Why text instead of comics?

Elf Life is now a serial webfiction, based on the original comics.

There are actually many reasons for this change, including increasing vision trouble, but probably the one thing that is most relevant to you, as The Reader, is that the comic series has failed. It has failed to such an extent that the threat of "removing my bookmark" means nothing. Measured by readership, Elf Life has been comatose since 2002. And it's shown absolutely no signs of coming around.

Yet Elf Life is important to me, and I have quite a bit invested in it. Switching officially to text solves many old problems: updates come quicker, the updates move the story faster, and there is still the opportunity for plenty of illustrations along the way. As long as Elf Life as webfiction can find new readers, that is.

This also provides a solution for fixing and revising the series. Many intended scenes were left out as early as Lake Froth's Bane, simply to make the story "fit". The wedding story was never finished at all, because of the impossibility of producing the necessary volume of art for a complex but unpopular and financially draining project.

Shifting more of my creative focus to writing also allows me to find time to pursue other long-delayed projects (as well as new ideas), unrelated to Elf Life.

The goal for the long-delayed Elf Life book, now, is to put it together as an illustrated novel, supported by the comics as sort of an alternative version, in the back. This is something that could make the Elf Life books different, special.

I know not all readers will be won over. But I do hope you give the new Elf Life a chance. I want to keep the fiction funny, fast, and exciting, and I hope that it will be so much so that you will forget that you're not reading comics.

Magic Bag access better defined

You are on the honor system.

Username: heynonny
Password: nonny

Please consider donating, or at least sending us good wishes.

What is this Kipper you keep talking about?

Kipper is our own archive system, which was written to operate, as much as possible, indendently of server administrators and webhosts. Its primary requirement is PHP.

Kipper is superior to many other comic archive systems in many ways. It is not restricted by the many limitations of AutoKeen, and it does not rely on creating "on-the-fly" archives, like many gallery-style PHP scripts. Unlike WordPress installations, it does not rely heavily on a dashboard configuration and database.

Files can be loaded directly to the comics folders, or uploaded through a simple editing interface. The archive treats image and text files alike, so that new folders can be used for comics or blogs or stories, or any combination.

This is the tech that we've been badly needing for years and years. It is now possible to set up any number of Elf Life-related galleries, and, eventually, it will also power our own Elf Life role playing game.

What happened to the old site?

The old domain got tagged as spammy and was blacklisted by some ad networks.

The site was not spammy, though. The problem was due entirely to idiocy on the part of some fly-by-night, hack moron outfit called "McAfee",  who pasted email addresses in a chatbox that did not require an email address. When spambots found their posted email addresses on our site, and naturally spammed them (DUH), McAfee blamed us. Well, not "blamed us", so much as used crackpot "information" to commit fraud and harm a small enterprise that doesn't have the legal means to challenge them. And since they do not provide a proper method of contacting them on their so-called "website", we have not been able to even try to resolve the issue.

Why, yes, I am hacked off about it. What gave me away?

Anyway, this should be a warning to anybody putting faith in a "company" like McAffee--if this is an example of their methodology, then their entire database is worthless. Your company may be paying them big bucks for information that could just as easily be pulled out of a straw hat.

If somebody ever does get a chance to talk to McAfee, you might want to pass along the startling news that spambots look for email addresses on websites. This must be some new development that they are unaware of.

Dummies.

Where is the alternate adult swim archive?

The old alternate archive was difficult to maintain, and confusing for some readers. It has been mothballed pending broader archive fixes.

The regular archive will eventually be repaired to a state that includes the preferred version of each comic. That is, there won't be any unnecessary censorship in one particular version. There will be naked faeries or not when appropriate.

Most adult material is now kept in the donors-only area, the Magic Bag. This helps me keep more sensitive material out of the hands of chillun', and theoretically should also help raise money to continue the series.