Inkscape at SCALE 9X

Feb23
by on February 23, 2011 at 11:48 am
Posted In: Blog

This weekend is the ninth Southern California Linux Expo, or SCALE 9x for short. There will be a stand there for Inkscape – the software we use to create The Greys – and one of the organisers for that stand, Jon Cruz, was kind enough to let us put some of our leaflets on there.

Unfortunately the leaflets seem to have got lost in transit. Perhaps they slipped from the plane and are being pounded into papier maché by the fearsome waves of the Atlantic ocean. Perhaps they’re being pounded into submission by the fearsome staff of immigration control due to the “alien” content. Or perhaps they’ve been impounded by customs for reasons that only the customs people might understand.

Whatever the reason, they haven’t arrived yet.

So if you do go to SCALE 9x, make the time to drop by the Inkscape booth, tell them what a great job they’re doing, and thank them from us. But don’t expect to find our leaflets there 🙁

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The Greys in “Aylesbury Town Matters”

Feb21
by on February 21, 2011 at 9:21 am
Posted In: Blog

Next week’s comic will be arriving a little early – on Monday. The reason is that we’re appearing in print, in issue 20 of our local town council’s magazine, Aylesbury Town Matters. Next week’s strip will be a copy of the one from the magazine in case any readers want to download the source file, and is being posted to coincide with the initial deliveries. The magazine goes out four times a year to over 29,000 households in Aylesbury, so we’re delighted to be making an appearance. With luck the comic will be a regular addition to the magazine, but nothing is set in stone yet.

Aylesbury is a medium sized town in Buckinghamshire, England, and to fit in with the magazine these comics will all feature sights and sounds that are familiar to local residents. To make it clear which comics are from Aylesbury Town Matters we’ll be using a green border and a small header section on each strip – so you can easily skip them if you’re not interested in jokes about a town you’ve never visited.

This is a very exciting project for us: not only is there the potential for a few more regular readers from the pool of 29,000 households, but it’s also really nice to see The Greys in print in a magazine (which was our original intention when we started them the first time round, back in 1994).

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My Valentine’s Day Present

Feb15
by on February 15, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Posted In: Blog

As you may have noticed, yesterday was Valentine’s Day. This year, my girlfriend gave me a present that she’d made herself…

That’s right: A book of the whole of The Greys, Season 1. She’d taken the time to download all of the Inkscape source files, load them into Inkscape (which she first had to install on her Mac), export them as PNG files, place them into InDesign (her DTP program of choice), print them out, and get the whole lot spiral bound.

So now I have a cherished memento of Season 1, from the bouncing aliens of “Yeti Boots“…

…through our twin plays on the word “exterminator”…

…including our ever popular Ubuntu themed strip (though not the Spainish version)…

…and finishing up at the “End of Season Party“.

If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is.

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Google are now indexing SVG files

Sep04
by on September 4, 2010 at 8:17 am
Posted In: Blog, SVG

It’s taken a long time to get there, but Google are now indexing the content of SVG files.

SVG is a vector graphics format which is similar in structure to the code that makes up an HTML web page. As well as the obvious graphical elements, SVG files often also include text (such as the speech and captions in our comics) and metadata (embedded information about the image – such as the artist’s name, or the license the image is released under). These bits of text should now get indexed by Google.

All our comics start as SVG files created using the free Inkscape application. As we’ve been assiduously inserting metadata into our files right from the start, this should hopefully make it a little easier to find our comics with a Google search.

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A tale of two T-shirts (and a poster)

Sep01
by on September 1, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Posted In: Blog

There are two people responsible for The Greys, and the other one – Vince – had a landmark birthday (that he doesn’t like to talk about) at the weekend. Vince and I don’t usually buy presents for each other – he generally forgets my birthday (despite it being the day before his daughter’s), and I generally can’t be bothered to buy him a present on account of him having forgotten my previous birthday. But as this was a landmark birthday I thought I’d put such petty thoughts to one side and arrange a present or two for him.

My first idea was for a poster-sized print of one of our comics. I went for an A2 sized copy of “The Edorian Job” which was expertly handled by our old friends at Bluepepper Designs (if you need an independent design and print company and are located in or near to Aylesbury, give them a call). The initial A3 proof showed a couple of issues that had sneaked into our original design, but which don’t show up much at web-site sizes. A tweak to the original file, and a bit of colour correction on their part, and I was furnished with a glorious A2 print a couple of days later.

As great as the poster is, I decided to really shame his forgetfulness with a second present. Something that I knew he would like, and that would also help to advertise The Greys. A T-shirt.

This one took a bit more effort as our comics aren’t really designed for T-shirt proportions. A little jiggering and pokering, however, led to a suitable arrangement of the key parts from “Reservoir Aliens“. I added a web address, and one of our trademark Easter Eggs, then placed an order with spreadshirt.co.uk for a pair of light blue tees – one as the present, and one for me.

So here’s the landmark birthday boy – but remember, he doesn’t like to talk about it – in his nice new “Reservoir Aliens” T-shirt. Happy birthday Vince!

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