October 2, 2017
First post in a brand new direction!
Well, it’s come to this: savagedragon.com finally got a redesign. It was long overdue and it took me way too long, but here we are. In with the new, out with the old.
I took over reins as webmaster in early 2016 and had initially planned to just keep things up and running and a little bit more up-to-date. I soon realized though that the old page was a pain to work with. No wonder, the last relaunch happened 12 years ago. The website used ancient HTML, frames, tables and you had to manually save files in different sizes and places to make it work. It wasn’t pretty…
Getting started with the savagedragon.com redesign
I checked with Erik if he was OK with a savagedragon.com redesign – his reply was pretty much: “Do with it what you will…”
I talked with Raven Perez, who’s running Dragonfan.net and pretty much does what an official Savage Dragon website should have been doing. I took some inspiration from his page and made some layouts. And then nothing…
Life got in the way and things just lay there. It wasn’t until earlier this year that I finally sat down and seriously started to work on the page. I’m a graphic designer by trade and I had some pretty good basics in building websites but I had my work cut out for me. Eventually, I made this WordPress theme from scratch. It’s responsive, so you should be able to browse the page on your smartphones – I hear smart people do that…
Optimizing the Site
It’s still work in progress. Most likely it has a couple of bugs. I already know about a couple of things that need improvement. Let me know if there’s anything that doesn’t work or if you have any suggestions.
It’s still missing some content. I need to put all the crossovers and collections into the comics section and I’m also thinking about implementing the classic variants overview (now that the Savage Dragon forum on the old imageboards is history). Eventually each issue is supposed to have its own page with a short summary and a link to the wiki. As you can see I already have the layout for that but it will take some time to fill in all the content. And I might bring back the sketches collection from the old site. I know Erik has a huge collection on Facebook but I’d love to have that on the official website as well.
For now, I’m glad the savagedragon.com redesign is finally online and it’s still in time to celebrate Savage Dragon’s 25th anniversary. What better way to say thanks to Erik for 225+ issues of the best superhero comic on the stands.
Stef
read savage dragon 226 with it’s amazing how mean the human race can be. with the killing in las vegas i shouldn’t be suprised good book though. read 225 expensive but worth it. you gave dragon a great death remind me of what’s supposed to happen in certain religions after death. the nudity suprised me when i first saw it but i have adjusted. i love the double page spreads . got 227 today the creature with all mouths everywhere. man, you got some imagination. kirby would be proud. love this book.
Great stuff! My account on the old board had been jammed for years and — outside of creating a new gmail account — I could no longer participate in discussions or reviews.
Yeah, it’s a petty the old forums weren’t taken care of the way they should have been. I know a lot of people went to facebook instead but I feel that if there hadn’t been that many technical issues with the forums in the last couple of years – with the site crashing and people not being able to log back in – it could still be a valuable and fun place.
Who know’s, maybe Image will update their forums and bring them back online. In the meantime I suggest using facebook or, of course, this place.
i am loving this title more than ever. where might i find the suggested reading order including all mini-series, cross-overs, sister titles, etc.? even the ones erik doesn’t particularly enjoy. i am still binding them all… including big bangs, youngblood:strikefile, and shattered image, etc.
Hey Matthew, there is a reading order guide over at the Savage Dragon wiki. Stef