So I think the new comic maker and engine and everything is pretty much done. It's here if you want to try it out.

It should edit and save and update comics (donors only). To edit one of your comics add ?ID=##### to the make2.php URL, where ##### is the ID number of the comic.

Let me know if there are problems, hopefully there will be almost none and I can put this sucker up tomorrow.

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www.bradsucks.net

Listen, Brad, I don't want to question your authority or anything, but is there really any use in this? It looks totally the same for me, but now has little gray boxes around everything. Why bother? I would just like to know...

I'll do my best to ignore the bitchy tone.

The whole point is to make the comic rendering backend work out of a group of tidy functions rather than the messy awful way it's been working for years.

This will make the code easier to maintain and to change, meaning I can add new features / make small changes without it being a total unholy pain in the ass (which it is now).

The old make.php script was 20k, the new one is 3k. Once I'm done, all comic rendering throughout the entire site will work from one function rather than a couple different weird ones that were slowly grafted and patched on as the site grew over the years.

As for immediate user-evident improvements: the page is nicer looking, there are rounded dialog balloon corners, the text updates on the fly as you type, it has better (though still not perfect) Mozilla Firefox support, and the error handling is more graceful.

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www.bradsucks.net

I think it's fucking sexy. I want to dry hump it all day.
Thanks for this early Christmas present, Brad. You always seem to make sc a better place to raise our families.

I used it to make a comic called "SMORCH!" But when I saved it, it still had the square word balloons.

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Legend, oh legend, the third wheel legend...always in the way.

This proves that God is dead.

Brad's going to make the graphic interface red and green for the holiday season, too.

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

Wow. How rude.

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dcomposed:11-06-05: If I was a viking invading your village, you'd be the first to get raped.
Crabby: 10/5/06: i would love to feed you fresh fruit while bathing you.

In possum's defense, I was wondering what the pros were myself, but I didn't ask because Brad seemed so happy about it, and when Brad smiles, the cherubs on my shoulder sing and I like that.

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Peeing sitting down is the gift you give yourself.

Well you're always free to ask. Just try not to be a dick about it.

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www.bradsucks.net

HTML tags would appear not to be working too good in comics anymore:

[Click to view comic: 'inane_conversations[67]']

Should be fixed now, thanks.

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www.bradsucks.net

As seen in this comic -- [Click to view comic: 'Identities'] -- the stems of certain capital letters are slightly cut off in some of the shorter text boxes. It's not much of a problem, though.

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Chicken Feather Bed Bugs Bunny Hop Sing Out Side Street Walker Texas Ranger Cookie Dough Boy Wonder Years

NOT MUCH OF A PROBLEM? ARE YOU KIDDING? THIS COULD DESTROY THE WORLD!

As a person with crappy dialup, I'm very happy with the new system. The pages with buttloads of comics load a little faster for me.

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I will rate you hard, and unendingly.