Marktopia

This is going to seem like a weird choice, but this week I am picking the current state of galactic comics from both Marvel and DC.

Starting with the Annihilation story in 2006, Marvel galactic comics have been some of the best that the company has to offer.  From an emmense story using all of the biggest and best scifi characters to the wonderful art throughout, Annihilation jumpstarted things for Marvel.  Spinning out of that came an ongoing series for Nova which quickly led into a sequel to Annihilation, Conquest.  While using some lesser known characters for Conquest, it was still good.  So good, that it had it’s own spinoff, Guardians of the Galaxy. With two ongoing series and the forecast of another event, War of the Kings, space stories are and will continue to do well for Marvel.

DC has also been doing well through it’s Green Lantern series. While it started getting better with the Rebirth miniseries, it really picked up with the Sinestro Corp Wars. That well down crossover event garnered a lot of attention for how well it was brought together. When you put that together with the evolving mythos being built around the lanterns, you get some great stuff.

If you are into comics and/or scifi, you owe it to yourself to check out one or both of the universes. You can find many of these in trade inexpensively making it a great way to get acclimated and introduced to either.

Well, after long last, I am ready to show off my first Rails application. Designed to organize my comics, I have a number of database relationships that I had to learn how to handle with the models and whatnot. The end result is a pretty neat site. I have to add more content and will be working on the styles, but feel free to go to comic.marktopia.net to check it out and leave comments here on what you think.

I havn’t written in awhile, so I thought I would post that I am alive and that I enjoyed Thanksgiving.¬? I am also working on the comics database.¬? Basically the more I mess with Rails, the more I like it, so it is taking my time right now.¬? I also am becoming less thrilled with the WordPress web page editor, so I am looking for suggestions on good desktop applications that handle blogging on a Mac.¬? Feel free to comment those suggestions, or don’t.

Since Rails is what the people asked for, Rails is what the people are gonna get.  I am starting work on the comic database and so the first step is to get Rails up and going on my local machine so I can do development easily.  I have started by using Locomotive, a very nice program that allows you to run a Rails server without configuring the system.  As I get further into the program, I think having the system actually configured to do Rails automatically is going to work better, so that is the big step for tonight.  After that, development and learning will commence.

So I have decided to pick up the web development stuff again as I have been avoiding the comics database for awhile now.? I do realize that I will get very little done before the wedding, which is in 12 days, however it is worth me thinking about again.? It will also allow me to remove the poll from the sidebar as it appears that Rails has won out.? That means that I have some learning to do, but it should be an interesting ride.

I also might redo the theme for my site for the umpteenth time, but I am kinda bored with this design.? It also doesn’t handle pictures very well, which is something I want to do more of.? So that might be a quick project that I could work on this weekend before tackling the Rails thing after I get back from our trip.