Posts Tagged ‘whimville’
5 items.
Feb17
So I’ve been in the middle of going through all my old files on the server, cleaning things up, pulling together design pieces that might be good to put in the portfolio section (I’m going to update this within the next few days with samples of my professional design work in case I actually do find a job). I’ve run across remnants of inkwell past and this particular design showed up. This was the site’s front page circa 2001.
A very ambitious layout. The “inside” of the site featured a tabbed browsing that was difficult to put together using the primitive tech of the day (no GoLive or Dreamweaver for me! All hand coded, baby!). I had to actually rebuild the html for this page and I think the background was only a solid color. The only links that work are the “store”, “xtras” and “links” (both of which were “coming soon”). The really interesting thing is that the “store” section contains links to my very first cafepress pages… one for the original (pre-ModernTales) Whimville and one for Magic Inkwell! The interesting thing is that I haven’t touched these designs since setting up these stores back in 2000-2001. The Whimville store is particularly interesting because it contains the only surviving images from the original Whimville strip, including the original drawing/design for King Righto (king of the land of imagination). Some fine looking shirts in those stores and a great blast from my cartooning past!
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Apr06
So a very strange thing has happened. Whimville dot com has returned to the internet. The thing is neither myself nor Joey Manley put it up, had anything to do with it or even knew about it. When the domain name expired four or five years ago we didn’t renew the registration and eventually it got snapped up. What appears to have happened is that, someone, presumably Santa Barbara Chiropractic hired someone to raise their google ranking (some voodoo called SEO that I’m not entirely familiar with) by using Whimville’s accumulated google ranking. Weird!!
Right now my first episode (with some mangled code obfuscating one of the table images) can be seen on the site and a post which links to Santa Barbara Chiropractic three times. What the hell?! Is someone actually making money off of this? That would really piss me off if they are considering I’m on unemployment and STILL not able to pay all my bills (especially my rent, which is LATE AGAIN THIS MONTH!).
The images from my first installment of Whimville on this site are hosted on my own domain (the inkwell) but I don’t want to have to take them down and mess up my archives.
I just want answers. What should I do? Should I sue? I can’t afford a lawyer. If I do have a case is there a lawyer out there willing to help me? Is there someone at Google that knows what I should do about this or is there someone at Google I should contact about this? This is copyright infringement, no?
A lot of strange things have happened to me on the internet over the years, but this is pretty random.
Apr07
So no one’s heard back from the chiropractic center that paid someone to use my old url to get them a better Google ranking. I did, however, write them a note on their contact form on the site. It goes a little something like this:
i’m delighted to see whimville.com alive again but a little disappointed i wasn’t warned that my artwork would be used ahead of time. because of this, unless you are willing to pay me for the usage of my name and original artwork, i ask that you kindly remove my images. thank you.
I probably could have written it better, but I have a few other people who have written them as well. If you’re so inclined and have the time please do so as well, but be polite. Ultimately I can’t be angry about this. I let the URL go a while back and didn’t renew it. I am upset about having my images used, even though I’m given full credit, without my consent in this way. It’s a very grey area. Joey Manley spells it out WAY better than I can here.
Gary Tyrrell at FLEEN has picked up the story and so did Comixtalk as of this writing. I appreciate all the great discussion going on over at the Magic Inkwell Livejournal feed as well as over on my Facebook. Thanks for all the support, opinions, encouragement, advice and e-love everyone! I don’t know where this is all going, really, but it’ll be interesting to find out.
As a slightly ironic side note, remember that Nite Owl Watchmen tie-in coffee I was saying I kinda wanted to try? Well, they’re getting sued by Chock Full O’ Nuts, whose label design they stole, apparently.
Crazy world we’re living in, folks. CRAAAAAAAAAAZZYYYY!
Apr10
Thought I’d post a little Lonely Drifter Karen for your Friday enjoyment. I wasn’t very productive this week, but I have managed to keep a nice buffer for Year of the Rat so far. I’ve gained another half week in my buffer and hope to gain even more momentum in the next couple weeks. Still no word from the chiropractor about whimville. I’ve emailed them AND posted a comment on the site (which is in moderation, big surprise). I’d really like to hear SOMETHING from the people involved, if only to demystify the whole weird mess and get some kind of answers. I mean, at least make the site look nice, crap. Anyway, enjoy this nice little video and the rest of your Friday!
Apr14
Thanks to advice and help from a kind reader, who also happens be an attorney, the owners of the whimville domain finally took down my stuff from their site yesterday. Upon the advice of Mr. Major (the kind reader/attorney, I harnessed the dark power of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He was even kind enough to get the notice drawn up for me. It did the trick. Once emailed to the owners of the domain they quickly took down my stuff. Anyone else that runs into this kind of problem should look into using this solution. Thank you so much Mr. Major for your kind help and taking a huge thorn out of my side. I was feeling so helpless until I got his email on Saturday.
And that’s…. the rest of the story.
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