ComicServer is a 2-year old project and counting. For that small period of time ComicServer has successfully published six versions to the internet, created a Discord bot for fast access to the service, and even spawned two other services. Those services include this very blog. So how did it happen?
May 4, 2020 was the day of founding for ComicServer. The first version was on an already existing site, Favorite Comics (as it was called then) was just a widget. It did a very simple task. Embed a site (namely Arcamax.com) in a page. Eventually, Favorite Comics became it’s own site on Classic Google Sites, showing (at first) Garfield comic mistakes but eventually making it’s way to a select number of comics on a page (plus Garfield videos).
May 29, 2020 is the official anniversary of ComicServer’s founding, despite it existing 25 days before. That’s because v2 came out on that day, and the founding date was traced to v2. Anyhow, you could find it hard to believe that 25 days after one major version, there would be a new version lightyears ahead of its predecessor. For the sake of time, we’ll believe it.
Version 2 (Namely Wix, after the website builder making the site) was making ComicServer what it is today, one step at a time. This update was a lot like v1 at the core, but so much better at face value. Sit back and relax, this version’s going to last a while. First, let’s look at its feature list over the 10 months it was an unparalleled version.
May – August
At the start of August, the service had automatically updating comic strips, a ’Suggest a Comic’ form for more comic input from the users. There was a brief moment in June when you could subscribe to ‘The Garfield Newsletter’, before it was considered a failure. Even with the new name, Comics and Comic Media, the site was pushing media in its root functionality (with videos, comic books, etc.) up until late August when Comics and Comic Media lost the media. The service is now simply ‘Comics’.
September – December
Webcomics have been very prominent in the digital space as the new comic strips. ComicServer (as it’s now called) had implemented this in mid September. Come October, members have access to 3 comic strips and 1 webcomic more than guests. Daily updating newsfeeds were also a prominent part of October’s time in v2.
Come December, v2 was winding down now with only embedded webcomics and not comic strips. The service now use ComicsRSS for regular comic strips. A Discord server was set up for all of Wel3Com and its new partner brand, Con Co (parent of BrawlCon and later SCNonStop). The service (and Discord server) added a special gift for the 2020 holidays, namely ‘ComicServer’s Christmas Celebration!’. There was a collection of gags from Garfield along with a caption to add laughter to your day. Among Us (website) was brought to the Wel3Com family in December as well, only lasting 2 months.
Wrapping Up (January – March)
ComicServer is almost wrapped up by February with a few changes here and there but nothing notably important. March comes, and v3 (namely Smokebomb) is finally ready for launch.
Smokebomb (March – April)
Smokebomb ditched the Wix platform for a whole new arena. This new version was going to use the raw power of HTML, Javascript, CSS, and GitHub. Not much changed with the core functionality, as this was only the beginning of a new era of ComicServer.
Slate (April – December)
Slate was a version that didn’t get a chance to shine. This version completely revolutionized the way ComicServer worked. The website would scrape GoComics or Comics Kingdom and display the comics with navigation tools on a simple Bootstrap stylesheet. Themes were added in October with the first ones being dark and light, and ‘material’ coming later. Alongside this ComicServer update, Wel3Com had been rebranded to OpenDev as a last ditch effort to revitalize the parent brand of ComicServer. November comes, and the website is styled to have a Christmassy look, but not for long. Here comes Cesium!
Cesium (December – May ’22)
Cesium took the great backend of Slate and put it in a stylized frontend. There are multiple chapters of this masterpiece, so let’s begin on v5.1.
Cesium/Cornflower (December 10 – 25)
Cornflower mostly fixed bugs on the initial release of Cesium, but there was more. There was a new stylized jQuery date picker that matched perfectly with CesiumUI. Cornflower used an old background image and reused it for limits on image assets at that time. A translucent pane was put on top of it to hold content like the comics.
Cesium/Coneflower (December 25 – January 1)
Mostly bug fixes. This version was meant to come out on Christmas, but it barely changed anything. You’d just have to wait 5 days.
Cesium/Vista (January 1 – 20)
Vista brought a refreshed background, and added simplicity for the common user. It also refreshed the UI on the homepage. Future comics were also available up to one month after the day of request.
Cesium/Valley (January 20 – March)
Valley completely revamped the frontend and backend of ComicServer. Navigating through comics was nothing more than clicking arrow keys, more common language was available on GoComics strips, and future comics were refined. Startup comics were added for the second revision of the subversion, but didn’t make the cut on the third.
Cesium/Meadow (March – April)
Meadow was a refresh to the design of Valley. Moving back to the Cesium roots, the colorful UI was added back in a whole new way, with tabs. Even more little customizations were made, with the forms and with transitions.
Cesium/Primrose (April – May 4)
Primrose discontinued future comics because of lack in the interest and ease-of-use departments. The subversion did add a slot system that created short links to your favorite comics, and a recent slot for what you viewed last. This subversion ditched the tab design and focused on a sidebar and main view system.
Fun Fact: Primrose was meant to be version six for ComicServer, but was too similar to Cesium builds.
Muncie (May 4 – 20)
Muncie was a huge refresher to the crumbling Cesium versions. It introduced a slot system like Primrose, but with comics right there on the homepage below the comic name. Another UI structure change was made, with a bar in the header leading you to any comic regardless of syndicate or punctuation. All comic slot information was stored in cookies. Also, as part of the rejuvenation of ComicServer, the parent brand (OpenDev) was renamed back to Wel3Com.
Muncie 2 (May 20 – present)
Muncie 2 added a sign in system for Discord users. You now have to sign in to view favorite comics, which is now stored in a database attached to your user. Also, you can also set your theme as ‘Computer Decided’ to sync theme with your computer.
That’s It!
ComicServer has evolved tremendously since it was released more than two years ago. We hope you keep using our sites and tools for the years coming. We’ll continue to document new versions as they come out.
Edit Jul 27, 2023: There is now a dedicated version history page