I've implimented a series of simple changes to the site's look and interface in hopes of making the reading experience that much better for you, the readers. I'm also looking to start accepting guest posts here at the Weekly Crisis and you can read all about these things and more after the jump.
Recent Changes
I spent the better part of an hour working on some minor changes to the blog and just wanted to point them out to everyone.
RSS and a Sidebar of Email
First up is the new sidebar. I've been streamlining it all week, such as moving my links section to the navbar at the top of the screen or the outright removal of redundant and less than informative sections, like the labels / thought bubbles, and this streamlining has culminated with the sleaker and easier to use sidebar you see today.
Of note, I've added a What is RSS? help page for people that are unfamiliar with RSS or wondering what that big orange button was for in the first place. Once you've become more familiarized with what an RSS feed is, provided you didn't know already, feel free to subcribe to the Weekly Crisis while your at it.
For reference, there will be an RSS subscriber exclusive contest for next week and it never hurts to sign up early.
Finally, there's the addition of a new feature that should help you keep up to date with the Weekly Crisis - email subscriptions. This feature will deliver daily updates of all the posts I make direclty to your email so you never miss another update again.
New Footer
The other major change came with a new footer added to the site. While this won't change your browsing experience or life here at the Weekly Crisis, the new footer provides some easy access to information, such as how to stay connected with the Weekly Crisis or myself and a nice collection of quick reference links to popular topics and posts.
One such item I'd like to point out is my new Flickr account. I've set up a group for Weekly Crisis readers to join and share their comic book related photos or just as a repository of images for anyone that's looking for comic book images in general.
Another one I'd like to see more people get involved with is Twitter. It's a lot of fun just sitting around twitting your life away and you can read twits from and intereact with yours truly, other fans and bloggers, and even some of your favourite creators, like Brian Reed, Warren Ellis or Matt Fraction, to name a few.
Easiest way to get in on the twitting fun is to sign-up, start following some people and start twitting yourself. Send people messages with simple @ commands (ex. @weeklycrisis thanks for telling me about twitter!) or simply lurk and experience the insanity of Warren Ellis first hand in such riveting discussions as this dialogue with / at Brian Reed:
How You Could Be Famous - Guest Blogging at the Weekly Crisis
Do you ever feel like you have something unique or thought provoking to say? How about a review for a book you feel no one is talking about? Maybe just a random thought that came to mind that you wanted to talk about with other comic fans?
Tired of seeing these and other great ideas swallowed up in the chatter of internet cacophony (word of the day folks, brought to you by the letter C and the number 7) known as the Newsarama or CBR forums?
Well, today is your lucky day because I am going to start posting quality guest posts here at The Weekly Crisis!
Why Submit a Guest Post?
Reach 1000's of Comic Fans With A Single Post
With a combined reader and subscriber count in the 1000's, a post on the Weekly Crisis is a quick and easy way to reach a built-in audiance that is both interested and willing to read your post.
Link Back To Your Blog
Along with being featured on the Weekly Crisis, I'll be providing a link back to your site at the top of your post telling people who you are, where they can read more of your work at and how they can get in touch with you if they like what they read. Here's an example lead-in to a guest post:
Creative & Personal Gains
Actually sitting down and writing out your thoughts for people to read can be a rewarding activity in and of itself and the new people you meet, either through reader comments or talking with myself and other bloggers, can lead to new friendships or opportunities you could never have imagined otherwise.
Guidelines
Before you all rush off to submit the next great American novel to me, there are a few guidelines for submissions.
Format
If you are submitting a review, please observe and follow my reviewing formats. By this, I mean starting off with a 200x300 pixel cover image, all caps title and issue number and the writer and artist names of the book you are reviewing. Also, please use a verdict system with the Must Read, Check It and Avoid It ratings that I currently employ.
Spelling and Grammar
While I am no grammar nazi and I dunt speel so gud eider, it would go a long way to having your guest post spotlighted if you do a quick once over to check for spelling and simple grammer mistakes. This isn't 8th grade English class, but try to refrain from MSN or forum level Engrish, too.
Original Content
Anything you submit to me as a guest post, unless otherwise stated or approved beforehand, must be original content. I'm not looking to republish your archived posts or a forum post you wrote a year ago. If you submit a post, I would like for it to be featured only on The Weekly Crisis. You will have a link back to your own blog or website in return. All I ask is for an original post.
If I find out later you have reposted the content, I will have no choice but to remove the offending post from site. You may post links or quotes from your post on your site asking people to go view it, but do not repost it in its entirety.
Right to Refuse
I hold the right to refuse to post any guest posts, whether for quality control, plagerism, duplicate content or any other reason. I'm not looking to flood the site with guest posts - just some quality posts.
Conclusion
That's it! Doesn't sound so bad now, does it?
One thing I want to clear up right away is that I am not going anywhere and I am not looking for anyone to take over the posting duties of the blog. I will continue to post my reviews and other content every week, same as always.
The purpose of this endeavour is to give back to the readers looking to garner some attention on their site or for people without blogs to have their thoughts and ideas spotlighted and to give you more highquality content than I can provide by myself.
If you would like to provide a guest post, whether it is a simple review or an interview with a creator or even a detailed editorial (anything's game), you may contact me through email at kirbymorph AT gmail.com or through my contact form.
If you have any thoughts or questions regarding the new design changes or guest posts, feel free to leave a comment or contact me through the above options and thanks for reading!
I spent the better part of an hour working on some minor changes to the blog and just wanted to point them out to everyone.
RSS and a Sidebar of Email
First up is the new sidebar. I've been streamlining it all week, such as moving my links section to the navbar at the top of the screen or the outright removal of redundant and less than informative sections, like the labels / thought bubbles, and this streamlining has culminated with the sleaker and easier to use sidebar you see today.
Of note, I've added a What is RSS? help page for people that are unfamiliar with RSS or wondering what that big orange button was for in the first place. Once you've become more familiarized with what an RSS feed is, provided you didn't know already, feel free to subcribe to the Weekly Crisis while your at it.
For reference, there will be an RSS subscriber exclusive contest for next week and it never hurts to sign up early.
Finally, there's the addition of a new feature that should help you keep up to date with the Weekly Crisis - email subscriptions. This feature will deliver daily updates of all the posts I make direclty to your email so you never miss another update again.
New Footer
The other major change came with a new footer added to the site. While this won't change your browsing experience or life here at the Weekly Crisis, the new footer provides some easy access to information, such as how to stay connected with the Weekly Crisis or myself and a nice collection of quick reference links to popular topics and posts.
One such item I'd like to point out is my new Flickr account. I've set up a group for Weekly Crisis readers to join and share their comic book related photos or just as a repository of images for anyone that's looking for comic book images in general.
Another one I'd like to see more people get involved with is Twitter. It's a lot of fun just sitting around twitting your life away and you can read twits from and intereact with yours truly, other fans and bloggers, and even some of your favourite creators, like Brian Reed, Warren Ellis or Matt Fraction, to name a few.
Easiest way to get in on the twitting fun is to sign-up, start following some people and start twitting yourself. Send people messages with simple @ commands (ex. @weeklycrisis thanks for telling me about twitter!) or simply lurk and experience the insanity of Warren Ellis first hand in such riveting discussions as this dialogue with / at Brian Reed:
Unearthing old characters for Marvel to see if they're worth reactivating will clip five years off your life. Trust me. Because six hours later you're all "ah, yes, Flying Coyote Whore who some drunk invented for Luke Cage to f*** in 1975, I see potential.." And a day later you're, "geezer, that guy who used to deliver the mail to The Fantastic Four, there's totally a miniseries there..."I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
And then your kid starts calling you "Scary Daddy" and your girl won't let you touch her and you see Stan Lee when you try to jerk off. But you can't jerk off and suddenly you're living in the woods and you don't remember why and someone seems to have pissed in your clothes.
But you really want to write that story about the voodoo chicken guy from those old Marvel comics but old women are flinging turds at you. And cops are beating you up every night and you get raped by a hobo with a face like Roseanne who keeps saying "Cough on it, John." And why? Because you decided to research old Marvel comics. Just walk away, Reed. Or you may never walk the same again.
How You Could Be Famous - Guest Blogging at the Weekly Crisis
Do you ever feel like you have something unique or thought provoking to say? How about a review for a book you feel no one is talking about? Maybe just a random thought that came to mind that you wanted to talk about with other comic fans?
Tired of seeing these and other great ideas swallowed up in the chatter of internet cacophony (word of the day folks, brought to you by the letter C and the number 7) known as the Newsarama or CBR forums?
Well, today is your lucky day because I am going to start posting quality guest posts here at The Weekly Crisis!
Why Submit a Guest Post?
Reach 1000's of Comic Fans With A Single Post
With a combined reader and subscriber count in the 1000's, a post on the Weekly Crisis is a quick and easy way to reach a built-in audiance that is both interested and willing to read your post.
Link Back To Your Blog
Along with being featured on the Weekly Crisis, I'll be providing a link back to your site at the top of your post telling people who you are, where they can read more of your work at and how they can get in touch with you if they like what they read. Here's an example lead-in to a guest post:
What Do I Think DC Is Doing Wrong is a guest post by comic book blogger, Kirk Warren, who you can read news, reviews and other comic related posts from every day at the Weekly Crisis.I'm sure everyone likes having their blog or website linked to and while this is no Digg effect or Stumble Upon, I don't think anyone will complain about new readers finding out about their blog.
Creative & Personal Gains
Actually sitting down and writing out your thoughts for people to read can be a rewarding activity in and of itself and the new people you meet, either through reader comments or talking with myself and other bloggers, can lead to new friendships or opportunities you could never have imagined otherwise.
Guidelines
Before you all rush off to submit the next great American novel to me, there are a few guidelines for submissions.
Format
If you are submitting a review, please observe and follow my reviewing formats. By this, I mean starting off with a 200x300 pixel cover image, all caps title and issue number and the writer and artist names of the book you are reviewing. Also, please use a verdict system with the Must Read, Check It and Avoid It ratings that I currently employ.
Spelling and Grammar
While I am no grammar nazi and I dunt speel so gud eider, it would go a long way to having your guest post spotlighted if you do a quick once over to check for spelling and simple grammer mistakes. This isn't 8th grade English class, but try to refrain from MSN or forum level Engrish, too.
Original Content
Anything you submit to me as a guest post, unless otherwise stated or approved beforehand, must be original content. I'm not looking to republish your archived posts or a forum post you wrote a year ago. If you submit a post, I would like for it to be featured only on The Weekly Crisis. You will have a link back to your own blog or website in return. All I ask is for an original post.
If I find out later you have reposted the content, I will have no choice but to remove the offending post from site. You may post links or quotes from your post on your site asking people to go view it, but do not repost it in its entirety.
Right to Refuse
I hold the right to refuse to post any guest posts, whether for quality control, plagerism, duplicate content or any other reason. I'm not looking to flood the site with guest posts - just some quality posts.
Conclusion
That's it! Doesn't sound so bad now, does it?
One thing I want to clear up right away is that I am not going anywhere and I am not looking for anyone to take over the posting duties of the blog. I will continue to post my reviews and other content every week, same as always.
The purpose of this endeavour is to give back to the readers looking to garner some attention on their site or for people without blogs to have their thoughts and ideas spotlighted and to give you more highquality content than I can provide by myself.
If you would like to provide a guest post, whether it is a simple review or an interview with a creator or even a detailed editorial (anything's game), you may contact me through email at kirbymorph AT gmail.com or through my contact form.
If you have any thoughts or questions regarding the new design changes or guest posts, feel free to leave a comment or contact me through the above options and thanks for reading!
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3 comments:
The guest posts are a great idea!
Sounds like there are some pretty big things in store for us Crisis fans here! Great job so far and keep up the great work!
Sounds to complicated for my feeble 16 year old brain. Maybe 2 years from now though :P
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