here. I’m glad the site is at least functional now… we’ve missed you guys.
Good luck with the changes. My comic unfortunately was one of them that was cut in half. I have over 1000 pages, and really don’t want to have to resize and reload them all. I’ve used WordPress before (it was powering the site that inexplicable stopped working before I moved to Comicspace), and if I remember right, I need to be able to get to the Styles sheet in order to override the standard page width. As currently configured though, I can’t access that feature.
Hope everything works out. Oh – as part of this upgrade, is there a page counter included? I have no idea how many people visit my page on here, and I’d really like to.
Thanks.
I’m not seeing my galleries at all, but I presume they will be restored at some point–will this change the direct links to the images as well?
I know you guys are working hard to get it all sorted out, so I hope to see everything up and running the way they’re supposed to soon!
Randy, your galleries should be within your blog at http://wcgcomics.comicspace.com is my understanding from what Josh is telling me. Is that not the case?
I had five galleries, only the first one of them appears to be in my blog.
It’s nice to see someone actually communicating to your users, finally.
In a fit of rage I deleted my account yesterday. I guess I’m headed over to Deviant art. Anybody have suggestions where we may be able to post up galleries and avoid all the blog crap…i’m still furious, hundreds of postings GONE, a great site reduced to crud,
irish46,
I would go back to DeviantArt, but I left them after they changed their T.O.S years ago. ComicSpace was a haven.
And I agree with you, it’s complete and utter garbage now.
Thanks for screwing up a good thing.
*bets her postings aren’t allowed since she’s speaking her mind and not saying nice things about the new site… which sucks so much ass that it has a donkey’s head sticking out of it’s mouth*
Joey, thanks for the direct reply.
Unless there’s a link I’m overlooking (and I’ve clicked on different links on the page), when you click on the link assigned to me that you reference in your post above, all I get is what looks like a blog of my bulletins and comments. But there are no galleries or images (I presume you can see what I’m seeing at http://wcgcomics.comicspace.com.) There’s an “About” link on the page, but nothing else.
When I had my info migrated to this format about a third of my galleries was moved. The rest is completely M.I.A.
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 26 bytes) in /storage/josh/comicspace.org/wp-includes/wp-db.php on line 130
This generally happens when the db gets too many queries in the db stored in memory, easily fixed by some mysql adjustments and some minor fixes in the *cough* theme you’re using.
I like the new design and I agree with Randy that the site designers are on the job to fix things. If not, I’m okay with rebuilding content again. In fact, I need to return to ComicSpace like I used to. I always liked the place.
I was planning to delete my account but since this is still a work in progress, I think I might leave it and come back in a few months to see if things have changed.
heres my views on the current comicspace:
-i cant just browse who has recently posted work
-all my work is gone and left with my worst illustrations
-there seems to be a lot of spam which is annoying
-i’ve got a blog already, i dont need another
-its more hassle to post anything now
thats all i can think of off the top of my head, but theres probably more.
all comicspace neeeded was to update the look (cos it was starting to look dated) and add some new features, not change the whole bloody thing.
i hope things get better, for the sake of its users and for comicspace.
I had blocked my drawings as 18 and over, and now it looks like anyone can access them. It’s not a comic space anymore. I’m deleting my account. Bye to all my friends.
Okay, I found SOME of my gallery images, but not all. I did stumble across them within my “blog,” but it was purely by dumb luck, not through any intuitive way. But like I said, there are still many images missing.
Though I may not have used ComicSpace as intensively as some other sites, it was still a useful niche site that was an integral part of my professional toolbox that even merited a direct permanent link from my main official website.
It would be nice to see some kind of explanation of what the goal is with the new format/design because it is so different now than the original site. I think it’s safe to say that it’s been incredibly disorienting both for the creators and fans. I’m not sure what the benefit was to abandon a very distinctive platform for comics creators for what is essentially a generic off-the-shelf product.
Anyway, I’ll wait to see how things progress and hope that some of the features that made the site useful and distinctive are restored.
Randy,
Maybe their goal is to get us all to pay a monthly fee to get our old sites back. Those who don’t pay don’t get to access their galleries. *shrugs*
I figured out how to get rid of the “Just another ComicSpace site” and thought I’d share it.
1. Log in.
2. From the “My Blogs” ring at the top, mouse over the first item and pull-right to select “Dashboard.”
3. On the left sidebar, there’s a category called “Settings.” Click that.
4. You should now see the “General Settings” page in your dashboard.
5. Here is where you can set your Site Title and get rid of the ridiculous default Tagline.
6. Click the Save Changes button.
Will we get our other galleries back when you’ve figured out the kinks? ‘Cause right now the only gallery I see is my first one (of two). Also, will the image addresses remain? Because I’ve linked to those images from other places, and now they’re all gone, naturally. I’d like to know this berfore I spend an afternoon changing image links in several forums.
The cutting-in-half problem, btw, could be solved if you gave us more options to customize the layout, so we can make the display width fit our images.
Also: Is this part of getting ComicSpace and Webcomics Nation in line, or just something to keep us busy till the merger?
The problem for me is that I want a comics-based social networking site which I can use as a hub for my comics work – the previous designed worked very nicely: it had my details, galleries, friends and bulletins on the front page. People could take it all in thanks to the simple design that didn’t feel overly cluttered.
What I don’t want is a blog (I have plenty of those already, thanks) with everything else hidden away requiring extra clicks (and some degree of digging around).
I am unsure what the thinking was here, but I’d have to assume it was felt like ComicSpace couldn’t compete with Facebook. However, it doesn’t need to – the social networking could just have been the top layer on a deeper comic focused site. I always felt like the ComicBookDB needed a social networking front/layer so people could share their collections, recommend titles to friends and also include recommendation features like Amazon has:
http://comicbookdb.com/
The Grand Comics Database makes its data available under a pretty open license:
http://www.comics.org/
You could have, for example, integrated that with the site through a feature that lets people build up their collections and brought over information from Wikipedia to add background (it’d also help the GCD as it’d encourage people to index comics they don’t have). You could then hook up with other services like comiXology for digital comics, Amazon for trades and eBay in general so people could buy the comics (which would also open up a revenue stream for the site).
Personally, I’d also be interested in another layer that gives “meaning” to the data (it need only be a simple wiki, see my comments here:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/forums/showthread.php?23037-Digital-Dump-Lets-Get-Ready-To-Bundle!&p=107858#post107858
As it stands, ComicSpace has been repurposed into a different site, one I wouldn’t have bothered signing up to and one I can’t really see myself using much in the future, unless I’ve missed a feature which allows me to have the old front page just with the addition of a blog if I want one (I made use of the bulletins so might use one if that is the alternative). It is a sad development, as the site still had a lot of potential. If anyone knows of a site that does that then feel free to drop me a note.
It’s decided to take one of my comics and post it alone where my multiple galleries should be at http://btaraktahn.comicspace.com/
It should get interesting when it decides to post from my adult gallery, huh?
Please add my name to the displeased artists. The new site sucks (and do we REALLY need another lame MySpace or Facebook site? … gods, ComicSpace was special because it was different and catered to comics fans and creators.)
Nyeeeeaaaaahhhhhh… I don’t get it. My brain hurt now.
I have also only found 10 images out of the numerous galleries I had. Not a complete gallery, just some random images. I found them through the wordpress dashboard. This is not cool.
New Comicspace format is cutting off copyright information on some of my wide format images.
You people really do need to fix this, and soon.
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p41/btaraktahn/errors/error-comicspace_destroying_copyrights.jpg
I think the new look and functionality will grow on me when I become comfortable with it. My question is this though… Is there anyway to separate the artwork like it was before by galleries rather than as a single long “webcomic.” I’ll admit it, my CS site was more to promote my work as a comic book writer and not to host a webcomic. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Sean Taylor
I’m slowly finding my way around. It’s taking a lot of hit and miss and playing around, but it would be nice if there was a tutorial. I’m finding various instructions around the web, but it would be nice if there was one from ComicSpace that really held your hand during the process. Right now I’m trying to figure out the difference between “webcomics” and “collections” and how to make them appear on my main page. I’ve figured out part of it, but still can’t get all the “collections”/”galleries” to work properly. The WordPress webcomics dashboard/settings is far from intuitive and user-friendly, and everything seems scattered about the control pages.
Didn’t you test the implementation on a development server first? Seems like a lot of problems could have been avoided…
I used Comic Space to host multiple categorized galleries of art, not to blog or host an ongoing webcomic. I don’t even see anything in the current template that is set up for galleries. After poking around for a while I find that I can cycle through the individual pages in the most recent gallery I created, but they display cropped. I can’t even find a directory of my other galleries, let alone any way to access them.
I don’t know whether to hope things will come back over time or if I just need to write this off and move on. I wish I had known this was coming so I could have better documented what I had on here and made back-up arrangements for making this work available online.
I am sure you have heard too many comments about your changes to Comicspace in the negative by now. Sorry to dissapoint you, but this is yet another one. I do not know what inspired you to make such a grandiose change.
Comicspace was a perfect site for those wishing to showcase their talents. I was proud to have my artwork displayed here in the manner they deserved. I was excited to be among several artists of proven merit and be counted as one of them.
I was shocked to find all my artwork no longer on display for all to be drawn to. I was further dismayed to find I could no longer find the work of others easily. I was thoroughly apalled when I discovered my artwork, that was once organized in easy-to-view albums, callously slapped together in a hidden corner of your site like yesterday’s rubbish.
In conclusion, I would like to say that if this only a temporary situation, I will wait to see your improvements. However, if in the coming weeks I find that this is what has become of your site, I am afraid that I see no other choice but to delete my page and seek out other venues.
Take me with you, dude! This crap actually manages to find a way to suck more and more with each passing day.
Is there a way we can report spam? I just logged in and got an obvious one in my message inbox It was the standard template “I saw your profile and am interested in you, please email me off-site so I can send you my picture” type of message.
I got one of those, too. Just another ball of Joy the webmasters are inflicting upon us with this crap.
I tried to go to my username-based page at http://nobody.comicspace.com/, but there was nothing there I tried creating a new blog with that name, but it keeps give a Database Error page, “Error establishing a database connection.”
Well, this WordPress transformation was a shock, but for the sake of having spread the former address around the Web, I’m keeping at least one of my galleries here. Unfortunately, that’s also the only one that showed up after the transition.
I had two galleries, “Dawnstar Fan Art” which survived the transition, and “Pteraphiles” which did not. Or, to be more precise, Pteraphiles became “Untitled.” I tried renaming it in the Dashboard, but I got an error message about a path having to be renamed in a subdirectory of “Josh’s” space. Then all the items in Pteraphiles, which had been visible when Untitled, now became invisible. Only the tags for the various pages remained.
I deleted entirely this remaining shell of the Pteraphiles collection/webcomic, which I’d renamed “Winged Beauties,” in the Dashboard. Unfortunately, this system still thinks I’m using the space. Dawnstar Fan Art (currently unchanged) takes about 6.5 MB, and Pteraphiles took about 12 MB, but the Dashboard still shows that I am using 18.5 MB, when it’s now only one-third that much.
It seems clear from my experience and the comments above that the transition process only picked up the first comics gallery from each user. All else vanished into some vague space that, if any label was applied, ended up “Untitled.” And the space it takes up is charged against us, even though access to it ranges from difficult to (now, for me) downright impossible.
I’d request, for the moment, from your techs:
~ That the space we’re said to be using be reduced to what we’re ACTUALLY using. In my case, only 6.5 MB, not 18.5 MB.
~ That the Webcomic template be modified to allow horizontal works to display fully. Currently, their display is cut off, causing the copyright display problem of one commenter. If you right-click for View Image, a horizontal work displays fully, but that step is not at all obvious.
~ That the Messages area not resurrect ones we’d deleted as long as four years ago. I finally got the obsolete messages re-deleted, but it took a while.
I appreciate the efforts to communicate, but still have to wonder why this transition was even made in the first place, as I saw no explanation being posted anywhere.
I’m in the same boat as other with my comic cut in half (actually 3/4) by the default width. I looked through some of the wordpress docs and there are references to changing the style sheets, but alas, I cannot seem to access them. If anyone knows the solution that works with this particular implementation I’d love to see it here.
I have two (I hope) small questions.
1. How do I change the link color on my pages? It’s too light to be seen on that white background.
2. How do I choose which of my images shows up on my main page?
Thanks,
Sean
The new changes to COMICSPACE make it impossible to work/navigate
through. My comic-strips and Nostalgia images are all missing.
I feel frustrated and defeated by this that wipes out all my
work.This does not “represent” my CANDY BLONDELL at all. I am
trying to decide what to do next.—- FelixHoboken@aol.com
A bit disappointed in the theme selection. Inkblot will only display the single column display, a narrow one at that. Can you open up the 2-3 column features on inkblot?
We used to feature several comics on our website. Will we be able to continue to feature those comics once this conversion is complete?
I had about two full pages of text on here before, that have been reduced to one and half sentences. My images are still cut off. I’m looking into doing my own site now because of all this.
I was able to find my galleries and figure out how to determine which image shows on my main page. What I did was to set up my galleries by the menu on top of the page. http://seanhtaylor.comicspace.com for what I mean. I really like the way it turned out.
Still need help with changing the link color though.
Bueller? Bueller?
Take care,
Sean
I’m very likely leaving for Deviantart now..
Heck, I came here FROM DeviantArt… I didn’t care for that place much at all after they changed their TOS.
Seems the only site I have left that allows me to actually set up separate galleries is at ArtZone; and I’m not that big fan of that one. Still, it’s a hell of a lot better than what THIS place has become.
If COMICSPACE is really sincere about fixing this
Website’s problems and getting it back to normal,
PLEASE give me, UPLOAD again, my 3 galleries of
artwork and comic-strips. That artwork is missing
and you got it in your grip. Please put it back.UPLOAD
my material returned.—FelixHoboken@aol.com
Hmmm… I just stopped by to update our page, and quel surprise. What was once an inviting page of our graphic images (we are into visuals, aren’t we?), we now have another FaceBook page: boring, non-individualistic and certainly not complementing the individual styles of the artists that have been on the site for the long term.
Our images have not only disappeared from our profile page, but our folders are gone, are friends’ avatars have disappeared and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to ‘doll things up.’ Since we already have several sites displaying our work, including our own, and all of them actually understand the need for good visuals for artists, there doesn’t seem to be much sense in trying to wade through this first-cousin-to-FaceBook approach. Even MySpace isn’t this dull, and we all know that Rupert is as dull as wet toast.
Congratulations on flushing a visually-appealing site and replacing it with mediocrity.
Typo: ‘are friends’ should be our friends.
Okay, here’s one…
I’ve been using http://www.comicspace.com/btaraktahn/ as the URL from all of my forum profiles and things for a few years now. It had all of my galleries posted on the same page and people could visit whichever ones they wanted whenever they wanted (except for the adult gallery which required ComicSpace membership). Also, I could upload to whichever one I wanted, when I wanted and editing the galleries was simple and painless.
The migration now sends people to http://comicspace.com/members/btaraktahn where there are no galleries listed, I can’t access my galleries and can’t upload or edit to them whenever I wish. Oh, here’s an idea! Let’s take the comics and artwork out of an online comics/artwork site! It’s Brilliant!!
You people say that I should access my gallery from http://btaraktahn.comicspace.com/ which isn’t linked to my ComicSpace profile page which all of my forum web links are sent to. If I can’t get there from my profile page, chances are pretty nonexistant that anyone FOLLOWING my links will get there, either… and I’m not posting a link to my gallery from my profile page since it should Already Freakin’ Be There! Also, most of my comics and images wind up getting cut in two (along with my copyright information, which… correct me if I’m wrong… is a Federal crime? You know, removal of copyright on copyrighted media…)
So far, all people are seeing when they click the link now is my avatar and a blog-full of angry complaints about ComicSpace. Not exactly the sort of thing an intelligent company is supposed to want from members who are bringing new viewers and comics to their site. But hey, I’m sure it’s all part of your great plan.
I just wish you’d let the rest of us in on wtf that plan is.
Are you Trying to get as many artists as possible to leave, hoping some will forget to delete their accounts so you can try and ‘claim’ their artwork to sell… you know, AFTER cutting off the copyright information on the images? Are you going to cash in on some financial windfall by creating a major flop like Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder tried to do in “The Producers”? Come on, tell us; because I for one would honestly like to know.
I have to add my name to the list of the confused. We really need a walkthrough for all the new features. It’s too much, too soon. That’s why we’re all confused.
Anybunny ever heard of ComicFury?
http://comicfury.com
apparently they actually post and display COMICS and, near as i can tell, they have NO aspirations toward becoming a blogniferous social networking site. Unlimited galleries, clikstats, image controls with multiple templates for display pages, RSS feed friendly, searchable archives and open forums for discussion and such – kinda what comicspace was before it got all networky and abandonded the one thing the place was famous for – COMICS!!!!
check out comicfury if you please – maybe i missed something..
With all new ‘integrated systems’ even if it’s a change from the previous incarnation of comicspace there will be issues.
Those issues as I know it are being looked at and will pan out in time. I believe all they’re asking is that you show a little patience. From what I understand they are looking into everyone’s issue, just at the moment they’re trying to fix the stability issues first and foremost then moving into addressing all of the concerns.
- Phil
Patience is one thing, and nobody likes surprises. Unless I was on the moon, there was no notification that our pages and artwork will likely disappear for a while. Posting a news item would have been very productive for everyone.
DDM and I are not severely impacted only because we have our own website and other web spots, and only used this site as a billboard, and to interact with fellow artists. We did, however, take the time to keep it up to date. Many of the artists on this site believed in what Josh had created and donated money to support his efforts. Even they were not notified of any change. So much for mutual respect.
The message to the artists is clear: CS did not think about our concerns or situations, before CS went ahead and made significant changes to the website (obliterated it), including the foundation of the site – which will now force everyone to learn WordPress, which I found to be complex, at best. I have never witnessed a completely successful migration of data, online or offline, in my life, so there should have been the assumption that what can go wrong is likely to do so. To operate under any other assumption is not a sign of good leadership. Obviously, there was no backup plan and many of the artists on this site have been hurt by what has taken place. Prior notification could have prevented this, and kept the goodwill of CS intact. At the moment, that goodwill is eroding faster than the Louisiana coastline.
ComicSpace has a customer base, and it is artists and comic fans. Blowing them out of the water with a surprise of this magnitude is just bad business. Patience? How about frustration?
Well this sucks. It’s a month since I posted here, and there’s no sign that any of our concerns are being addressed. Meanwhile, the spammers have taken over the front page.
It looks like the tech team haven’t sorted out the problems, just packed up and left.
Charles,
I just logged in here to delete whatever was left of my galleries and move to a new home at ComicFury. I kind of wish they had an Add Friends/Favorite Galleries thing like this place had. Maybe someone in their tech support can look into that since ComicSpace doesn’t have any tech support of it’s own, anymore.
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