I am not sure exactly what to do for this thing. I was waiting for someone to "set the standard" so to speak, but Scot just told some basic stuff about himself, which is not as dynamic or organized as I thought we would do these. So for the time being I will put my version of "The History of Whirlwind Comics" here.

History of Whirlwind Comics

It was at the beginning of spring 2003 semester that the idea for what would eventually evolve into Whirlwind Comics was created. Rory, who you will recognize from the profile page, had returned to campus after being gone for a semester, and we were playing a floor game in his room. The floor game required that we lure in unsuspecting individuals from around the hall of course, and Rory took up the job. Unfortunately, he could not convince many people and we ended up handing over the job to Chad. This is when me or possibly Jim commented on the fact that it was probably because he was not as known as he was the previous year.

This is where the idea for the website came up. Rory's then roomate Greg jokingly suggested that we set up a poster campaign that would show a picture of Rory with the question "who is Rory?". I built on this by suggesting that we should make it even more involved, having each poster lead back to a distinct page on a website that would give a vague description of the subject of the poster or whatnot. For instance the question would be "What is Rory thinking of?" and it might give a description of Rory's major. You get the idea. So anyway, Jim pulled out his digital camera, and took some artsy black and white photos of Rory.

So we are all making a bunch of goofy suggestions of what to do, and Drunk Andy walks in. Andy is usually easier to deal with when drunk, so we started BSing with him about the idea as well. Andy shared a web design based CGT class with me, and announced that he was going to do Who is Rory for his first project. Through the influence of other people on the floor, and the fact that Andy was more interested in a general idea for a website and wasn't going to be going around putting posters up around campus, Who is Rory was built as a general floor website that focused on Rory but had various shinanigans based around the other members of Wiley Southwest 3.

So Andy's page gets done. Rory and Greg decide to purchase the domain name www.whoisrory.com for some reason, and Greg ends up setting up a server for it. Unfortunately this is where Who is Rory version 1 ended. Andy had little interest in constantly updating a webpage when he had no incentive to do so, nobody really bugged him about it anyway since its novelty wore off after awhile, and Greg's server was taken down.

This is where we come back in. In the early stages of summer, Jim proposed we revive Who is Rory. Rory had spent 20 dollars on the domain name, and it was just sitting there not getting used. The idea of a floor website was still a good one, seeing as there was a lot of people with various ideas but no means of carrying them out, and we were pretty bored. So Jim created a sleak new design, threw together some different pages, and Who is Rory came back to life.

Over the course of its life, Who is Rory spent most of its time being constructed. A few people wanted a messageboard to be built, we struggled to put together some content and arrange things in a pleasing fashion, and so on. One day after a roleplaying session, Jim suggested we start a webcomic.

This was probably the main turning point of the website's history. We decided that between me, him, and a few other people, we could alternate and come up with a decent update schedule and put together a solid comic. It took awhile to get going, but eventually we were able to update twice a week without much problems. At the same time, the message boards went up and began to flourish, the rest of the site sort've remained in limbo, and the Who is Rory idea became pretty overshadowed and pointless.

Based on Rory's request, and the fact that Nerdin' it Up had essentially become the main draw of the site, we decided to ditch Who is Rory for a different setting. Seeing as how Nerdin' It Up was the main content, and me and Jim were both interested in pursuing other webcomic paths, we decided to shift the focus to a mostly webcomic based site.

So the point is, we have come a long way from the initial idea, to Andy STEALING my initial idea, to somehow ending up as a webcomic site with the rather lofty task of keeping several different webcomics moving along steadily while trying to also pull in traffic an keep the other content areas filled. Hopefully we don't end up falling on our faces, but seeing as how we have come as far as we have in well under a year of half-assed work (on my part at least), I think we have a pretty good shot.

I will move this essay to another page as soon as I figure out what I am going to do for my actual profile, so take the time to read it while its here and I have suckered you in...