:: The Fake FAQ ::

: Dude, what's your real name?

None o' yer beeswax!

: What is your secret origin?

I was born the unwanted son of a gypsy and a prince. My birth mother tossed me over a cliff into a waterfall, fearing persecution from the prince for having a child out of wedlock. Fortunately, I floated to safety, and was raised by wolves. The wolves taught me many important things involving survival and the hunt. Soon, I was discovered, still a toddler, by an American couple backpacking across Europe. They smuggled me to the States, where my wolfish upbringing ensured me a life of seclusion and hatred by the other children. Growing up despised and alone, I vowed vengeance on those who spurned me. With a sharp mind and the ability to learn quickly, I graduated first in my class at Harvard and MIT in record time. Stealing blueprints from my cocky roommate, Reed Richards,  and modifying them for my own purposes, I thus began construction on my orbital base. After avoiding capture by that meddlesome Mr. Bond, I succeeded in stealing the precious and legendary Baseball Diamond, which is used as the focal point in my space laser. Now it is only a matter of time...

: What is this "Demillo's Floating Restaurant" you're so keen to sink?

Well, during every Saturday morning cartoon, in every commercial break, there would be an ad to eat at Demillo's. It drove me batty. The only way to console me was to think that if there were no more Demillo's, there'd be no more ads.

: What do you have against Hannaford's Supermarkets anyway?

They try to make grocery shopping look fun! They try to make you think that once you're there you won't want to leave!! They're EVIL!

: Are you, like, on something, man?

No. Yes. wait; I want to change my answer!

: Have you ever had an original thought?

Never.

: How often do you update this site?

Once a week, on Sundays. The updates usually get posted sometime during the day on Saturday, but this could be as late as 11pm or so, so I just say check in on Sunday. Actually, more and more real life gets in the way and the updates can go up as late as Sunday evenings sometimes... D'oh!

: Only once a week? Are you lazy?

Well there IS that. Also, I do have a full time job and a little me time I like to have without feeling like I have an obligation. This site is just a fun, and free past-time for me. Updating once a week and on a schedule makes it so it is still fun and not consuming me, and also easy to remember to do it. I don't want to have to think about when I last updated, has it been too long, etc. "Get the new stuff up for Sunday!" easy to do and easy to remember.

:Are you hiding something from me?

Most definitely.

:Why is it that it seems I have no idea what the hell you are talking about half the time?

If I seem to be referring to odd things or making no sense what so ever, that is partially me and partially the fact that I have a tendency to quote or paraphrase from things. The most frequent quote sources are from The Simpsons, Buffy, and old cartoons and also the plethora of movies I had seen from my youth. The most quotable films by me are Superman ("You WILL bow down before me Jor-El, first YOU and then your heirs!"), Ghostbusters ("okay, so she's a dog." "no kiss?" "dogs and cats living together; mass hysteria!"), Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("I'm not dead; I'm getting better!" "build a bridge out of her!"), Die Hard and various action films ("now I have a machine gun...ho. ho. ho."), the original Star Wars movies (including referring to anyone/anything being frozen in carbonite), Clue ("fla-flames! on the side of my face!") and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Of course I must also give credit to Mystery Science Theater 3000 for also giving me mounds of material to work with. If I've said something funny, chances are that show inspired me or I'm stealing directly from them. Here's a sample phrase I like to say: "I think I'll go live in a cardboard box with a high-speed internet connection (Daria), so long as somebody will bring me lots of extension cords (Blue Monday), magazines, and pudding (Boy Meets World)."  That ONE sentence has three references in it! Also, refer to my "secret origin" above with references to the Fantastic Four comics, James Bond and The Great Muppet Caper. So, if you want to understand me better, you need to watch more movies and read comics.

:What art programs do you use?

I currently use both Corel Draw & Photo-Paint 11 and Adobe Photoshop 7. I use the Corel program to make my graphics, CD jackets, and blends. I use Adobe to make my new buttons as well as retouch and color my illustrations. If Adobe Photoshop is acting up, Adobe Image Ready will work in a pinch, but I'd rather not, since I'm not that used to it. All the really, really old stuff was made on Corel 8 and boy can you ever tell.

:What sort of art tools do you use?

All of my current MANUAL drawing tools are a Zebra M-402 mechanical pencil, currently filled with Pentel HB Super 0.5mm leads, a Pentel ZE-21 Clic Eraser, and a set of Micron felt tip inking markers, a set of six markers which range in width from 0.20mm to 0.5mm. Typically, I use the 0.25 marker to go over almost everything, then the 0.30mm marker for a spot where I need a thicker line,  the  0.20 to add finer details and embellishments, and the 0.5mm to color in large black spots. All of my OLD stuff (the pics in the Swipe File, for instance) were drawn with a plain old Number 2 pencil and inked with a Sanford Uni-ball Micro pen (yeah, that's right, the kind people just write with, nothing fancy), calligraphy markers and a giant Sir-Marks A-lot marker. Anything colored by hand was done with my enormous set of Prismacolor Pencils. I've tried a few different color pencil brands, and these I've found are the best. Good inking tools can make all the difference, I've found as well.

:So why mutant chickens?

Why NOT?

:Why do you call your cartoon Buffy illustrations "Mini Mangas"? You can hardly call that manga!

Goooooooooood point. Basically, it's just me being all pretentious and assigning a name to that one particular cartoony art style I invented. See, years ago, I had done all my illustrating in a quasi-pseudo-Jim Lee style, since that was all the rage. I grew up a bit and discovered the awe and majesty that are Chynna Clungston-Major and Rumiko Takahashi. I was inspired. So much so, I started to try and do Japanese style art. Nothing doing. I tried to do "chibi" style Buffy characters, but years of Jim Lee proportioning was hard to erase and I just couldn't do somebody with a little chubby body and a huuuuge head. I compromised my internal struggle and met somewhere in between. What I resulted with isn't any already set art style really, so much as something I developed on my own. I only decided to name it when I started the web site as at first I didn't have thumbnails, only text links, so I tried to come up with something that would let the visitor know somewhat what they were in for. I think "Buffy Mini Manga" sorta relays what you see doesn't it? You have a Buffy character, with a fairly oversized head with big cute eyes in it. I could have just as easily dubbed the art style "squeedgeyboo" or "bumpaloosinhow", but where would that leave us?

:No, see, what I mean is, isn't "manga" only indicative of sequential art, like in a comic book, and NOT pin-ups? Isn't that referred to as "anime"?

IS it? Well, I've always been under the impression that "anime" referred to "animated" Japanese art style and that "manga" referred to still illustrations or anything else, like comics and poster art. Maybe I'm wrong and not as big an "otaku" as you are. It's just the word "anime" seem to derive its phonetics from "animation."

:You are a jerk and a show off! What do you say to that?

What's your point?

:Why on Earth don't you have all your thumbnails one size? Wouldn't it look neater that way?

Okay, okay, I HAVE gotten some grief over this, so let me just say: I, myself, prefer NORMALLY proportioned thumbnails of the ENTIRE image! It is a PERSONAL PREFERENCE of mine. I really do prefer to see a preview of the whole image and not just a tiny piece of it (I've seen site where their thumbnails are all a 25 by 25 pixel portion of the image and all you see is an eye or something. How does that let you know what your in for?) and also an evenly proportioned image, as in not distorted by adjusting them to uniform height and width. I want my thumbnails to show the viewer EXACTLY what the image is they're previewing. It's a my own preference, but then this IS my site. I don't go to your site and tell you how to preview your images.

:Well, then why uniform width? Why not height?

I just have it in my brain that since we are scrolling UP AND DOWN the page that uniform width looks better. If the page scrolled from SIDE TO SIDE, uniform height would look better. But, then, that's just me, I'm sure.

:Why is your Tagboard so effing big? why don't you call it a chat board?

It's big for a few reasons. 1) I always thought people had them skinny because they were cramming them in their sidebars or margins and 2) the name I like to tag with is "williamthebloody" and this is pretty long, if you think about it, and on most of those skinny taggies it won't fit, so I wanted one friendly to long names. Just because it's wide doesn't mean its a chat room, though, I don't really care if they do (and it DID happen once! Really! It was weird!).

:I really like your sketches/mini mangas. Would you draw something for me if I asked real nicely/offered you lots of money?

WOULD I? Quite possibly. I'd be so flattered just to get asked, most likely I would. In fact, I recently installed a "Make a suggestion for me to draw" page! As far as money is concerned, I'm really uncomfortable with the subject, but it all depends on what you want. I mean, if you're looking for something for commercial use, of course I'd want some sort of small compensation for it. But when it comes down to it, I'm a guy who likes to draw things and am always looking for ideas on what to draw, so a suggestion here and there would be most welcome, but I can't make any promises. Some people totally over estimate my abilities. Just in case you haven't noticed, I primarily deal with figures ONLY. I'm not a background illustrator. Perspective is my enemy. I also reserve the right to post whatever I make for you on my own site to show off as an accomplishment and to brag. If you want the art to use on your website, that's fine. I'll provide a link to you as long as you post the work. Also let me reiterate my suckiness with the computer. If you want me to draw you something for, like an avatar or layout, I'll do the drawing, okay fine, but it's up to YOU to make it into whatever digital thing you want, as I am totally inept at creating the simplest of buttons, never mind avatars and layouts or whatnot, so don't ask.

:I really like this one particular image you have posted in your gallery. Can I use it in my signature/avatar/layout/etc?

SURE! All I ask is that I get proper credit. If you use a drawing of mine in your layout, please include a link back to williamsbloodyhell.com somewhere. I won't ask that you ugly up your sig or avy with credits to me right on it, but if you have a credits page or something similar, please link me there. Also, and this should go without saying, just plain don't claim to have drawn it yourself! I put some effort and work into my doodlings, that it would be the suck to have someone else saying they did it when they didn't. I try to make them as assessable as possible (ready to use for wallpapers or whatever) by not mucking them up with watermarks or my URL plastered all over them. Don't make me regret that. If someone asks you where you got it, direct them here, of course! If you DO happen to make an icon/layout/whatever with one of my drawings, I'd LOVE to see it and I'd take it as a huge compliment! HOWEVER, I have to point out that the Art By Other People Who Aren't Me section is NOT my property and therefore, keep your hands off that stuff unless you speak with their respective creators!! I have permission from each of them to post it here, but beyond that is out of my hands.

:Your layout looks really screwy in Mozilla (or any browser besides Internet Explorer) so why don't you do anything about it??

Perhaps I haven't made myself clear on the whole "I barely know what I'm doing with this computer" issue. I'm lucky anything even appears on the internet at all, never mind compatible with different browsers. I have absolutely no freaking idea what the difference is from browser to browser, or what that would entail. Maybe if I knew somebody personally who had a different browser whom I could telephone and ask how it looked, etc, I could figure something out, but I don't, and so remain clueless. I know I'm exposing my ignorance to all new depths here, but, hey, I'm being honest.

:You seem pretty lenient on your reviews. Very rarely do I even see anything rated a "C" or lower. Aren't there any movies or whatever that you DON'T like?

My gosh, yes. I really despise Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and The Last days of Disco, to name a couple right off the bat that I would give a solid grade of "F". I think most likely my problem is that I feel more compelled to review the things I actually like. I think I want to, you know, spread the word so that others will know about these great things out there. Also, I have a keen sense of knowing what I don't think I'll like beforehand, and so don't even watch them to begin with. Why should I force myself to suffer through White Chicks for no reason?

:You know, with a name like William's Bloody Hell, I expected something quite a bit darker.

Um. Okay. So sorry I'm not feeding into your preconceived stereotype, there. Sure, I consider myself to be a little goth-ish in my own personal style, but does that mean I have to gloom and doom about it? I think you have me confused with the mopey teenager I used to be. What WERE you expecting, if I may ask? Dripping blood bars? Marilyn Manson background music? Photos of mutilated corpses?

:Do you have an online journal somewhere?

Gods no! I'm not so megalomaniacal as to think that anyone would be the slightest bit interested in my everyday life. This site exists mainly because I like to create stuff, whether it be hand drawn or a computer oriented image, and I like to show that stuff off (even if I'm not too good at it). I thought some sort of intercommunication with my visitors would be good to have, so I decided to rant every week, in addition to the art stuff. Secretly, my real life is quite boring, and trust me, you don't want to know about it. I figured posting my opinions on stuff would be more interesting, or at least occasionally funny.

:Okay, so no journal. How about just a little personal info?

Some of my rants are quite personal, thank you very much. Nah, I know what you mean. Well, there IS a small bit of personal info about me on here, age, hair color, etc. You just have to find it. It's hidden. I am so evil.

:Why don't you talk about yourself more often?

Seriously, I AM VERY BORING.

:Why do you HAVE an Enter Page? Blech!

You hurt my feelings! Waaaah! Actually, a few years back (I wanna say 2003-2004), I was relatively new to site ownership and went looking to have the ol' Bloody Hell reviewed to get an objective opinion or two. When I looked over what the reviewers were looking for in a site in requirements, what they based their point rating systems on, etc, many more or less "required" Enter Pages and would count it against you if you did not have one. I took this to mean that most people actually expected you to have an Enter Page and that this was an all around good thing to have. So I made one. It has served the purpose of webring page and a good spot for a welcome message, so I have hung onto it. Actually, it works really well for that welcome message as attempting to work that into my layouts pretty much sucks ass.

:Why don't you put your counter on the Enter page? Isn't that where it's supposed to go?

Says who? I rather have it on my main layout, than the Enter page because this way I can track who actually decides to come in and look around over counting who sees the Enter page and goes away. It makes sense in me own head, it does.

:Why do you have you web ring links on your Enter Page? Wouldn't that be better on your links page or a web ring only page?

Actually, no. For one thing, a while back I applied to join a few rings, many of which either never responded, were no longer accepting new members, or I just didn't make it in. I noticed many had a requirement that they will list in the ring ONLY the page you have your code on. Since I used frames, any other page would be impossible for my visitors to navigate my site. Yeah, I could make a special ring page with special navigation for visitors who got to me from there, but why do that if I don't have to? It's not as though my Enter Page is all cluttered with STUFF or anything. Little graphic, requirements, and rings. Not much clutter at all.

:What's the deal with that welcome message anyway?

"The deal," my friend is that I have had visitors completely not understand this website at all. They are so used to blogs, personal sites and shrines, that a site run and maintained by one guy and not have it all about this one guy was a totally foreign concept. This is a "for fun" website and not one about me and people just didn't "get" what they were looking at, so I had to explain it. Several times. Ergo, welcome message.

:Why do you pick on Canada so much?

They're so cute; they think they're a real country and all. Just kidding! Do I really do it that much? Well, I only pick on those I love, don't you know.

:You have to be the most computer ignorant person I have ever met. Why do you even bother?

Um.... because it's fun?

:So, I heard you have a tattoo. Is this true? If so, where is it?

Yes, it's true. If I wanted you to know more, you'd know. Leave me alone.

:Why do you go by "William the Bloody" anyway?

Get ready for a flashback. My first big foray into any sort of online life or community was with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer official chat room. The show went on a winter hiatus, but I was addicted and needed more Buffy stimuli. After some reluctance, I decided to check out the chat rooms. I lurked silently for a while and didn't say much of anything to anyone. I realized after some observation, that people who had Buffy themed names got more random hellos and invitations to talk. So I left and came back as william_the_bloody. I still lurked for a while, but people were having a Buffy trivia game so I decided to play. I kicked much ass. I started going back whenever I had free time. I met loads of nice people and enjoyed much Buffy talk. I found out that I wasn't the only guy to go by william_the_bloody, and one of them actually challenged me to a trivia duel for the "rights" to the name. I won. When I started the site, I decided to go by William the Bloody here as well. I started to branch out and visit other sites to say hello and to plug myself (I'm a plug whore, I know) so I signed guestbooks and tagboards under williamthebloody. That's the story. No lie. Maybe I should've thrown in a sword fight.

:But, is your name actually "William"?

I told you, none of your business!

:So why "William's Bloody Hell" as a name?

It seemed pretty obvious to me. I was already going by "williamthebloody" and I like to say "bloody Hell", so it just made perfect sense. I like site names that sound like a place, and Hell would be my place.

:If you have this section anyway, why not have one of those "Ask Me" scripts for people to ask you questions?

If I did THAT, this FAQ would cease to be fake, now, wouldn't it? I like doing it this way. It's funnier. Not to mention that I've looked at other sites' Ask Me things and some people ask the most idiotic stuff. Honestly, I don't want to be bothered with crap, and having to update another section based on visitor input. I already have my hands full with the Guess the Lyrics and Dialogue sections in that respect.

:So, then, what's the deal with Rant 210?!

Alright, I crumpled under the constant pressure of Rant writing and needed some help! There, happy?? A one-time Q & A session is loads easier than having to constantly update a page to answer a frequent input of questions.

:Good gravy, your coding is an awful mess! How did it get in such a state?

Yeah, well, so's your face! Shut up! Don't look at my coding! I know it's bloody awful and an embarrassment to HTML coders everywhere. I don't hand code my pages, I use Frontpage to do most of the work and it sometimes generates excess or weird codes for stuff. I DO hand code MOST of the CSS and JavaScript crap, but that's about it, really. I just don't have the time.

:You should really use validated HTML and CSS, you know.

Oh shut up. I really have grown to dislike the whole "valid" fad out there. I think it's just another way for computer literate people to feel superior. I say, if it looks OK and it works, good for me. Yeah, I KNOW the color scroll bar code doesn't work in ALL browsers, but I LIKE it. It's not as though the code causes other computers to crash or anything. Get over yourselves, you "valid" elitists!

:I noticed you have other people who have written reviews for this site. Can I send you some?

Absolutely! Just visit the Submitting page for basic guidelines and more info. Then, e-mail your submission to me at bloodyhell@verizon.net. If you have a website and you want a link back in return, no problemo; I'd be happy to post it beside your review so people can check you out.

:What's the deal with your fascination of vampires/zombies/werewolves and the supernatural?

I dunno. I've just always like that sort of stuff since I was a little 'un. Don't know why. Maybe I should try hypno-regression therapy?

:How do you go about choosing the lyrics you use in the Guess the Lyric contest?

It's pretty much random stuff from musicians and songs I like. Yes, I actually listen to everything on there. You'll notice the first four lyrics used were from my all-time fave bands, then it got tougher. I needed to mix it up a little more to make it harder. I started to use CDs my friends made for me that I like for ideas as well. If you're looking for some sort of mathematical equation to predict what band I'll use next, good luck with that. There really isn't any rhyme or reason other than if I just used, say, The Misfits, chances are the next one won't be by them, but I could very well use them again later on. You'll notice that there are at least two songs by the Cure, the Misfits, the Beatles, New Order, the Church and Operation Ivy on there to name a few. If you want me to go into more detail, tough, I'm not going to make it any easier for you!

:What about the Movie Dialogues?

Meh, same difference. I came up with the contest because I like movie quotes. I quote from film all the time in my regular day to day life and thought it would be neat to see if any one else out there got what I was talking about. Unlike the lyrics, from the start I had in mind quite a few of what lines I wanted to use (the main one being the dialogue from "Simple Men" which was up for more than a month: "Who's that?" "The Virgin Mary." "Hm. She's pretty." "Not only that but she's got a great personality AND she's the mother of God."), which is why it's Guess the Dialogue and not just Guess the QUOTE. To me "quote" denotes more of something said by one person, and while sometimes that IS what I do, not usually. And yeh, you'll notice that I've worked my way through some of my fave directors on this like David Lynch, Tim Burton,  Hal Hartley, and Mel Brooks, and I may have other films by these same people eventually, but I still have a ways to go before exhausting ALL the films that I enjoy.

:Why do you have your Guestbook hidden? I wanted to leave you a message!

I don't know why I decided to do that. It wasn't always hidden. In the very beginnings, it was out in the open for all to see and sign since it was the ONLY thing I had for folks to leave their mark on and get feedback with. Then I got a tagboard and comment thingies, and you know, a guestbook isn't really all that necessary if you've got those two things, but I had it, so I decided to try and make it fun. I was GOING to make it this complex maze to find it, but settled on something in between. Those of you who have found it in the past, know what I mean. Heh. If you still want to leave me a message, please by all means tag my tagboard , leave a comment on a Rant or send me an e-mail. I do so love to get little e-mails.

:What all this talk of 'mutant chickens' and such? I don't get it.

Well, as also mentioned above, there are a few pages on here that are "hidden" or "secret" such as my personal info pages and whatnot. All references to that and prolly anything else you're lost on is in the hidden bits.

:But that's not fair!!

Welcome to the world, kid.

:Why is it you sort of type like you're English? You're a yank aren't you?

Well, I'm weird (in case you haven't noticed) and sometimes in real life I actually go around talking with a British accent, and sometimes a Southern American accent as well for no reason other than I like how it sounds on that particular day. I suppose I just kind of fancy the different sort of words the English use for certain things over what an American would say. I think the English vocabulary is aces, mate.

:Why aren't there any photos of you on here anywhere?

I'm a bit bashful, and self conscious, and I don't think I look good in photographs, that and once my photo is taken the film mysteriously evaporates into nothingness. No, you'll just have to make do with my cartoon-y likenesses.

:But wait a minute, wasn't that you in the V costume?

Okay, FINE! Yes, that IS me in those Con Photos. But that's all you get!

:You're dead sexy aren't you?

Er... that'd be a matter of opinion, but in mine, I'd say, no.

:Come on, I bet you look like James Marsters, don't you?

Um... again. No.

:Stop being so coy; would you like to cyber with me?

Ew. How many ways can I say "no"?! You'd be surprised how often this came up in chat rooms. Cybering is just so.... incredibly something I'm not ever going to do. I don't care if it's genuinely Eliza Dushku on the other end. Not going to happen. Ever.

:Why don't you change your layout more often? What's it been, like, a year?

Could be. I lose track. But normally I change the layout about TWO times a year or so. As mentioned in the last response, I just don't have the time. I have in excess of 200 pages here, you know, and as of this moment, I have not yet mastered the EXTERNAL style sheet, so changing the sheets on ALL those pages takes HOURS that I just don't have. That, and I hand draw all the images used in the layout, so I have to come up with a workable doodle, have it turn out okay, etc, which is MORE time that I haven't got.

:Woah, woah. You made a BIG DEAL about externalizing the style sheets for Version 9: A Gorey Demise! What's your excuse NOW?

That other thing... you know, the laziness...

:Can I meet you, live, and in person?

Wha... what? Why on Earth would you want to do THAT? I'm sorry, but no. If someone who has "met me" via the internet tried to seek me out in "real life" then that would set of a series of tragic events which would result in the loss of many lives in order to warn me of the approach of a freaky stalker type person so that I can retreat to my subterranean panic room and huddle in the corner mumbling to meself. Seriously, meeting actual for real people gives me terrible anxiety. The internet is my friend.

:Come on, I bet we'd really hit it off and get on famously!

Be that as it may, still no. I'm much more friendly and talkative online than I could ever hope to be in person. I don't know why this is. Some big psychological reason, I reckon. I'm all for saying hello to new folks and visiting other people's sites on the internet, though.

:This site is huge! How is it that you have so much content?

Er... it's called UPDATING? Well, not just updating, but updating REGULARLY! I've had this site since 2003, and I've added at least two new things a week to it for about fifty weeks out of the year since. It's not hard to have content if you take the time to add to what you have on a regular basis. It accumulates fast.

:I like that it's new stuff and not the same ol' things I see on everyone else's site. How do you do that?

It's called ORIGINALITY and it's not hard. You'll notice quite a lot of my pages are Reviews (over 100!). Anyone can write reviews for anything! I bet you could do it just fine if you gave it a go. Also, I put out an open call for outside contributors and I've had a few friends who rose to the challenge magnificently (re: my mates Forrest Grump and Thunderdude) in addition to the occasional review, short story, or art work sent in by various visitors. Opening up your site to visitor submissions could definitely help you out there if you feel you lack the creativity to do it all yourself.

:You own a domain; will you host MY site?

Sorry, no. Nothing personal, it just sounds too much like WORK. Blegh.

:How about affiliating sites?

Sounds nice! Give me a link and I'll check you out and let you know! I'm not all that picky or elitist.

:I am personally insulted by something you said in one of your rants! How can you be so mean/cruel??

You're from Canada, aren't you? Heh. Sounds like someone takes things a tad too seriously. Honestly, you need to loosen up, if you're insulted so easily. Yes, I pick on people, whether they actually deserve it or not, but never in a derisive or cheap shot sort of way. It's called making an argument or a case for something. Feel free to offer a rebuttal in any of the comment boxes, that's what they're there for. Really, I don't care if the rant is three years old, go ahead and speak your mind on it.

:You are one disturbed individual!

Your point being...?

:I'm enjoying your Comic Strips. Are you really like that?

Well, yes and no. Most of the situations actually occurred (however who was actually there and said what thing might be changed for the purposes of funny or my ability to draw), but Comic Strip William doesn't really exist. He's more of a cutified and slightly spazzy version of me. Like an alternate reality version, only without the goatee and gold lamay sash. No, Comic Strip William will NEVER have facial hair even if Real William does, simply because it would be too difficult to draw consistently in sequential art.

:So, who's that girl in the comics? Is that your girlfriend or something?

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, NO that is NOT my girlfriend. I felt that Comic Strip William needed sort of nemesis, a foil if you will, and this is someone who enjoys to antagonize me in real life (she's the one who accused me of being "gay for Marty"). She has yet to be named because she wants a "cool internet name" and hasn't picked one yet.

:Have you ever been paid to draw something?

Once, for the Chicago gay punk band, the Rotten Fruits, because I know the lead singer personally. I drew the cover to their first seven inch single, and they paid me to do it. It felt weird to take their money, but it did stress me out to create it. Well, they now have me on permanent retainer thanks to that and I have since given them many other designs for free, one of which they are currently using as an avatar on their MySpace page!

:I love you, man!

Er... thank you?

:You obviously have no idea how to create a blend! Why do you even try?

Well, it's called learning? I seem to have "misplaced" my owner's manuals to my art programs, so I learn by doing, and blends seemed as good a place as any teach myself a few things. I'm still very far off from using even the most basic of tools to their full potential, but I do what I can and have fun doing it. Isn't that the point? To have fun? Why give up just because some people call me "no good" if I enjoy it and can only get better? Meanie.

:Good god, you don't even use layers, do you??

Nope. I use masks. Got a problem with that?

:I use a browser other than Internet Explorer and I can't fill out your Guess the Lyric or Movie Dialogue contest forms! Why is that?

I installed a script to prevent "cheating" and basically this interferes with the e-mail form in browsers like Firefox. Sorry about that. Use the manual e-mail links provided.

:What do you mean by cheating?

Well, I found out some people were winning contests by copying the information into a search engine to come up with the correct answer. To me, this is cheating. I want people who have actually seen the movie or heard the song to win, not someone who copy/pastes! Again, sorry, but this is my site and that's my view on that.

:Your Today's Soundtrack song in the current rant won't play correctly. What can I do?

The only thing I can suggest is this: Go into the Start Menu. Open "Set Program Access and Defaults." A new little window should open with four options. Expand the "Custom" selection. Under "Choose a default media player," click the button next to "Windows Media Player" and click "Okay" at the bottom. Hopefully, that should do the trick.

:Why aren't the songs on the Today's Soundtrack active in the archived rants?

Well, I have well over 200 rants and have that many songs would really take up quite a lot of space! Also, when someone plays a song "streaming" from a website, it eats up bandwidth. Imagine a new visitor going through all the rants and playing all of the songs in one day? That'd consume a large portion of bandwidth, wouldn't it? I leave them listed even though they are "dead" so that if you happen to have it on your hard drive you can listen while reading to set the mood, or if you were interested in one of the songs in particular but couldn't remember what it was called, you could still look it up for reference to buy on your own later. Did that come out right?

:What is the hardest part about maintaining/updating this site on a weekly basis?

Well, all of my content is pretty much original stuff (meaning I haven't just copy/pasted some cool reads or tutorials from other sites), so that in of itself can be difficult to keep up with. Reviews are pretty easy to write because what I am going to write about is is already known. I'd have to say that coming up with a new rant every week is the hardest thing by far because I have to come up with an original topic and expand upon it all on my own and occasionally I have problems putting an actual concept living in my brain meats out into words and sentences that make an understandable and followable argument.

:How do you come up with topics to rant about?

It's hard to say, really. Sometimes something will actually happen to me and I'll feel the need to expand upon it and tell you about it for no reason, except that maybe you'll find it interesting or entertaining or whatever. Other times I'll just be sitting here wracking my brain for something that annoys me or I find weird. Or, maybe I'll have been thinking about songs, books, movies, fictional characters, or something which I really like and want to recommend them to you. I can tell you that the majority of the time I have no idea what I'm going to write about until I actually sit down and do it, which is usually only minutes before I upload the site update.

:Has anything good actually come of having this website?

Well, I suppose that depends on what your own personal definition of "good" is, but I'd definitely say yes. I've met loads of cool people and have people tell me that they like what I write or draw and that's ALWAYS good, isn't it? I mean, one of my main points of even having this site was to put my doodling out there because what good is drawing something if no one is ever going to see it, right? I get some critiques, but mostly the feedback has been positive which is encouraging. I've even had people ask me if they could my artwork in their site layouts and forum signatures! How awesome is that?

:Jeepers, do you do ANYTHING else BESIDES watch movies and read comic books?

Yeah, this website, stupidhead.

:Your site navigation confuses me! There aren't any "Me", "You", "Site", etc buttons like NORMAL sites have!

A few people have commented about this issue, so allow me to attempt to un-confuzzle you, my friend. First, off, if you read the Welcome Message, you would know that this site IS NOT a personal one. Therefore, there is no "Me" section. I think (as mentioned above) that rambling on about myself and my life would be incredibly boring for anyone to want to read. Since this site is not about me, well, it's pretty much all about YOU, the visitor. Yeah, it's all visitor content, baby! Since just about all of my content would fall either under "You/Visitor" or "Site" (as "normal" sites would navigate), I decided to subdivide them right up front into the largest sections. Hey, it's better than two sections with hundreds of pages clustered under each, isn't it? The biggest (re: most popular) content draws are "Art", "Reviews", and "Rants", so they are available out in the open and easy to get to. If someone is here to read my Rant Archive (and most of them are), I don't want them to have to search for it as a subheader somewhere. I suppose I could conceivably rename my Miscellaneous Section as "Site", but I prefer the all inclusiveness that "Misc" offers. If I come up with some new section, no matter what it may be, I feel okay shoving it under "Misc" because it simply sounds like a catch all sort of place. Also, what fun is it to have the same ol' same ol' as everyone else?

:Your layouts are consistently lackluster and unattractive. What's the deal?

How often do I have to tell you that I'm not very computer savvy? I have a website because I like creating the content, layout creation is another animal entirely. Oh sure, I could get some free premade layout or even a template, but I wanted something a little more unique, like the content (if I do say so myself). One of my internet idols is Weem, and I really liked how on her old personal site she always featured her own artwork she had drawn. I wanted to do that. After all, one of my reasons for starting this website was to show off my drawings. However, finding cool ways to incorporate my art into a nice layout is something I find very difficult. I like to think that I am learning about layouts the longer I have this site, albeit very, very slowly.

:You really ought to think about cross-browser compatibility as well as accessibility!

Again, have you been keeping up with my slow-to-learn-proper-coding statements? Universal compatibility and accessibility will always be the dream. I am taking in all I can understand on these topics right now and am working on ways to apply them to this site in the back of my mind constantly. I hope to get there eventually.

:I enjoy looking at your art, but what's the deal with that guy in your layouts?

The deal? The deal is simply that that is supposed to be me as a cartoon. This IS "William's Bloody Hell" after all, so there's William right in the layout for you to better visualize him.

:Why don't you ever put a more interesting subject in your layout art?

Um....

:Is it really okay to post new comments on old, archived Rants?

YES!!

:Seriously, will you even ever see it?

I do in fact look over my old Rants, from time to time. Besides, so do other visitors!

:I'm having some difficulties with the comments from some of the really old Rants. What's up with that?

Well, my older Rants have comments hosted by an outfit called Enetation. They were marvelous for a good, long while, but then they started to have bugs and crashed... A LOT. Usually they'd either fix it on their own or some small bit of account maintenance on my part was enough to get them going again, but this stuff just started happening so frequently, it got tiresome to keep up with it. Eventually, I decided to test drive Haloscan comments instead, and so far, have had absolutely no down time problems with them. So, if I had to guess, and I do, I would say the comment system giving you trouble would be one of the Enetation links. I do try to periodically debug those old links to get them up and running again, just probably not as often as I ought to is all. (Right now, however, they seem nearly impossible to fix on my own.) Also, I believe the comment issue causes the page to load slower than normal. Sorry for the inconvenience!

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