HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WEBSITE/BLOG!!!!
So I don’t know the exact date I started my website — I first started a site in 1997 on aol sometime in 1997. (I have notes saying it was January 1997 but I’m not sure how accurate that is!) Sadly I don’t have any of those old files or screenshots of that first version of my site.
What I do know is in January 1998, I moved my site to simplenet and renamed it “a merry good page!” I also started “blogging” — although that wasn’t what I called it at the time. Did that name even exist yet? Haha I dunno. But I saw other artists creating “free talk” pages on their sites, where they just talked about whatever/journaled/etc, and I decided to copy that.
Obviously those old “Free Talks” weren’t part of the site as it is now. The only reason I still have some of these entries is thanks to the fact I routinely backed up HTML files – they’re all backed up spread across multiple old back up discs, hard-drives, etc. Unfortunately I don’t have them all… there’s quite a few of those old “free talks” missing, as I can tell from my free talk menu page where I listed them all at one point. The oldest I could dig up was this post from May 8th, where I posted a picture I’ve since lost, talked about my Muppets lunchbox, and that I wanted to be Ranma for Halloween.
Oldest screencap of my site I have:
(I only started screencapping/saving files because I started putting some more thought into my site designs.)
Those old HTML files are also how I dated a lot of my old art to get it readded to my site, along with preserving the old descriptions. Going through all those old files, the oldest art post I could find was from January 8, 1998 – a fanart of Yuffie from FF7. I had drawn it before then – sometime in late 97 – but I posted it somewhere on January 8, 1998. Where-ever that was.
So I’m just going to go the easy route and say January in general is my site’s birthday.
And even though I’ve kinda already done it on my site history page, I’m going to take a walk back through some of my favourite stuff and history and whatnot, in honor of 20 years of talking to myself online.
And originally? This was all going to be IN this post. But it got SO massive I decided to split it out, and ended up with enough that I’ll be able to share some of my fav moments/posts/art/costumes/whatever each weekday for the rest of the month.
So for today’s post, just a sort of primer to what’s coming up next, I’m going to give you guys a timeline of site history/important events for me/etc.
First AOL website: I think it was called Kell’s X-Men page because it’s where my cousin Cat and I posted our stupid X-Men fanfics after no serious fanfic archive would accept them.
Moved to paid webspace: http://carp.simplenet.com. It was an expansion of the previous page but now featured some of my art. Started to do a whole lot more fanart as I got into stuff like Final Fantasy VII and various anime.
In October of that year I started my webcomic, SunDowner, and also did my first “official” costume for Halloween that year.
And I got my first job.
My site became “Bad Candy” and moved to my own domain name, at the time kellilla.com.
More of the same. Lots of art, lots of comics, lots of whining about my classes, lots of silliness.
Phantom Menace came out so there was a lot of Star Wars fanart, and a Star Wars mini-site too. Along with lots of other mini-sites. Lord I had a lot of mini-sites.
First read Harry Potter and got into that like crazy. This might have been when I first started my message board, Watch Out For Snakes!
More SunDowner, more fanart. And at this point I decided I had enough costumes to make my first cosplay mini-site. And a Harry Potter mini-site, too.
My first couple of anime cons and a whole lot more costumes. More SunDowner, more fanart, there was so much stuff I swear.
Released the print edition of SunDowner. Went to my first Dragon Con. Got my first “real” job.
Art output dropped off… I did so many costumes this year it was ridiculous. Bought a new car (the BUG!) Did an incredibly stupid LOTR comic that ended up being popular?! Joined the Rebel Legion.
By this point realized I was more interested in costumes than art. Main site suffered a bit but my blog and costume site were hopping. Went to our first San Diego Comic Con (my first time traveling far away without an adult!), and Paris and London. Joined the 501st.
Year of the best Dragon Con ever. Met Chase. Decided I was done with school.
So many costumes! Lots of traveling back and forth to Nashville where Chase lived and a TON of cons and events. Very little art.
THE YEAR OF WEDDING PLANNING. Lots of wedding chatter and drama. So much wedding planning. Also a ton of costumes. Even though we were supposed to be saving for wedding/honeymoon/house. Oh well.
Got married! Went on honeymoon. Got our first apartment together.
Blog was neglected; mostly just used to post memes and quiz results. Spent spring house-hunting, had to spend 3 months living with family in between our apartment lease and closing on our house so it was hectic. Good stuff: took Chase to Disney World for the first time.
More work on the new house, and I did my 365 Project to try to get myself drawing some more. Went to Disneyland.
Got into Doctor Who. The one year we didn’t go to Disney. I got to be a guest of honor at MidSouthCon so that was cool!
A lot of the same. More costumes. More Disney World (trip a year!), more Dragon Con, left my job, got a new job, lost a lost of loved ones. Got Luna in summer of 2014. Lost Indy Christmas that year.
The year of annual passes! We saved up and got annual passes and were able to go to Disney 6 times! I also did a decent amount of art for the first time in years. Likely because I didn’t have money to spend sewing LOL
Costumes, trying to produce art regularly, and more adulting…. because we are trying to move this year! Fingers crossed.
And for the rest of this month look for:
My Fav Posts Collections for the rest of this week!
Next week, my fav art!
The next week, my fav costumes!
And for the last couple of days of January, look for my fav web designs and my fav sketches and weirdness.