TEN YEARS OF TFBC!!!!
Whoa - ten years of TFBC online. Can you
believe it? I sure can't, because as much as I hate the
cliché, time HAS flown by since I first started
this up.
If you've bought the TFBC book, you'll know
the history of how TFBC first got started, so I'll spare
repeating that story. (Hint, hint, buy
the book! 
).
However, I have uploaded the first
page of what I consider the FIRST TFBC (aka Tales
From the Redcoat Band) comic here in the Graphics
Gallery. I hope to put up more Band Comic
extras that aren't necessarily TFBC related in the upcoming
year.
The website has gone through a ton of changes
since I first started it back in April of 1996. The internet
was a new thing to many people, and most people out there
didn't have web access. I drew the comics on a sheet of
paper, inked them, and then drove to a local Kinko's and
used their scanner to scan in the line drawings. I then
saved the comic on a 3 1/2" floppy disk and used
a very old version of Paint Shop Pro to color in the comic.
If you start from the beginning in the archive, you'll
notice that the comics have changed drastically from then
to now. Currently, I use Photoshop, Illustrator, and yes,
my own scanner, to clean up and color in the comics once
I ink them on a sheet of paper. At some point I'll put
up a more detailed version of how I put together TFBC
comics, because I've been asked many times how I do things.
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And the website itself? When I first started
up TFBC, it was stored on my Earthlink account along with
my other
website.
Thanks to my friend Brian Sugrue (and a visit to Steverino's
in Athens, GA) plus an
HTML for Dummies book,
I soon learned HTML and wrote it straight using Notepad.
I then moved to the program HotDog 1.0 (wooo!) which is
basically a glorified Notepad for HTML. I eventually moved
on to Dreamweaver and some CGI/Perl/PHP programming which
I still use today.
For the first five or so years, I admittingly
updated the website very inconsistently as you can see
if you notice the dates in the archive. I wasn't playing
any instrument at the time and missed it very much. Once
I started back playing bassoon again, the ideas started
flowing again, and I was able to update the website more
often.
Another part of the website that has gained
in popularity the past few years is the forum.
I won't EVEN go into how many forms it's gone through
- I'm guessing probably seven iterations? I think I first
put up a board in 1998 or so. It's gone from using Matt's
Message Board to WebBB to yaBB to phpBB to phpBB/PhpNuke
back to standalone phpBB and now Proboards. It's a running
joke at this point about replacing the board's format
every year or so.
Ah well. People come and go as they move through their
music and school careers, so it's been very interesting
seeing people "graduate" from TFBC. But I hope
that you all stick around!
Well, enough reminiscing! If you were around
the first few years of TFBC (aka the 90's!), I'd
love to hear from you and some of your stories on
how you first found TFBC on the web and your experiences
with it!
Stay 'tooned for more 10 Years Celebration
stuff that I'll be putting up throughout the year! And
thanks for your support all of these years!
