Author: Alex Heberling

Alex Heberling here. I own the place.

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Alex Heberling

I rebuilt my online store today and I got it to the point where I don’t think it looks like total barf so I think it’s safe to link around now!

Still getting products in as I learn my new shopping cart software, but it’s already waaaaay better than Zen Cart.

More importantly: GARANOS eBOOKS!!

Okay, time for bed.

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Alex Heberling

meglish:

alexheberling:

Sailor Mew! by *alex-heberling

HOLY BLAST FROM THE PAST, BATMAN!

Sailor Mew was an otaku senshi I came up with back in the day. (Mew was my favorite Pokemon.) I used her as an online persona/handle for many years, most notably in the Senshi Exchange Club. I’ve been getting nostalgic for the early 00’s Sailor Moon fandom, what with the new series on the way this year. ^_^

It’s been a VERY long time since I drew her, and I’m not entirely convinced I got her bow colors right, but I think this is pretty close.

*disappears in a cloud of Pop-Tarts*

AAAUUGH! AAAAAAUUUUUGH!

I’m pretty sure we lucked out with the SEC. That was such a good time for otaku senshi! What will all the new moonies do?! So many of the old haunts are gone. …Are they going to put a weird tumblr twist on it?

Sailor Mew is the shit! I had forgotten about the Pop-Tarts. And now I am hungry.

But moreso, I kinda want to do a picture of some of the homegirls. And maybe go back in time and hang out on the boards again. ;_; Dammit Areku! :p

I KNOWWW.  Grep Sailormoon* is still around, but is a mere shadow of what it used to be.  As the years have gone on, hundreds of the old hangouts and shrines have dropped off the face of the internet as the owners finally decided not to renew their domains.

Even the well-known fanfic sites like Sailor Orion’s Refuge and the Crystalstars have been gone for years and years.  How many (static) sites did we lose when Yahoo finally pulled the plug on Geocities?

I AM FULL OF FEELS NOW.

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Alex Heberling

Sailor Mew! by *alex-heberling

HOLY BLAST FROM THE PAST, BATMAN!

Sailor Mew was an otaku senshi I came up with back in the day. (Mew was my favorite Pokemon.) I used her as an online persona/handle for many years, most notably in the Senshi Exchange Club. I’ve been getting nostalgic for the early 00’s Sailor Moon fandom, what with the new series on the way this year. ^_^

It’s been a VERY long time since I drew her, and I’m not entirely convinced I got her bow colors right, but I think this is pretty close.

*disappears in a cloud of Pop-Tarts*

Why I Left the Rampage Network

Alex Heberling

Why I Left the Rampage Network

kezhound:

webcastbeacon:

yamino:

endcomic:

aquapunk:

So yep, finally spelled it out.

The story goes like this: newb gets taken advantage of by a creepy, manipulative, self-serving person claiming to help them. Refuses to let them leave. Gets mad when they do. The not-so-newb is much better off now. The end.

IF YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO JOIN, REFUSE.

Oh wow! I can’t believe that, at once point, I was actually considering contacting them to join up. John Wigger’s mildly annoying experience with them was enough to convince me to not bother with them, but holy crap, that sucks. 

So yes—if you’re starting out and thinking that Rampage Network might get you some exposure, don’t do it! It’s a messy, messy trap.

I know some people who were used by Rampage.  Don’t touch it. D:

I (Fes) had worked for Horatio at Rampage Network, trying to be a community director and such. Aside from not getting paid for several months, it didn’t seem like Horatio did…. anything…. ever. As though he just sat there, collecting ad money. It got to the point where I actually yelled at him a couple times to basically “shape the fuck up and start doing some things”.

Since Rampage Network hosted all of our podcasting files, it was a bit more difficult for me to simply leave. So I played very nice as I was gearing up to try and find some new hosting.

I mean, I did very much appreciate John/Horatio picking up The Webcomic Beacon and hosting over 16 GB of data by the end of the Webcast Beacon Network’s stay there. But I was having serious concerns for myself, and multiple other hosted creators, especially when he would do zero damage control when the servers would go down (for instance).

Finally I was able to move everything and get away when Hiveworks came in, and saved several former Rampage Network creators, including The Webcast Beacon Network. I am grateful to Hiveworks for now hosting us now.

I would never recommend anyone to work with John/Horatio of The Rampage Network. His business strategies are… suspect… if he even has any.

Signal Boost. There’s always SpiderForest. Which is where I am. And couldn’t be happier. I know too many people who had bad experiences with RN, including myself, to ever encourage anyone to be hosted there.

My experiences with RN were relatively mundane, though I am not surprised to hear about Aquapunk and Webcast Beacon’s experiences.  Horatio/John seemed to have a certain amount of bad blood in the greater webcomics community, and with other collective owners, namely Frumph and Joey Manley.

To be honest, RN didn’t really do anything for me that I couldn’t have done on my own.  I was never hosted by them, so the RN ad banner was just sort of hanging out on the footers of my website sucking up my pageviews.  It was nice to be associated with a lot of other comics I admired on the collective page, and I’ve made some friendships over the years, but I can’t say it ever did much more for me than that.