Site 3.3 is live, Suckas!

It's with a mediocre amount of ennui that we announce the upgrade to site 3.3! We've got big things going on with the revision:

We now gonna take yo' money! Our online store is now open for business! Right now, we've got content limited to posters based off some of our pin-ups and our more posterizable comics. We'd have more, but we we're A) lazy and B) clueless about what you might actually want.

If you have something you think would be good S@10 merchandise, by all means, send me an email or post on the forum. Normally, someone like me would say "And if we choose your submission, you'll get one for free!"

Notice how I didn't say that...

More advertising space! Hmm. You're probably less interested in that. If anything, additional ads probably annoy you.

No more tags! The tags didn't work out so well. I'd go into a rant about how I told Don and Doug this from the beginning, but that would just open the door for every time they told me so. We certainly can't have that.

--Wes

Site Version 3.2 is here

After months of development, spanning almost tens of hours of work, S@10 is happy to announce the release of site version 3.2!

What is new in 3.2? Well, some neat stuff, actually! First, the navigation panel on the left hand side of the page has a few new options. We split the "Archive" section into "Strip Search" and "Tag Cloud." These two pages provide new ways of searching our content.

We've also changed the navigation bar at the top and the bottom of the comic section. Gone is the "First Strip" button, replaced by a "Favorites" button. Yeah, we know it bucks the convention a little bit, but Don and I are not huge fans of the old stuff. We don't want to throw it away and we like the progression it shows in our work, but we wanted to sweep it under the rug a little bit.

More importantly, we don't want new readers to hit one button and be directed to what is very possibly our weakest strip. As the cliché goes, we only have one chance to make a first impression, so we need to put our best foot forward. The old strips are still there, via the navigation panels at the top and bottom of the "Strip Search" page.

Finally, the biggest change is the implementation of Tags. I won't go into great detail as to what tags are and why we implemented them; tags help to organize data. I encourage the reader(s) to contribute meaningful and useful tags. Please just watch the spelling and take a look to make sure that a similar tag doesn't already exist.

Site version 3.3 is on its way, and that promises a way to provide even more awesome at your fingertips!

Down with the pin-up

It is with mixed emotions that Don and I submit today's strip. As you may have gathered, in our nearly 3 years of history, we have dedicated holidays to the presentation of a pin-up, using S@10 characters or basing art off of our reader(s). We've ranged from artistic homage (James Bond and Tron) to various forms of good and bad taste.

As you may have gathered, today's strip is not a pin-up.

I think we're done with that idea of a pin-up. Don and I are moving on past it. We can't be sure how history will eventually record us, but we're pretty sure we want to be more than "the guys who draw mostly-naked chicks all the time." The strip has evolved a lot in the past few years (check the archive if you don't believe me) and we think that this is the next step in the evolution of the comic, as well as what Don and I do as its creators.

So, it is sad to knowingly and willingly put an end to an era.

But by the same token, it is exciting to knowingly and willingly usher a new era.

Today's strip is the cover of one of the books that Don and I are making. Instead of making sexy/sexist fan-service pin-ups on the holidays, Don and I are going to be releasing pages from the book. We don't have a set schedule of when we'll actually do this, but we'll try to place these release pages on the same days as the holidays. The book story is a different continuity than the normal universe, but you'll see the cast doing the same kinds of things that we'd do in the daily strip.

I can only hope you'll forgive us for graduating from something that was uniquely S@10. Hopefully, our new holiday schedule will also be something that you uniquely attribute to S@10.

-- Wes

Comment

+1 Article of Thanking

I've obviously never met the man, but I think it is only fair that I take a moment to thank a man who is indirectly related to the comic that has become such a big part of my life. Gary Gygax died the other day, so we are forced to say goodbye to the father of the entire role playing way of life we now know.

Thank you, Gary. I won't try to say something clever and game-related. Just thanks.

When talking about Gygax' death, Doug and I were talking about Gygax being the father of the RPG and it got us thinking of the other fathers in the game world:

Dune II: The beginning of the RTS game: I thought Warcraft pioneered the RTS game, but Doug claims that Dune was the precedent on which Warcraft was based. In any event, the RTS became a fascinating and complex genre that continues to grow.

Castle Wolfenstein 3D: The FPS was born: Everyone remembers that Doom pioneered the first person shooter, but Castle Wolfenstein came first. It's hard to remember a world prior to the first-person shooter. I believe we rode dinosaurs to work or something.

I'd personally like to mention Marathon as being years ahead of its time, even though it came out at about the same time as Doom. If you played Marathon, you know what I'm talking about.

Oh crap. I totally dated myself there.

Ultima Online: The genesis of the MMORPG: I only know of UO based on references from Real Life and Ctrl Alt Delete. Doug says it led to Everquest, which is the model from which almost every other MMORPG was spawned.

Doug says a lot of things, though.

Anyway, feel free to comment here.

--Wes

Dear Rayne,

I needed to right this down, because I really needed to make sure I said everything. I didn't want to get interrupted or distracted. I need to say what needs to be said.

It saddens me to say it, but I think our relationship is over.

I will always remember that weekend in 2005, when we met. With my help, we stabbed and sliced gothic punk villains in a gluttonous orgy of death and carnage. It was like nothing else I had ever experienced in a a video game. I didn't think it was possible, but BloodRayne 2 was able to trivialize the unspeakable violence of dismemberment and geysers of blood by encapsulating it in a candy shell of veiled sexual metaphor.

Oh, and how delicious it was. I remember your tawdry one-liners. I remember the cheat codes for the Xbox that allowed for variations in your costume, as well as the size and "jiggliness" in your feminine wares. I remember your scandalous NSFW appearance in Playboy and I recall the anticipation when I waited for your first movie to come out.

I thought that our relationship could only go further. It made me smile.

It should have been a portent of things to come when there was only one theater in town that dared to show your movie. It should have been what the police detectives call a "clue" when said theater chose to show that movie only twice on that day. There were only six of us in the theater and I had to go by myself because no one else wanted to see it. The omnipresent writing was on the wall, but I chose to overlook and ignore it, as if it were graffiti.

Your movie sucked. I wanted to like it. I really, really did. Ben Kingsley and Mike Madsen were involved. Madsen was in "Reservoir Dogs." And wasn't Kingsley in the "King and I" or something? That's a really serious movie pedigree right there. Even Uwe Boll shouldn't have been able to screw it up.

I don't usually cry, Rayne, but I have to fight back the bitter tears when I remember how much I defended you. I remember how much I stuck up for you and the movie. "Better than Doom," I've always said, ignoring the tittering and derisive snorts. "Not the worst video game movie I've ever seen," I'd say, pretending not to be bothered by the abysmal ratings by the critics and IMDB.

I wish I could say that was the end of it. I wish I could say that after all the embarrassment and suffering, that we could move on to the next phase. Perhaps we'd find some measure of redemption. Perhaps you and I would get together over BloodRayne 3 on the 360. Maybe there'd be a BloodRayne MMORPG. Maybe you'd star in a porn movie. Something. All you had to do was show me something that says you take yourself seriously enough to take us seriously.

Instead, you shove the proverbial red-hot poker up my ass with your second movie, BloodRayne 2: Deliverance.

The hot flush of embarrassment stings to me when I think of all the cameos I've given you in the comic. You don't deserve it. And I certainly don't deserve it. I'm done, Rayne. We're done.

And I'm keeping the Conjure One CD, you cow.

-- Wes

Site Version 3.0 is live!

You may have noticed something new and exciting at Sunday at 10. Well, something new and exciting other than today's strip. Well, today's strip is new, at least.

Beyond that, however, you may notice that we've gone up and changed the layout of the site. As such, we've included new features and a navigation system that is a little more standard and perhaps a little more intuitive. When you come to this site, we hope you will be more efficient in your time-wasting. Whether you're avoiding your studies or shirking the duties of your job, we at S@10 hope to make that experience better!

The site's revision isn't totally cosmetic, we've done some interesting things behind the scenes. It may not be something that you notice right out, but you can trust me when I say that Doug did some PHP ninja kung-fu. We'll have some additional revisions in the coming weeks/months, too, which should make the site more interesting as a whole.

Beyond that, there isn't much news. I can give you a sneak peek into the near future, though, as far as the comic is concerned:

- I'm booked to do the artwork on Friday, November 9 (you poor bastards)
- Monday, November 12 is a federal holiday (Veteran's day), so you can expect a pin-up
- We're planning a story arc beginning Wednesday, November 14

--Wes