You may notice the surroundings look a little different today. That’s because my 9 month plan to revamp the look of HijiNKSEnsue.com has finally been completed (mostly). Back in January I hired a designer to make the site prettier. I didn’t trust myself to do it since I tend to overthink things like drop shadows and strokes and such. Left to my own devices everything would have a freakin’ drop shadow, multiple strokes and probably some beveling and embossing. The designer eventually flaked out and bailed on me after making me wait nearly 6 months to see an initial design. Luckily he had gotten far enough that a generally awesome dude, and longtime friend of webcomics Frumph (aka Phil) was able to step in and finish the job.
Frumph was the lead developer on Comicpress for several years which is the WordPress theme that runs 90% of the comics you read. He is starting a new fork of that project called Comic Easel (which I’m sure we will all be using when it is released). Frumph spends most of his nights working on sites for webcomics artists and often (if not usually) free of charge. Chances are near 100% that at least one of comics you read besides HE has been bailed out by Frumph on more than one occasion. With that in mind I ask that you to toss a few bucks in his donation bucket to help with the development costs of his new project. The webcomic community has benefited greatly from his efforts and will continue to do so as long as he is able to keep going. Let’s help him out, alright?
Donate to Frumph!
Also, special thanks to Joenis/Denis/Slug (he goes by a few names) who makes a comic called L.A.W.L.S. for pitching in and doing a lot of the CSS work for the new site. Without his help it definitely wouldn’t be ready yet. His art is really fantastic and you should check it out.
I hope you enjoy the new layout of the site. It will be at least a week until everything is buttoned up and the placeholders are removed. If anything seems broken, feel free to comment below and I’ll add it to the bug list. Oh! And I’ve spent the last week reformatting all the 2009-2010 comics. They are now 60 pixels wider and include the title in the comic. Whatever percentage 60 pixels is out of the original 760px, that’s how much bigger they are! For FREE! Enjoy your embarrassment of pixel riches.
I preferred it the old way! Rarrghh!!
Kidding. Awesome.
No one else has reported any of these issues. Sounds like a browser specific problem for you. The yellow H3 tags have already been fixed.
Hey – I couldn't find any "stuff" anywhere previously. Now I not only have "List 1" and "List 2", but also "Links", to cater to all my "stuff" needs. Thanks for all the "stuff"!
why? the old site was cool…
the new one is surely even more awesome and totally appreciated but was not necessary…
your comics rule the wrapping is not that important to me
p.s. i read em in the rss anyways…
I think the new site looks really slick. Great job!
Great stuff! Snazzy new face to a favorite old site! 🙂
about 8%
24 hours ago you could just come to this site and automatically read the latest comic. Now you've got to hunt for the thing. Very annoying. Isn't the whole point of writing a comic to people to read it? Why hide it away?
something is broken. working on it now. I would obviously never do that on purpose.
This place looks like my grandpa's socks.
Not a good look imo
I never thought of that until you mentioned it but now that you have I can't get the image out of my mind. haha
thanks for being a jerk. Jerk.
I LIKE SOCKS.
The new look is quite good, the fabric background pattern sort of reminds me of waistcoats, or the new Dr Who.. 🙂
My problem is that I can't just click "Latest Comic!" or something intuitive. I also had to dig around to find this post to even know what happened.
Also clicking "Home" is entirely redundant because I go straight back to /about-he/… Messy.
I hope you're having fun with the redesign though, it is an exciting thing to do. 😀
theres a problem and the home page has disappeared. Working on it now.
Hope you find it again before the joy of shiny new-ness is overshadowed by mass frustration.
fixed already. Thanks!
The new design looks great, but there needs to be a simple way to get to the latest comic. Having to click on the Archives and then on subcategories of that will get very tiresome very quickly. We need a URL that will take us to the latest comic and allow us to navigate back from there if we need to. Just a thought.
its totally broken right now. trying to get it fixed.
annnnnnd fixed.
I really like the new look. I think it's snazzy. Also, I'm sorry people are being dicks about the problems. No one is able to get a site up on the first try without any problems.
Anyway, I think this is the greatest.
you forgot the most critical design element to any n00b photoshopper's arsenal … LENS FLARE!!! YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH!
btw, love the new design. 🙂
I did prefer the blackness of the old, but this is also cool. It is kind of jumper/socky pattern, but I like it.
BTW is it broken? I had to hunt for the strip…JOKING! Sorry, so many people said it and I didn't wanna be left out.
I really like the new design, and unlike some of the dumbasses who have complained ZOMGNOFRONTPAGE I realized that there were just some issues that would be worked out. Very nice design, and balls to old socks guy
I don't see what all the fuss is about, looks fine to me.
#missedtheboatcomment