F.A.Q.
Introductions
1. What is the B.S. of Comics?
2. What is the purpose of this blog?
3. How can I participate?
4. When are your meetings?
Technical questions
5. How do I upgrade my account?
6. How do I upload my own avatar?
7. What is this dumb “clap” thing?
8. How does my gallery work?
9. How do I put images in my comments or posts?
10. Who’s in charge here anyway?
Introductions
1. What is the B.S. of Comics?
The B.S. of Comics stands for the Bellingham School of Comics. We’re basically just an extremely loose-knit club of people who’re interested in reading and making comics of all sorts. If you can make it to one of the meetings, you’re considered a member. If you’re a cartoonist and can’t make it to the meetings, you’re an honorary member. We might be more discerning about memberships if we ever start charging money for them or if we start offering free hosting, but since all we really do is meet, drink coffee, draw and hold completely open art shows, there’s no reason to be stingy.
In short, we are what you see and what you bring to the table.
2. What is the purpose of this blog?
Mostly, to provide a useful resource for anyone interested in making comics, or in starting their own similar group.
But also, the B.S. of Comics was started in the spring of 2004. Within two months it had 24 attending members. At it’s peak it had 30. Most of these people have moved on or out of town, but we’d like to stay in touch!
We would have started a blog or BBS like this earlier, but PHP programming just wasn’t up to par until now. And our LiveJournal community was just good enough to justify our laziness.
Subscribe, join, post, attend meetings. Draw things! It’s really that simple.
Currently, we meet at the Black Drop Coffee House at 300 W. Champion. Our times are 5-7pm on Mondays and 2-5pm on Saturdays. However, you’re absolutely welcome to start your own meetings and post about them on this board! We will help you make it happen.
Technical questions
5. How do I upgrade my account?
Simply remind the admin via personal message that you need your account upgraded and he will give you the appropriate account level. All newbies start at “subscriber” level. Proven members (anyone who’s not here to spam or troll) are typically upgraded to “Contributor” at the very least. Attending members (anyone who makes it to at least one meeting) can become Authors. These are just guidelines. The admin reserves the right to make all final judgments.
6. How do I upload my own avatar?
If your account level allows it, you will find the upload field at the bottom of your profile page in the DashBoard. The local avatar widget automatically reduces your file to a set square, and will either crop or reshape it to fit, so it’s best to use a square file.
Alternatively, you can use a Gravatar.
7. What is this dumb “clap” thing?
It’s a dumb “clap” widget that allows you to “clap” if you approve of something without having to put a whole comment down. It’s appropriately silly and it also maybe cuts down on otherwise frivolous commenting. You don’t have to use it, but if you feel compelled just click on the little hand!
If you go to your dashboard, on the side panel in one of the menus you should find “Your Gallery”. Go there, click on it, and you will find your upload forms and gallery management doohickeys. Most of it should be self explanatory. If you have any further problems, don’t hesitate to contact the admin and he’ll explain it in more detail for you (later updating this page to be even more useful).
9. How do I put images in my comments or posts?
You’ll need to use HTML to do this, though most of the comment and post forms have buttons that help you insert these tags.
For most people, you’ll have to host the image on your own hosting site. But many members will be able to host images here in their own Gallery. Either way, you’ll need to get the URL of the image as there is no handy widget for that.
In another window, pull up the image. Right click on the image to pull up your browsers option menu. Select “copy image location” or “copy image URL”. Then come back to your B.S. of Comics post and “paste” the image into the appropriate HTML img tag.
If you need further help, you should consider Googling for HTML tutorials. There are many out there that are quite well written and easy to find. If you just want a list of useful HTML tags, Google “Bare Bones HTML”.
10. Who’s in charge here anyway?
That’s sort of a trick question. The B.S. of Comics itself is officially an anarchy. However, senior members tend to be respected for their opinions about group dynamics more. And for some bizarre reason everyone looks to Jonathan Sodt (A.K.A. Fenmere, the Worm) for actual leadership. For ease of operations and the social dynamics, it’s usually a good rule of thumb to follow.
When it comes to this online forum, Mr. Sodt is absolutely in charge. He gives everyone lots of permissions to do things and to govern themselves, but since he alone has the FTP password he really does have final veto, even if others take over as admin. If someone else would like to host the B.S. of Comics on their server, Mr. Sodt may be amenable to this idea, so please do ask!
