Jack Vance, Thrilling Wonder, Startling Stories, and more
Bruce Y
Still under construction, but worth a look.
Mark Wallace
Quite fun, but I still wonder at this fixation with black backgrounds that
pulp-site owners seem to have.
--
Mark Wallace
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For the intelligent approach to nasty humour, visit:
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
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Bruce Y
> Quite fun, but I still wonder at this fixation with black backgrounds that
> pulp-site owners seem to have.
-
Easily explained. It's neutral, and it enlivens the color and brightness of
the colors. In my case, it was the way the template was designed.
Here's my other site, with a red background:
Kent Allard
"Mark Wallace" <mwal...@dse.nl> wrote:
> Quite fun, but I still wonder at this fixation with black backgrounds that
> pulp-site owners seem to have.
Black (or white) backgrounds are the best for reading. In the case of paper, white
being best because the light is reflected into the eye (and a million other
directions as well). Black is good background colour for CRTs because the light is
coming straight out of the monitor into the eye. With a white background you can get
too much light causing eye strain.
Web design 101
Mark Wallace
So, out of 16,000,000 colours, we get to choose between black and bright
red?
Yeesh!
Get yourself a colour picker:
http://koysoftware.hypermart.net/colorselector3/index.html
A neutral colour (like #C8C8C8) would be better than black, for the Jack
Vance pages, or maybe a clean, neutral background image, like
http://humorpages.virtualave.net/papers/stone1.gif .
Mark Wallace
Well, I hope you don't mind my saying, but that's utter nonsense. The worst
possible colours for backgrounds, if there are images or text in the
foreground, are black and white. No colours (barring, perhaps, dayglo
orange with bright blue text) put more of a strain on the eyes.
Black should be used sparingly, for impact; and white should be used either
for formality, or to emulate a printed page (where white paper is always
used because it's the cheapest option).
The most relaxing colour on the eyes for a text background is a pale, matt
green. I have my WP and text editor backgrounds set to C0DCC0. Since I
spend all day writing, that saves me a lot of headaches.
With images, you want either a neutral background -- pale greys are always
safe, as are pale blues; but any 'almost white', with a hint of any colour
except the reds, will make the images stand out a lot better than black.
Usually, however, it's better to choose a colour as a matter of site style,
rather than for 'maximum effect'. There's precious little style involved in
using black.
I use quite violent colours on these pages:
http://humorpages.virtualave.net/cycles/index.html , but they in no way
detract from the impact of the images, and they give the pages a much more
coherent and stylish feel than black or white ever could.
Often, a simple (no definite pattern) background image will serve to promote
the main images on a page better than a plain colour. I've got dozens of
good, simple background images, if anyone wants them -- or you can just go
to my site and take what you need (right-click > Save Background As).
Advanced Further Than Buck Rogers Web Design.
Bruce Y
especially the brown. The blue type clashes horribly. A flesh tone is best
for black type, especially long text pieces. My two sites have little or no
text, therefore it is not an issue. What is important is the images, and
nothing beats a dark black to bring out the color and brightness. NOTHING!
Mark Wallace
> What is important is the images,
Absolutely, so let the eye *see* them, rather than blast it into submission
with a black background.
> and nothing beats a dark black to bring out the color and
> brightness. NOTHING!
Take a look at this:
http://humorpages.virtualave.net/m-pages/bgcheck.htm
(you might recognise the pictures).
If you can honestly say that the black background is better -- i.e. that it
doesn't hit your eye so hard that it prevents you from seeing the pictures
as they should be seen, and that you could look at a hundred such pages
without needing major ocular surgery -- then there's nothing else for it:
You'll have to be taken out and shot.
Bruce Y
I'm impressed.
Sadly though, you failed, and what's worse, you showed you don't know how
the eyes work or how they receive information.
Black is nothingness, it transmits no data to the eyes.
White is totality, the eyes see all colors of the spectrum as one.
Grey is somewhere in between and hits the eyes with less force than white
but greater force than black.
Conduct your own experiment with a friend. Observe the size of that black
hole in the center of the eyes. It will expand when viewing the black
background and contract when viewing the grey background.
The eyes will grow tired and weary when viewing the grey as opposed to the
black. Ask your optometrist. It's not even debatable.
Mark Wallace
> Gee, you sure went to a lot of trouble to make a point.
About four minutes. Computers are wonderful things.
It's absolutely unsupportable pseudo-scientific claptrap, that's what it is.
Using the achromatics as backgrounds means introducing stark contrasts, no
matter what colours are in the foreground; and the eye doesn't like, nor
respond well to, being constantly subjected to stark contrasts.
Using a neutral (normally pastel) background colour (a 'wash' colour, in
artistic terms) allows the eye to focus on the things that are meant to be
focused on, without having to process an unnecessarily stark contrast
beteween foreground and background, and having to deal with all the
left-over residues of complementary colours that the achomatic backgrounds
(esp. black) leave in the eye -- they allow it to do its job without
distraction, in other words.
Take a look here, for a very basic primer:
http://www.esmerel.com/circle/wordlore/colour.html
And here's a great quote from the "Web Pages that Suck" site:
"Speaking of clichés, pages with black backgrounds are a very, very popular
cliché. Whenever I see a black background it's like the designer is lowering
his voice and saying, "This is a cool page. I'm pretty cool, too." To be
honest, I'd say maybe 5% of the sites with black backgrounds are actually
cool and almost every one of those was designed by a professional graphics
artist. If you're not a pro, black's not the way to go."
That is: if you don't know *exactly* what you're doing with the *all*
colours you're using on a page, stay away from black backgrounds.
Bruce Y
> That is: if you don't know *exactly* what you're doing with the *all*
> colours you're using on a page, stay away from black backgrounds.
-
As I said earlier, my choices were limited. I did not design the site from
scratch, and only chose from the templates offered. I still disagree with
the pseudo-science you use to support your claim. Photons are photons, the
more that bombard the eye, the wearier they become, and as my images take up
most of the screen, there is little contrast anyway. As for the opinions of
"Web Pages that Suck" : yawn!
Mark Wallace
>> That is: if you don't know *exactly* what you're doing with the *all*
>> colours you're using on a page, stay away from black backgrounds.
> -
> As I said earlier, my choices were limited. I did not design the site
> from scratch, and only chose from the templates offered. I still
> disagree with the pseudo-science you use to support your claim.
What 'pseudo-science'?
You say things like:
> Black is nothingness, it transmits no data to the eyes.
> White is totality, the eyes see all colors of the spectrum as one.
> Grey is somewhere in between and hits the eyes with less force than
> white but greater force than black.
then accuse *me* of talking pseudo-science!
Besides, we're not talking about a scientific matter -- this is *art*, Man!
The presentation of images is not a matter for science.
> Photons are photons, the more that bombard the eye, the wearier they
> become,
You seem to be suffering from the idea that there are no photons released,
where the screen is black. This is not so. The screen gives off a
combination of colours that give the impression of blackness. If the screen
did not give off any photons, it would be the same colour that it is when it
is switched off.
And it is not the case that the eye 'wearies', when it has to look at
colours. That is what the eye is made for, and it dysfunctions if it is not
permitted to do so. Looking at a monitor screen is not like staring at the
Sun, where you do have to worry about the volume of light that is hitting
the eye -- but that doesn't 'weary' the eye; it damages the retina.
What 'wearies' the eye (or, rather, the section of the brain that has to
process the information the eyes gather) is harsh contrasts in colour.
Black contrasts well (so far as the eye's tolerances are concerned) with
very few colours. It makes the eye work harder. That is what some people
seem to believe gives black backgrounds more 'impact' -- but if all you want
is 'impact', use a bright orange; no-one will be able to ignore it.
And remember that your cover pictures were designed for maximum impact,
anyway. They had to be seen on a rack, where they were surrounded by dozens
of other colourful magazines, all vying for the attention of the eyes that
walked past.
Enhance that kind of impact too much, and you'll be handing out brain
haemorrhages.
Bruce Y
blackness. If the screen did not give off any photons, it would be the same
colour that it is when it is switched off.
Hmmm, I wonder. I still hold to the belief that black does not register on
the eyes. When the monitor is off, light is reflected off the screen, so I
suppose there are tiny pinholes of white light in a black field that give it
the illusion of no light emission.
This has been an interesting discussion, but not the one I was hoping for
when I posted my site. I would rather talk about the artists, the
reproduction of graphics, the speed of downloading same, and what I think,
is the unique feature on my site of interior illustrations of the pulps. All
the sites I have seen usually stop with the cover. Also, the focus is
usually on the magazine and not the writers. I'm sure there are other sites
similar to mine, but since I know a search for Jack Vance does not yield my
site, I wonder how many other sites exist but can't be found.
Rick Hall
As for the opinions of
"Web Pages that Suck" : yawn!
>>
There are those who agree with "Web Pages that Suck" and it seems those who do
not.
Content over flashiness, impact over garishness, for myself I agree with the
"Web Pages that Suck" boys.
Rick
Bruce Y
> There are those who agree with "Web Pages that Suck" and it seems those who do
> not.
-
I have no familiarity with that site. My yawn was due to the typical disdain
I have for self-proclaimed arbiters of quality. The Grammys, the Oscars, the
Rock and Roll hall of fame and all the rest are filled with talentless hacks
while real artists and people of accomplishment are left standing outside.
JJM1954
>The Grammys, the Oscars, the
>Rock and Roll hall of fame and all the rest are filled with talentless hacks
>while real artists and people of accomplishment are left standing outside.
Like who?
Bruce Y
> Like who?
-
Oscars: Titanic: nuff said
Grammys: Toto(about 12), Beatles(maybe 3)
R&R Hall: Bee Gees - in; Dick Dale, Traffic, King Crimson - out
Rick Hall
If your page has nothing on it that makes it a bad page, the it must be pretty
good.
Rick
JJM1954
I'm not going to argue with any of this (though I have my suspicions about the
Grammy totals as listed), but you're not exactly looking at the big picture.
Bruce Y
> but you're not exactly looking at the big picture.
-
The only point I was trying to make is that I seldom agree with popular
taste.
There is no bigger picture than what I like or don't like. Surely, it's the
same with you.
JJM1954
>The only point I was trying to make is that I seldom agree with popular
>taste.
"Popular" is a loaded word. Certainly anything that is published, filmed, or
recorded by a professional entity (ie, not "self-published") has a level of
popularity of some sort.
>There is no bigger picture than what I like or don't like. Surely, it's the
>same with you.
First -- what I meant by "bigger picture" is that surely you don't contend (to
use one medium as an example) that everyone who is in the Rock'n'Roll HoF
doesn't deserve it. How many do? 90%? 50%? 5%? I don't know about your
opinion, but for mine, let's say 90% (without realing spending a lot of effort
trying to figure this out). Any time you can get 90% agreement with anything
in this world, take it.
Second, although I make my living in the creative field, I'm not egocentric
enough to think that my personal taste is the end all and be all of fiction
(which is my personal area) let alone music or movies.
Sometimes you (or I) can have rational reasons for disliking something.
Sometimes they can be entirely irrational. (For example, a lot of people liked
SIGNS. Personally, I've never seen it, because I draw the line at going to
movies about crop circles. SIGNS could be the CITIZEN KANE of crop circle
movies, but I'll never like it.) I feel that we should cut the creative
community a certain amount of slack, because it can be really tough seeing a
project through from beginning to end without it falling prey to some kind of
difficulty along the line that is entirely out of the creator's hands.
That being said, you are right about TITANTIC.
Bruce Y
point. Surely you don't like something because a lot of other people do. You
think for yourself and choose what you like or don't like. With me, my
tastes run counter to the mainstream more often than not. So when someone
refers to popular guidelines, my response is a yawn.