Something Old, Something New

Or, why is it so so hard to make something simple?

Has this ever happened to you? There’s some task that you’ve been putting off, because it’s unglamorous, difficult or just downright unpleasant. The time comes when you think you can hold your nose just long enough to cross it off your list. But then, once you get into it, you realize the REAL reason you’d put it off—because it’s a much bigger deal than you ever wanted to admit.

sigh

That’s what happened to me with this website. I’d originally built it to promote my nascent filmmaking career way back in 2018—but life and the universe conspired right from the start to keep me from that goal. By 2021, I’d traded my cinematic dreams for comic book panels, but I never quite got around to properly revising my website. And when I sat down last week on a whim to do just that, I didn’t anticipate what I was letting myself in for.

This is the fifth or sixth time I’ve rebuilt a personal website since my first one in 1997. In fact it’s fun to take a look back at some of those remnants that still exist on the Internet Archive (and if you don’t know about the Wayback Machine, you might want to check it out!) Given the advances in web technology, it’s pretty easy to build a robust site. But then, there’s a whole host of complications.

The biggest complication for me is making a site that works well on mobile devices. Oy. It’s much more of a design problem than a technical one, especially since I never let go of my print-based predilections. I mean, I had a pretty fancy site with colored sidebars, stacked type and asymmetrical layouts—but that all went sideways when it was ported over to a 6 inch vertical phone screen. So out it went!

There’s still a lot of work to do, adding new artwork, updating dead links, and tilting the Search Engine Optimization as much in my favor as possible. But hey, it works, and it’s not embarrassing. I’ll take it.

So if you’ve been here before, be sure to hit the refresh button on your browser so that all the shiny new bits show up properly. And if you’re new to the site, thanks for visiting! We’re still unpacking and there’s plenty of good stuff that still needs to be hung, so don’t be a stranger. There’s more to come!