CSSquirrel A look at web development and web design by Kyle Weems

Today’s comic continues my tradition of being a fansquirrel of An Event Apart, which is currently enjoying the second day of its Minneapolis 2010 event. It features Eric Meyer (who happens to have gorgeous eyes as you will all notice), the squirrel, and the sort of nightmare we all have involving a complete lack of trousers.

The photo comes from John Morrison’s Eric Meyer Word Caption Contest, and the comic itself is my entry into that fun little affair. Some of you may ask: “Kyle, why does the squirrel care if he’s not wearing pants? He never wears pants!”

Why does Donald Duck cover his crotch, which is always exposed, only after he loses his shirt? There’s a subtle mystery to the whole affair of comic characters and pants that we should probably not try to dig too far into for the sake of our own sanity. It’s right up there with wondering what goes in your grandmother’s meatloaf.

I’m sure I could have made a nut joke, but I chose the high road.

If, like me, you’re not at An Event Apart, you can follow along with the wisdom, humor, and community at A Feed Apart. Which. Is. Awesome. I’m enjoying several of the new features that the feed supports, including Flickr appearing in the stream, session-based archives, etc. It’s all very sweet. Check it out if you’ve got the chance.

Today’s comic finishes (finally) the An Event Apart “storyline” that starts here, and has part #2 here. It features AEA speakers Andy Clarke, Nicole Sullivan and Ethan Marcotte. It also features Naepalm, the chinchilla alter-ego of Janae, one of my fellow Mindfly Web Studio designers. The comic also has a brief cameo by everyone’s favorite archaic browser complication: the dreaded hasLayout.

It’s been a long journey to crank out these three comics, which highlight some very important points. First, continuity in a web-design commentary webcomic is difficult at best. Second, that cheese tidal waves represent the best of all possible worlds. Finally, that An Event Apart: Seattle was an awesome extravaganza and Janae and I are still trying to squeeze out all the drops of precious information we absorbed into Mindfly’s waiting arms.

One of my favorite presentations was Ethan’s Dao of Flexibility, which discussed adaptive layouts and fluid grids in detail, opening my eyes to the real power of the world of media queries. I’ve been tinkering away in my acorn-filled lair since the conference, working away at a new design for this site that harnesses these arcane techniques for my own dark purposes. From time to time, I have to pause and laugh with evil glee.

Thanks, AEA.

We’ll now return to my regular schedule of making fun of HTML5 politics and Opera.

Today’s comic, the first in a small An Event Apart related storyline, features Andy Clarke, Nicole Sullivan, Pete LePage and Naepalm in a future where rogue browsers must be “retired” by browserrunners.

It touches on what people may find hard to believe: Microsoft (like us) wants IE6 to die, already. In less than two hours after I post this, Pete LePage is going to get in front of the AEA audience and tell us that very thing.

I’ve got to get back to listening to more awesome speakers. Enjoy! (And if you’re at AEA, feel free to say hi to the guy in the CSSquirrel shirt. I don’t bite.)

Today’s comic features the Squirrel, mentions the forthcoming An Event Apart: Seattle, and hints at the sobering difference between the spec for HTML5 and the reality of its adoption speed.

The comic is also the creation of the winner of my Dribbble invite give-away/AEA-theme guest comic contest, Miro Keller! Congrats, Miro! In addition to his comic filling the #59 spot for all eternity (or at least a year after I die and my hosting goes offline), he will also receive an invitation to Dribbble and will appear in a CSSquirrel comic this April!

I’m sure when interviewed on his success, he’ll declare his intent to go to Disneyland.

His comic won for a couple reasons. First, it showed the squirrel’s skeleton, which is no easy task. Secondly, it feels like the sort of thing I’d make a comic about, and was funny to boot. HTML5 is going to be awesome, I’m sure, but it’s not exactly to the point where we’re throwing Flash install discs into burn barrels. IE9 will be a great boon towards adopting those features, not because they’re first, but because so many people use their product… but a lot of people are -still- using IE6, even after its funeral.

So let us all remember, we may need a fallback plan for that lovely <video> tag for a while yet.

In addition to Miro’s great victory, there’s two other winners today. #2 in the contest is the entry of Ryan Parr. Warning, parents, he uses swears. #3 is from Mihai Petica. Congrats to both of you as well. You’ll be receiving Dribbble invites as well as appearing in a future CSSquirrel comic this April.

Let’s celebrate these heroes with a round of applause.

P.S.: I don’t know exactly what’s going on in Morten Gresseth’s entry, but despite its failure to mention AEA it was so darn odd that I just had to link it here. Does anybody know what this is referencing? Morten?

Ladies and gentlemen, I have three Dribbble invites to give away. I’m sure some of you have seen the various tweets, blog posts and comments about this community of sharing shots of what you’re working on (I know I’ve done my share of such messages). It is, in a word, a great place to share creative juices and get feedback from fellow web designers and other creative types.

I love it.

And I want to share.

To that end, I’ve devised a contest. One of the features of Dribbble is the “rebound”, using a basketball metaphor to describe making a shot (aka, image) that is a remix or inspired by a previous shot. There’s been a few really neat contests inside Dribbble to test this feature, with awesome results. In that spirit, I’ve created an incomplete comic that you can download here. Take this comic, mix it up and complete it. Alter it however you see fit, within the following guidelines:

1. Some of the original art must be present.

2. The three panels must still exist (aka, it fits the standard CSSquirrel strip frame).

3. The comic must involve An Event Apart: Seattle in some way. I’m heading to this awesome event soon, so the Squirrel should get his moment to enjoy the experience.

4. The Squirrel must be in the final product.

That’s it. Those are the only rules. Add in characters, alter backgrounds, create speech bubbles, do interpretive dance, whatever. Go, mix it up, then post it online somewhere (where I can get to it) and send a tweet to @cssquirrel or leave a comment to the post that links to the image. On Monday morning, I’ll review the submissions (along perhaps with fellow Mindfly peeps) and choose the top three comics. All three will receive Dribbble invites, and the #1 comic will appear as CSSquirrel #59! The top three will also appear in an April comic. I know, I know, I’m too generous.

Now, off you go! Your deadline is 8:00 am (PST) Monday, March 29.