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Freak Comics has been revived

Curlee — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:46:32 +0000

If you happened upon this site at some point yesterday and in to today, you most likely were forwarded to no-ip.com. This is because I accidentally allowed my registration to lapse. I was able to register today and get it up and running again, and I apologize for any inconvenience this caused.

You may also wonder why my writing has slowed to a snail pace these past few weeks. There are several personal reasons (sickness, broken limbs etc.). I haven’t lost my passion for writing and will continue to bring what you hopefully consider quality content. This coming week I have several reviews on the way. I’m also working on a new design as the current one was a bad choice from the start.

Thank you for your patience and loyalty. Things will be picking up again soon!

Freak Comics is slipping

Curlee — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 01:57:39 +0000

Ok people, it’s time for my semi-regular “I’m an idiot” confessional. I really do love writing for this site and don’t intend to give it up. It’s a really fun hobby and I feel like in some small way I provide entertainment and perhaps value for some people.
Don’t get me wrong, the site takes effort, and that’s something I’ve lacked in these past few weeks. I could blame this on the fact that I’m looking to rent a new place, or the fact that I have around 70 comics piled up on a shelf waiting to be read, or the fact that I’m loaded up with side work… or even the visitors that have been gracing my front steps. But I don’t think any of those excuses are the real reasons for the almost nonexistent postings.

I feel the real reason I’ve been so late in posting is that I’m starting to feel like it’s a side job, and I don’t want that to happen. Writing reviews or articles is easy enough, and checking out site stats is fun. The hard and time consuming part of this site are the press releases. They take a long time to reformat (Marvel just can’t seem to send well formatted paragraphs… and boy do they love their capitol letters), the photos have to be resized and placed in to lightbox containers, and they come in on a daily bases (usually 3 a day) so if I don’t keep up with them, they pile up very quickly.
So all this work gets put in to something that basically boils down to an advertisement. I feel like I’m doing all this work for Marvel and Image and really not seeing any return of investment outside of decent traffic that these “articles” drive to my site. These press releases are available on many other websites, including their originator’s sites.

So now I turn to you for advice. Do you really care about the press releases? Should I nix these and concentrate on delivering better original content more often, or do you actually enjoy getting your “news” from my site?

Your thoughts and opinions are much appreciated on this matter.

Freak Comics: Update

Curlee — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 12:33:08 +0000

Wizard World 2006 was fun, I’m working on a rather lengthy recap of what went down with me and Bill. I’ll let you in on this early though: no one found Bill to ask him for his autograph.
This was disappointing, especially to Bill because he had to lug the first 5 volumes of Invincible around in his backpack all day long. If only someone would have found him and won them!

I’m also working on getting all of the photos put together in one large photo post (some good costume pics on the way). I should have these up very soon, as well as some amazing photos taken by Bill at the 2006 Superman Festival in Metropolis Illinois (these are not to be missed!).

Also coming later today are several reviews of comics that I’ve been reading, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

I’ve been busier than any of you can imagine lately, but things are slowly returning to normal, which means the updates should be getting back on track.

Freak Comics Wiki

Curlee — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 23:48:58 +0000

I’ve decided to start a Wiki all about comics. If I had my way this would become a comprehensive database dealing with all things related to the comic book world.

A wiki is cool because the general public can contribute to it, so if you have something information based to write about a comic book, a character, movie, video game or anything else directly related to comics, please do.

This is a trial run for the Wiki, if all goes well it will become a permanent thing.

Currently the wiki is very thin. There is very little information contained in it, but i’m hoping this will change over the next few months. If you’d like links back to your site be sure to register an account before contributing to the wiki. Anyone who contributes will get a link from freakcomics.com displayed on the right hand side of the site (if the link list gets too long they’ll be displayed randomly).

Have fun, and don’t be an idiot.

The honeymoon is over

Curlee — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 15:13:52 +0000

I’ve really neglected this site as of late. I haven’t been posting much, haven’t updated key news items, haven’t replied to every comment. In short: I lost my love of writing.

So the question must be asked, why did I lose the love? Things have distracted me quite a bit these days, namely moving to and living in Chicago. There is so much to see and do here - the zoo, museums, food - that it becomes difficult to make time for previous hobbies. However the newness has worn off and it’s time to get back to this blog thing. So here’s a few things to look forward to:

Podcasts

Remember all the podcasts Bill and I put out a while back? Well a few of you have expressed interest in seeing this freak show roll again. The problem of course is I’ve lost Bill in the move. Or have I…?
Rumor has it that Bill has been stalking me and knows my living patterns. He’s poised to strike at any given moment, knocking me over the head, dragging me back to Southern Illinois (bound and gagged of course), and forcing me to watch Star Wars Episode 1 the whole way down. I’m told he plans to feed me a steady diet of rat droppings and Scientology propaganda until I forget my name and regress to a vegetative state at which point he will hit the record button on the ol’ 8 track and we’ll both spew forth a drunken melody of comic book tripe. You’ll most likely never get a copy of that podcast though… bill’s computer illiterate.

Contest!

Once upon a time the intrepid Image Comics agreed to help me out with a contest in which a stack of Invincible comics would be the prize. They promoted me on their site and there was a small buzz over the whole thing. Then 3 people participated and I didn’t like the results and the whole thing was a bust.
It turns out I still have those comics and I still want to give them away. It really is a great comic and I want to spread the joy. The lack of participation can be entirely blamed on my lax rule set. This time you slugs are gonna have to work!

It’s not like I haven’t been reading comics lately. In fact I’ve read more after the move than before. It’s high time I start acting like it and cover more reviews and commentary on this crap.

So in summary, I’m going to get more focused and start burning holes in your brains with more content. After all: it’s nearly summer and we all know there’s absolutely nothing to do in Chicago during the summer.

Tornados are going to kill me today

Curlee — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 18:19:24 +0000

I’m writing this from my basement. There are friends of ours on the way to join my family and me in the basement. Tornados sirens have just sounded. In 2 minutes the worst is supposed to hit. There is an 80% chance of multiple tornados today. If I survive, you’ll get lots of content, all afore mentioned. Well I’m off to go die now.

Freak Comics 4.1

Curlee — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 19:43:11 +0000

Just before joining the 9rules Network I decided to abandon the posting of press releases in their standard form. I feel this is a cheap way to blog. However, there is also some valuable information in the press releases that I receive, and I wanted to be able to bring this content to you, while still maintaining a higher standard for my actual articles that I write.

Enter the new side bar. You’ll notice on the right of your screen a couple of small tabs. One labeled ‘News’, the other ‘Newest releases’. News gives you just that: news via press releases and information gathered from other sites. This will feature short blurbs that I find interesting and brief news articles… things that just don’t quite constitute writing a full article. Another small feature will be added to this section later today, namely: when a press release is posted, you will be informed that it is such. This way you can be sure of the type of content you’re reading: original or prefabbed.

Newest Releases is a place you can go to check out what’s hitting the shelves of your local comic shop that week. Currently this only features releases from Marvel (aka: the devil), but I’m working on a way to bring you comic releases from a wide array of companies.

There are a couple of small browser bugs to work out (mainly for Internet Explorer 6… big suprise) and these will be addressed as soon as possible. I will also be adding an RSS feed for the news and the newest releases very shortly.

This is just the start of some of the new features I’ll be giving away at FreakComics.com. If you think that’s cool, wait until you see today’s Adventures of Stickman!

Freakcomics 4.0

Curlee — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 02:48:53 +0000

As you can clearly see, the new Freak Comics design has finally been implemented. What does this mean for you, the loyal reader? A more aesthetically pleasing environment for you to view the same great articles.

Unfortunetly this new design needs a small amount of work. This is because it handles images differently (better) than the previous designs. There have been lots of posts all using the old image structure system, and each post must be updated. This means that when you read certain articles, you may notice a glitch or two. Not to worry though, these should all be worked out tomorrow and you’ll be reading all of your favorite articles once more.

With this new design comes a slight change in format: no more Wednesday Release list. I have decided to forgo the posting of this list since the same information can readily be found elsewhere on the internet. This should be a welcome change to you, the reader, being that it will free up more time for myself to write quality content, rather than use up that time on a boring list.

I joined a gang

Curlee — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 03:20:54 +0000

Freak Comics is now part of a gang. No, we don’t drive around shooting other gangs… yet. This is a gang / network (or “net-gang” if you will) of weblogs that feature excellent content and design. So why am I here? No one really knows. The net-gang leader who calls himself Scrivs most likely made a mistake and thought he was emailing Jeffrey Zeldman. At any rate, I will enjoy my temporary induction.

All jokes aside, I’m really happy to be in the 9rules Network. I figured that I would be laughed at, kicked in the pants and sent home crying while all of the cool people wrote posts about how stupid my site is. Guess I underestimated myself.

The Chronicles of Anen

Curlee — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 00:31:34 +0000

Previously I told you about a new title we (that is myself and an artist known simply as Darrel for the time being) have been working on entitled Chronicles of the Red Lion.

Well, this project has been nixed and replaced with The Chronicles of Anen. Similar title, different character.

Anen is a more exciting character and I’m sure you will all appreciate his story as it has lots of action, and some great twists.

Currently this title is in production. The script has been written, and we have several weeks worth of art penciled. I am inking and coloring the first few weeks, and then it’s on to the final stages of lettering.

The Chronicles of Anen will be published weekly, most likely each Monday.