Stats: Updates happen on average every 10.5 days. Recently they’ve happened 11 days apart. Last update happened 25.3 days ago... Ahem, I am probably very sorry stuff is late. I suspect I may have a good reason for it. Twitter or Tumblr may know more... Also, check out stats over time.
Hobo Lobo of Hamelin is a thing by a dude, who’s all like, “I’M GONNA MAKE A THING.” And then he did. Or is doing. Or, you know, whatever. This dude can be found on the internet. He websites to put food on his family.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Hello Internet Explorer user in the year 2012! The site will probably not look totally borked in your browser, but I won’t guarantee that I will care to test it much or make patches to get everything to look the same in IE as it does in proper browsers. Please get a real browser. Here are some decent options: Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari. Pick the one with the neatest name, whichever one you like the most. Friends don’t let friends use Internet Explorer.
Everyone sees this message, by the way, whatever the browser. I figured there was no need to exclusively single out IE users. They are already bullied enough by a perpetually ugly and broken internet and the ill will of developers. It is a PUBLIC service announcement after all, and you are a public; no need to email me to tell me you see the message as well. Thanks for caring anyway!
If you’re on a crappy internet connection, my condolences. Even though 1MB per panel gives me nightmares, there is no way for me to make the thing I want to make if I compress the assets further. I’m sorry! Open the window and walk the dog while it loads.
If you are encountering weird bugs, please send them my way.
If you’re using an iPad or iPhone, don’t. iOS Safari is a can of worms which I am somewhat ignoring it at this point. It helps that I don’t have any iOS devices (or anything touchscreen for that matter) to be annoyed by Hobo Lobo’s behavior on them. That said, I can’t imagine it would be too difficult to make stuff work. I just don't feel like it and the lack of convenient testing hardware gives me a ready excuse. It is a pity tho, since Apple’s inertia-supporting touch-input devices make for the most enjoyable way to read the comic. If anyone at Apple or wherever wants to expedite the Hobo Lobo Mobile Safari support, send me an iPad, or equivalent in cash moneys.
Also, any other optimizations and things that pop into your mind which I failed to see while building the site would be appreciated.
I consider the front end code to fall under the Creative Commons badge found at the bottom of the page. If you want to make another comic/storybook/thing that works this way, you are free to as long as you give me a shout out. Note that this blanket permit only applies to narrative/creative uses. If you want to use this structure for commercial ventures, you’ll have to talk to me.
If you also want the back end that powers the whole dealio (it needs PHP & MySQL), inquire within. I am leaning towards asking for a nominal sum of some sort, just to weed out people who will waste my time. I may be willing to not ask for said nominal sum if I like your project. Some knowledge of basic HTML and CSS layout techniques is a must.
Make sure to read my Parallaxer tutorial. It offers a walk through the development of the Parallaxer platform and gives a crash course on turning pencil drawings into transparent-background assets.
Harmonica piece on page 3 was composed and performed by Michael Rubin. It was produced by Dan Boillot. The ambiance is comprised of sounds from The Free Sound Project, specifically this one with a touch of this and this.
The crystal ball on page 1 is comprised of veggies and fruits from Inside Insides. The bird on page 3 was drawn and animated by Lety Rocha.
Made in Photoshop CS3. PNGs optimized further with pngnq and pngquant. XHTML validates. Kingthings Petrock is the typeface. Hosted in a LAMP. Though Dreamhost allegedly gives me unlimited bandwidth, I dunno if this is practically true. Let’s find out!
Almost everything here is made by a Stevan Živadinović