Aw, fwiends.
I really missed writing about Hazel and Thea together. I was kind of bummed to separate them from living together last year!
Anyway, there’s actually a different reason I’m putting up a new blog post. It’s to apologize for a handful of ads that REALLY shouldn’t be making their way to the GWS site. I’ve got a ban on specific ads on this page: body-shaming, political, X-rated, and instant-audio ads are all supposed to be filtered out. Unfortunately, we’ve had constant trouble with our ad filters, despite my ad rep working to nix these problems.
So, two things. One: I hear ya. I hate them too, and I want them to be gone. It’s like waking up and finding someone I hate standing there in my kitchen, yelling their awful opinion at me before I’ve even had a pot of tea.
Two: If you see an ad that obviously shouldn’t be on my site, PLEASE find out the URL it’s linking to (right click > “copy link address” often works) and paste it into an e-mail to my wonderful ad guy. It helps us find the ad quicker and get it out of rotation. Screen shots of the ad help, too!
On the other hand, I really enjoy the Bible verse iPhone app and Susan Boyle ads, so I hope you won’t mind if I continue to enjoy their presence on my site. I find they contrast nicely with the dildo jokes.
you’re really good at writing what you do, too. makes my fuckin day most of the time.
Second seconded!
What are “body shaming” ads? I’ve never heard that phrase before…
She probably means those “omg lose 500 million pounds in two weeks with this miracle pill so you can look like this anorexic model, and btw, here’s a picture of a grotesquely obese stomach you can associate with yourself” kind of ads.
I used to see them all the time. Now I have Ad Block Plus on my browser, so I don’t see ANY ads whatsoever on the website. ^_^ Unless she means spam comments, but I rarely read comments anyway. Win/win!
Just make sure you buy some merch from Danielle, then; if you block her ads then she pays for bandwidth to show you the comic she drew with no way to defray the cost :(
Yeah about the merch, it’d be awfully nice to have girl tops that don’t have a unisex neck (like, some t-shirty jewel necky affair). U-neck, sweetheart, something?
I’d love to have Doom Kitty with e.g. this neck line:
http://questioncopyright.com/sstb-t-shad-wu.html
Contact Becker about that! But I seriously doubt we’ll be able to get them – tee shirts are a bitch, and we try to stay as close to the average buying trends as possible.
In the meantime, invest in a sharp pair of scissors! I hand-slice nearly all of my tees, and I’ve never had a problem with them, even after a LOT of washes. :)
Who could resist buying her stuff anyway? :-D lol
Yes, please remember to unblock any website that you want to support. That should include most all webcomics. Dreamland webcomic got another $300 a day when he asked everyone to unblock. Depends on volume, but it’s just a nice thing to do. (and click and ad now and then) It a free way to tip your artist.
I have adblocker too, which I can’t praise enough. But yeah, I buy merch or donate to websites that I use.
Woah, they get paid per ad view not per ad click?
Depends on the ads they’re running. Project Wonderful does it by time, rather than view or click… but more views and clicks means advertisers will bid more to get onto the site.
Oh, that’s good to know! I always have adblocker on so I completely forget there’s like… ads on the internet. But I’ll make sure and allow it on all the webcomic sites I go to!
Thank you thank you thank you! I just tried the ad blocker you mentioned and can no longer see horrid fat bellies! Really glad to hear you’re against these Danielle, I don;t need to be reminded about my belly my mother is great at it :D
I haven’t seen any of those ads, but I’ll keep an eye out. >/ Thanks for trying to remove them.
Ok, ok!! I’ve been shamed. If I can click on a daily ad to feed animals, I can click through a daily ad for Danielle also.
Keep up the good work (and throw in another cameo of Hazel’s mom, McPedro and the DooOOom kitty!)
And Danielle’s Mom! She was awesome!!!
I get all the Spanish (from Spain) adds and I guess they are less filtered. But I just sent an email to the add guy because as I finished reading this post, I realized that the add on top of the page was of one of this diets that are just a scam.
I think I usually “block” adds from my view, but without software, only by no paying attention to them, hehe. I’ll try to remember to click in on or two from time to time!
PS: before I could finish my previous comment, the add I reported has been blocked already! wow! that add guy you have Danielle is really awesome!
Yup. Those are most of my favorite things!
An ode, then, to Hazel, with the wrong song:
The hills are aliiiiive with the sound of sex toys…
With dongs that have hung for a thousand yeeeears…
The cats fill my booooobs with the sound of mewling…
My heart wants to hug every cat that it hears!
My heart wants to drink with the King of the Hobos, who raises his glass with a toast.
My heart wants to drink like that guy who’s passed out next to a goat!
To laugh at that bloke when he trips and falls over stools by the bar
To drink through the night like a shark who is driving a carrrr
I go to my mommmm’s when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I’ve heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of stories
And I shall snore once more.
I think this is my new favorite song. My child hood is ruined and I like it. ;)
Thanks!
Yeah… re-doing “Favorite Things” would have been far too graphic. I don’t want to get Danielle mad at me ;-)
Just gotta love ad-blocker and Opera browser.. Never seen an ad here since my first visit ;)
I don’t mind ads on webcomics at all, I know you guys have to make your living somehow when not everyone can afford merch, I can ignore the “$5 wrinkle trick” and the “weight loss secret” ads, the only ones that truly incense me are the ones that TALK without permission… stupid noisy gocomics ads, grr… thanks for trying to keep your ads filtered!
Website ads, especially those from Google Ad Sense, are based off of you internet history via cookies. So if anyone is receiving weird porno ads or whatever, just what the hell are you doing with your internets?
Meta punchline is meta!
Well, considering the most NSFW thing I’ve seen are ads for a comic which say NSFW emblazoned over completely SFW pictures, I think you’re mostly okay. Mostly, I get ads about loving your uterus, gothic jewelry, vintage clothes and audiobooks. This is all okay with me. >.>
LOL on the Bible and dildo jokes. XD
About comment on the strip: you’re writing about what you know, and there’s a huge deal of lesbian loving going on c:
Also, Thea looks really adorable today! c:
What would qualify as the World’s Most Terrible Lesbian?
I see a firearms training school ad on the GWS site right now. I approve of knowing what you’re doing when it comes to guns, but the ad is kind of incongruous.
I adblock too — otherwise I’d have to quit the internet.
I am pretty sure that if you are blocking at the BROWSER level, then the ads are still technically being served. You are downloading them, and the ad servers think you got them, because technically you did. Your browser just steps in (with the add-on help) and hides them from you (AWESOME).
So, the advertising revenue should still be flowing, I think, even if you’re using a local adblocker.
I hate advertising and would happily pay for content that is good (like GWS) rather than see commercials or advertisements. Seems I’m a minority, though, so I’ll just keep fast-forwarding TV, declining hulu, and adblocking. And loving my ad-free browsing experience.
That said, I think it is AWESOME that GWS particularly rejects those kinds of ads. I like you more all the time, Danielle.
The way that AdBlock works is that it doesn’t load the page at all if it’s on the blacklist. So no, it doesn’t register a view for the ad.
I’d be happy to unblock ads, but every time I use a web browser without AdBlock, I immediately go berserk because of all the super-distracting motion in the ads. If only the ad creators would have the decency to make the ads static!
Nixie, I see you are right. Darn. :-(
I am glad I am not the only one going berserk at ads. People get really upset with me for being “so easily distracted” and say I should “just ignore it” like they do. Personally, I think there’s something wrong with the idea that people SHOULD be subjected to that kind of intense stimuli nonstop, and I think it likely does have a negative effect, but I’m not in the business of studying that stuff, and I’m apparently in the minority.
But I’m glad I’m not alone!!
And I’m not turning off Adblock. I wonder if there is a way to estimate how much that “costs” the owner of a site?
Friends who are assholes to each other are the best kinds of friends! It promotes honesty, I find.
“On the other hand, I really enjoy the Bible verse iPhone app(…)”
Um…not to tell you how to run your own website; but you *do* realize, do you not, that the Bible (the book that that app uses as it’s source material) is the thing that pretty much *EVERYONE* who has anything nasty to say about same-sex relationships uses as the justification for saying those nasty things? Granted, the Bible isn’t *all* “HATE TEH GAYZ!!! HURRR! HURRR!”; but I’m not sure why you’d want to help promote — let alone enjoy — an app that, as noted above, enables easy access to material from such a book. Just wondering…
Actually the Bible offers a good deal of good living advice that even atheists can enjoy. For example, did you know that people who adhere to a strict kosher diet are actually amongst the healthiest people in the world? That learning to forgive others (as opposed to holding grudges) is perhaps more important for you to do as the forgiver than the forgivee?
And incidentally, the Bible does not tell people to hate homosexuals, let alone beat them half to death. On the contrary, the Bible tells us to love everyone. It also says that the ACT of homosexual sex (not the relationship that presumably leads up to the sex) is the problem. And given the number of health risks that come with “a man lying with another man as if he was a woman” I think it’s hard to dispute that. No pun intended.
I’m only going to bother with the tip of the iceburg here, but Leviticus 20:13 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+20:13&version=NIV
If one doesn’t ignore everything but the nice-sounding parts of the bible, they’d find surprising stuff, like its god condoning execution for countless harmless and/or silly things, recommending looting and rape after successful war conquests, and more. Personal preference, but I’m not going to bother mining it for the decent advice, nor believe it or its reinterpretations saying that anything but penis-in-vagina sex is an extension of evil.
The Bible isn’t the problem there. People looking for reasons to hate gays is the problem. If you’ve seen the West Wing episode that addresses it, you’ll know that the same part that says a man should not lie with another man also says that you shouldn’t wear mixed fabrics or eat shellfish, and that it’s okay to sell your daughter into slavery.
It’s a book that was written for the times. Times are different now, and smart folks can read the message of the Bible (live a good life in the sight of God) without getting caught up in the details that are clearly specific to the time and place they were written.
GWS has become my favorite strip – no distinction between web or newsprint – and that’s because of the way your heart shines through your work, Danielle.
Re: the Bible app, etc – the people who use the Bible to rationalize gay-bashing haven’t done any real research. The context behind all references but one is clearly specific to a particular situation (i.e. temple prostitutes), not a general condemnation of committed loving relationships (the exception is just not clear at all). My motto is this: Love is love, all else is plumbing! And God loves love.
You could try using google/yahoo display ads which would be targeted towards the user rather than same ads for everyone. That should also take care of unwanted ads showing up.
I really like Thea and Hazel together. I’ve loved the evolution of their relationship and was bummed when they stopped living together.
“a ban on specific ads on this page: body-shaming, political, X-rated, and instant-audio ads”
Now I wonder if one could produce an instant-audio political ad that calls the audience fat and swears at the audience in deeply scatological terms, and how many sites would carry it.
I have been up too long for polite conversation, clearly.
Pretty awesome to see the American Family Insurance safe driving ad show up now that Hazel’s Mom is talking about seat belts!
This comic is not blocked on my school’s internet, which is a joke within itself :)
Re: Thea’s new living arrangements
Joke told to me about lesbians by a lesbian:
Q. “What does a lesbian bring with her on a second date?”
A. “Her furniture”
Now I dont see any adds that aren’t supposed to be there except possibly in the x-rated category. I see adds for NSFW web comics all the time (C.urvy, Slip Shine, Oglaf)and occasional erotic gay lit websites given the raunchy tone of your comic I assume you’re actually referring to actual to these links but hard core pornography, but I figured I would double check.