January 25, 2007
Happy three-year anniversary, Scary-Crayon!

It’s hard to believe, but as of today Scary-Crayon is three years old. I was planning to say a lot more about the site and how it’s progressed since 2004, but I guess I’ll let these unique visitor graphs speak for me. At any rate, you can see that in 2004 the site received a comparatively humble 129,635 unique visits, 27,416 of which took place in June due to an incredible surge in viewings of the Stupid Internet Ads article. This figure increased significantly in 2005, with SC receiving 213,102 unique visits, and 2006 saw further visitor growth with 380,161. And now, in the first month of 2007, the site is off to a fairly modest start with 26,672 unique visitors. Even if one takes into account the likely fact that over 1,000 of those visits are mine (I assume that the unique visits are tallied per day, and I check the site roughly once a day to make sure that things are up and running smoothly) and removes another several thousand because of people I have personally referred to the site — and discounts the hits that show up from image theft and whatnot — I’d estimate that over 700,000 unique visitors have somehow found their way to Scary-Crayon in its three years without any prompting from yours truly. And I know that’s extremely low in terms of overall website rankings, but I still think it’s sort of neat that so many people have turned out to look at something that I do pretty much by myself and for no other reason than to share things that amuse and entertain me with the masses.

To celebrate — though admittedly this celebration pales in comparison to our first-year blowout 😐 — we’ve got four new pieces for you. First, because the site began with them, here’s a new Crayon Haiku that takes a look at how things have changed in my small town. Back in 2004, the local mall was a relatively decent place. It wasn’t a mall that you’d come for miles to visit, but it had a KB Toys, a Spencer Gifts, a couple of bookstores, a music store, and even a crappy arcade. In other words, it didn’t suck. But now those stores are gone, replaced by empty space or tacky ghetto clothing stores with owners in turbans who shadily encourage you to talk to them if you see anything you like so they can cut you a deal. Not that I’d buy anything out of these places anyway — unless I were planning to review it in a “who the fuck would wear this crap” capacity before cutting to pics of celebrities in similar attire — but I find it incredibly frustrating that nothing in them has prices. This isn’t the Sunday flea market or a Baghdad bazaar, people — it’s a retail store and I don’t want to have to haggle before making purchases. I will say that the South Asian music they generally play in these establishments is pretty catchy, though. If they had low prices clearly displayed on them and I could read Arabic, I might also consider picking up a music CD or two.

Meet Korall Krabba!

Okay, so in addition to that, we’ve got two new Hot Flash comics — DPH:HF #94 and DPH:HF #95. #94 is based on actual events — I didn’t actually approach this girl, mind you, but I happened to see her while at IKEA the other week and was bloody stunned because here I was wearing several shirts in addition to my trench coat lining and she’s walking around with her fleshy thighs bare for all the world to see and for Jack Frost to caress. The plushie around my neck in the comic also came home with me that night, as I found him to be utterly irresistible. Isn’t he cute? Somehow the yellow seems brighter in person. Also, he needs a name — I don’t like Korall Krabba much. Any suggestions?

And then there’s DPH:HF #95, which utilizes some of the new techniques from DPH:HF #93. I decided that I didn’t mind doing the shadows so much after all — and that it doesn’t matter if I don’t get them perfect, because clearly the figures aren’t standing in the background anyway — so I went ahead and put them in this comic as well. Megatron will likely show up in more comics, too, as I find him to be utterly hilarious for a number of reasons. Heck, the profile on the back of his card even explicitly notes that, upon being “mutated” into his current beast form by exposure to the Jungle Planet, he was initially frustrated. When one’s hand is replaced by a snapping Tyrannosaur head, it’s not hard to see why! 😆

And finally, there’s The Great Unveiling, which includes my first look at the Turtle Saint action figure as well as the first appearance of several related Super Turtle-type toys on the site. I say way more about that in the actual article, though, so there’s no need to go into that here. But there’s also a drawing that I link in the article to which I wanted to call special attention — this art trade rendering of the Crayon Monster Critter by DeviantArtist Odd13. I don’t think she reads the site or had any idea that its anniversary was coming up (aside from my mention of it, anyway), so her timing with this was totally accidental, but SC is pleased that this rendition of its mascot was posted so close to its third birthday. In addition to the new renaming of the creature — Odd referred to it as a “critter” and I think the word sounds so much better than “monster” when prefaced by “crayon”, don’t you? — I think that in all future renditions of it that depict it below the waist (which has only been done once before, by old reader Josh in the first-year anniversary article), the critter will now sport a tail. I may even end up coloring and marking the tail to look like a crayon itself. 🙂

And on that note, I’ll end this post and let you get to reading these articles as Scary-Crayon officially begins its fourth year online! Again, thanks for visiting, lending your support and kind words, etc. — and we hope to see more of you in 2007. Perhaps this year there will even be contests! :mrgreen:

-posted by Wes | 5:42 pm | Comments (11)
11 Comments »
  • Spoodles says:

    Happy anniversary, and thanks for all the great content!

  • Molly says:

    Happy happy happy and also happy anniversary. Many happy returns. In other words, if you ever stop making comics and articles, I will be woeful. So do not let this happen.

    I just got here, so I have yet to read your updates, but I will soon!

  • I really, really liked DPH:HF #95.

    The writing was top-notch, and I could really see the new shading effects, which are super. Best wishes in ”07, Wes!

  • An Eskimo says:

    Name the crab…Dennis. I don’t know why,just do.

  • Wes says:

    This would be a good name if it were not already ostensibly the crab’s surname! Not that I give my stuffed animals surnames, mind you — I like them to have singular names — but still.

  • An Eskimo says:

    Well…you could try…umm…4tyct8urjdns. (Pronounced For-tee-kut-ate-ur-jed-ness)

  • Wes says:

    Erm… I dunno about that one, but perhaps you’re on the right track with a name that involves a combination of numbers and letters. 🙂

  • An Eskimo says:

    B24nnis (Bee-too-for-ness) is my next-to-final suggestion.

  • Antibush says:

    Bush and the Republicans were not protecting us on 9-11, and we aren’t a lot safer now. We may be more afraid due to george bush, but are we safer? Being fearful does not necessarily make one safer. Fear can cause people to hide and cower. What do you think? What is he doing to us, and what is he doing to the world?
    Are we safer today than we were before?
    We have lost friends and influenced no one. No wonder most of the world thinks we suck. Thanks to what george bush has done to our country during the past three years, we do!

  • Antibush, what the hell do your comments have ANYTHING to do with blog entry? -_-;

  • Wes says:

    Ha! Actually, I think Antibush is a spambot that Akismet didn’t catch, but I didn’t remove the comment because I sort of agree with it. 🙂

    But yeah, unless one infers that the commenter is suggesting that my yellow krabba friend be named for some political cause, it doesn’t have much to do with the anniversary or the content of the entry at all!

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