Today’s classic was a subtle—or not—plug for this blog that appeared in newspapers in 2008. When cartoonists first began to insert web addresses and such into printed newspaper comics, a lot of editors weren’t keen on the practice. They felt as if they were forced to share a property after they’d paid for exclusive rights. It was even muttered that syndicates and cartoonists perhaps should pay for “advertising.” The editors might have had a point, but, muttering or no, that horse left the barn a long time ago. What we now call “social media” are an intrinsic fact of life. What, you thought we were going to talk about the art of inking? We will, but not today. Instead, I want to call your attention to the new GoComics web site, which went live this week. I will refrain from comment now, but I very much would like to know your opinion.
312 responses to “The new GoComics site is up”
As far as the new GoComics website, I saw it for the first time this morning. Took me a minute to figure out, but once I logged in and found my saved comics I think I’m going to like it. 🙂
Like all these “mobile-friendly” web site makeovers, the new format is considerably uglier than the old one. But what matters *has* improved: the A&J comic is considerably bigger!
I am pretty perturbed that those who make the decisions (and the television networks) put a game of so-called national importance on a Monday night. Due to commercial breaks and overall slow play, the game did not end until after 12:30 pm! Of course it was a rerun of last year’s game and Nick Saban was coaching, so I was in bed by 10:30 having not watched a single play. There was NO reason that this game could not have been played on a Friday night. They could have even pushed the NFL schedules and played the game on Saturday night. I might have watched, then again I might not have, but the younger generation might have watched. Baseball has made this mistake as has basketball.
“website under heavy load. this queue is full” error message at GoComics. Will try again later. (I want A&J!)
A game of national importance? I thought the Army/Navy game had been played already….
Just teasing, Steve! Sorry you were disappointed.
The current A & J arc is mentioned on the Comic Strip of the Day blog… like the author, I’m wondering where this is going!
http://comicstripoftheday.com/
Works ok on the web, but their iPhone/iPad apps (which is the primary way my wife & I view it) now crashes almost immediately. Hopefully they will roll out an update…
The new site is obviously optimized for phones and mobile devices. It’s rather garish and ugly on a traditional PC screen, but is easier to use on a phone. There are a number of changes to the posting which are one step forward, two steps back. Having nested replies is good, but not being able to expand them all isn’t.
Llee: I am disappointed in general about college football. Nearly all sports now. I agree that Army-Navy is more of national importance. I was sort of hoping both teams would lose but the team in red much more.
I can’t get into the dang thing. Put in name and password and goes nowhere.
The new GoComics site is certainly quite snazzy, but I’m not convinced that it’s any better than the old site, at least to me.
I am actually a big fan of GoComics. I pay $1 a month to get a daily email with about 15 or so comics from GoComics, including A&J of course, although I do read it in my daily newspaper. It’s the best $12 per year that I’ve ever spent. However, I don’t look at the site more than once a month because I’m satisfied with the 15-20 comics that I subscribe to.
Personally, I like your site right here. It’s small, it’s friendly, it’s easy to navigate, and it’s a community. Modern entertainment websites have too much going on. There are too many buttons and things to like or dislike. It’s too much for me. I should say that I’m no Luddite. I use my computer every day for work, but I prefer my entertainment a little simpler.
The first thing I noticed about the new-and-improved gocomics.com page is that it seems to have a lot of unused real estate. (On my PC screen; I seldom look at it on my phone.) Or would all those blank spaces be Chock full o’Ads© if I had my ad blocker turned off?
I still use a flip phone, so I don’t have a dog in this fight… but I do like having the comics (most of them) bigger on my laptop!
I commented on the new site yesterday, but will add to that the new Gocomics is harder to navigate, especially if you bounce around a lot on your choices. It took two days to figure out the comments, and it seemed forever on how to group the political cartoons together. I would call the overall look garish, but I’m sure some will call it bright and airy. Certainly it is meant for smaller screens. Ghost if you look you will find the ads buried between the cartoons.
Am awake, AGAIN, as Forrest Gump used to say. The alarm quit or battery ran down.
Use a phone or at best tablet most of time. The new Go comics site seems set up for that. I got my big tablet out and laid in bed reading A and J until I fell asleep about 2 a.m.
Jimmy you have certainly improved mightily as an artist. I even think your humor and jokes have gotten better. My late husband used to say he would not want to live within my mind for five minutes. Actually your mind would be an interesting place to live.
Did enjoy clicking cats and got Ludwig jokes, all the categories were fun to see what came up.
Agree with Ghost that there are essential categories missing.
Frankly I only read you so don’t do anything except A and J. Go through the link here.
I do like the bigger image of the strips on the new site. I also notice the link to the “official site” (The A&J Blog) is missing from the page though. It is in my favorites, but is was easy to go to the current day’s strip and link to the blog “in a new window.”
One major change for me: I can no longer download the strips on GoComics. I make a practice of emailing the daily best of my (long) list of comics to my wife (perhaps 2-5 out of about 25), who prefers not to read through all of them and isn’t computer-proficient. A couple years ago, I could no longer copy and paste from Web to email, but found I could drag-and-drop (from Web to email).
Now I can’t do either. If I want to share a strip with my wife, I have to do a partial screenshot (using SnapzPro) and save it, then load it into email as an attachment. Not impossible, but certainly messier, and takes longer. Is this really an attempt to prohibit sharing strips? I suppose that’s fair, in the sense that people should read the ads when they look at strips… but I never do that anyway. (Don’t tell anyone…)
–Keith
About today’s current strip, Houston we have a problem. It is same problem of course that Gene has had in his relationship with Mary Lou since get go. Mary Lou has tunnel vision and her glasses seem to come with heavy filters.
By the way you convey this very deftly Jimmy. You never near soap. Soup maybe but not soap.
The comments on Go comics can stay lost.
oh- Clemson vs Alabama…. now I see.
After me talking about not cutting fingers, I sliced my thumb holding a lemon for my iced tea, half asleep at noon. I take Plavix so naturally I bled.
Bet our barkeep Ghost is deft with lemons.
I’ve been a paid subscriber to GoComics ever since they started taking subscriptions. I really don’t like the redesigned site — in fact, I dislike it enough that I might not renew my subscription.
I gave my gocomics thoughts on the previous page, about 1:30 a.m.
Hate the new site. I used wait for several day’s comics to accrue and then scroll through them during breaks in my games. With the new system, I can’t go more than one day or one comic at a time. I could do it on the beta but not now. I was entertaining the idea of upgrading to premium but, while it might solve the number of comics I can see in a row, it would do nothing about the plethora of ads in the new site. No, I don’t have to read them, but I still have to wait for them to load before I move on.
I use AdBlockPlus. Wonderful invention!
They write it in two words: AdBlock Plus .
Really excited. The first two boxes of my garden seeds arrived. Tony is out turning over soil in garden and adding compost Trula is cutting back roses. We looked at seeds during lunch. They ate chicken and dumplings, salads. I had iced tea.
This is my next big project, a large bottle tree for yard. If you do not know about bottle treeservice they are Southern folk art. Made from cedar trees that were cut down and stripped , they were covered in glass bottles in slave house yards..
The superstition came from Africa. The bottles were to ward off and catch evil spirits during the night in the glass. Blue was favorite color called Haint Blue and we’re usually large milk of magnesia bottles.
Here is book by an acquaintance of mine from past. I am going to order one. We are putting a bottle tree out in flowers.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/21135559?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222228018593853&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=53070742848&wl4=pla-75161068728&wl5=9026608&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=21135559&wl13=&veh=sem