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Site Name: William’s Bloody Hell
Owner: William
Reviewed by: Georgina
Reviewed on: 10th October 2008
Site name
I love it. Normally I hate people using their names in their site names. And yours seems long. For some reason though, I like it. Oh yeaaah.
Layout
Nooooo.. it’s the ghastly splash page. I don’t see the point of this, because your site looks damn fine on most browsers, according to browsershots.org. I don’t usually like splash pages, but with your little introduction it’s not bad.
I like the layout when I enter. I don’t like how the splash page has so much white and yet your layout is dark. But well, I like the layout. I like the man’s eye and the suspense he brings to the layout overall.
‘William’s Bloody Hell’ is added quite clearly and nicely. And I love how it’s Gorey – Edward Gorey! Thought I’d do a little research of my own – and your idea is very smart.
I don’t really like the use of the iframe. Your content is nicely divided into small sections (not large ones) so things seem to fit. But I hate the horizontal scrollbar that comes up when you have an image longer than your iframe, so they don’t fit that well.
When you remove my link button, make your iframe taller. I think it’s just a little too small, and that is the only thing I could suggest because eventually my button would be removed.
Your links to the users online and your hits counter – a little hard to see with the white on grey. Maybe move them in another corner?
I don’t have a problem with your CSS. I like how you’ve used Times New Roman because I think it adds to the old feel of your layout.
Overall your layout was a creative idea! I really liked it, and it was very unique.
Content
Contact
A form, your email address, Yahoo IM.. and a form for email updates! Very retro, very authentically cool. Hope you don’t mind me using that word retro.. heh. I actually quite like the old feel now!
I was hoping to see some brief information about yourself somewhere but unfortunately didn’t. I just suggest you include something, somewhere, but your site
Art
I already know I love your site and your art. But here goes for critical criticism.
I like the handy ‘view all thumbnails’ page. It’s great for people who just want to see everything at a glimpse. And thank you very much for letting me know that these open in a new window. I despise when people don’t do that.
I’ve been through all your art before, I remember, looking for that crazy guestbook of yours. Unfortunately I never found it.. I’ll yak later. On to reviewing again, your art is fantastic. And you’ve organised it so well, it’s obvious that you’ve put in a lot of work. The only problem I had was with your iframe again. Even some of the thumbnails are too big for it.
I also think it’s quite nice that you place that *new!!** next to things that are, duh, new. Sort of cute, and grabs attention. Well, it grabs my attention, which is good.
‘Art by other people who aren’t me’. That’s hilarious I must say, but I didn’t think the ‘who aren’t me’ was necessary. Other people aren’t you anyway. Unless you were trying to get a bigger laugh out of visitors with the humour, then it’s okay =D.
I especially love the comic strip you’ve made that’s based on yourself. It’s extremely creative and I just really enjoy reading them.
All your art is great. Your site seemed like a porfolio at first glance, but your art is great because it entertains. It’s extremely unique! I like how you have included other people’s artworks because it makes you seem very friendly and respectful of others, and shows that you really like art!
Reviews
I’ve read through a few, because wow you have a lot. You write well, so I don’t think there is a need to check every tiny detail. All but one of your Comic Book reviews was written by yourself, so things would look a lot neater if you wrote at the top ‘All written by me unless otherwise stated’. But since you have a lot of guest reviewers in your other sections and have written ‘by [name]‘ after each link, maybe you’d want to keep it consistent.
Now I like how you’ve set out your Novel review list. With the bullets, and the link, and under it, ‘by [name]‘. You should do this with the others! It’d be a lot neater. Also on this page, the spacing is inconsistent. On the second one you have ‘by William the Bloody’ not on the next line after the link, but the line after that. And you’ve got the first four links spread out, and the rest are squished. Organise this how you want, is what I’d suggest, and fix the other pages to make them look the same. I like how you’ve got the author on the next line – it’s more orderly than being right after the link.
Same thing for the television reviews. Side By Side Comparison index is nicely set out! Everything should look like that. And the Video games reviews too.
Rants
Oh no no no not the Lolcats. Hahaha. Your rants do make me laugh. And the one you have up now about spam. Hahahhahaha. I think your rants are organised nicely in that ‘browse by category’ page.
Misc
Tagboard’s self explanatory! And oh dear God I shall sit here and lick your shoes. Thank you so much for making me site of the month! I think I’m turning red, thankfully you can’t see. But I am completely honoured..!! Okay, I guess I’ll humbly continue with the review.
I love this CD swapping stuff! It’s not a huge rip-off like those normal ‘contests’ on people’s sites, it’s something very original, and excuse my colloquialism, but fully sick. It’s so unfortunate that people just download illegally nowadays. I still love the CDs though. Heck, records still sit on my shelf. Oh holy vinyl.
Ditto for the CD drop. It would be cool if you could drop them all over the world. It’s original, even though you didn’t make it up yourself. It’s something you don’t see every day. (I’ve never seen it.)
I love all your contests, they’re original, and the prizes are original! It’s definitely a change for someone to win something in real life (a CD) than some graphic saying ‘oho, you’ve won’. And that can get a little boring nowadays and crap, what with the crummy preteens and their lack of knowledge in even MS Paint.
As for the fonts, since you are not the creator, maybe you shouldn’t be offering them on your site and redistributing them. If you must, perhaps link to the site you got it from (if it was from a site). Despite saying that, oh I’m a hypocrite – I’m going to download one. It’s good you put the original .ttf file, I’m sick of zip folders nowadays. I just still want to emphasise that warning that you maybe shouldn’t redistribute these.
Short stories are a smart idea! Look out for me submitting some either soppy-romance one or just plain weird one some time soon 
.
I love the Geek quiz because I am at least part geek, and I just absolutely know the ultimate answer is 42 (I’m in love with Hitchhikers). All your quizzes work nicely, and they don’t require a billion subpages like mine. Your tutorials are great too, they’re something I haven’t seen before!
On your ‘personality quiz’ awards, you have some broken images. You have a lot of awards, and it’s good that you have linked them back to the site so others can try out for it too.
I love your past layouts, and you’ve included detailed information on them. The screenshots are great and I love seeing how your site has changed. And to notice your ‘Guess The Lyric’ was around since the earlier versions shows your dedication! A couple of these screenshots are .bmp files though – I suggest converting them in .jpg for smaller file size and less loading time.
The Fake FAQ is really quite handy. And it’s good to know about these random things so people probably don’t bother you much with questions. In ‘But, is you’re name actually “William”?’, ‘you’re’ should be your. This FAQ was handy. It tells people a lot about the site!
Fine Print
This page is a great thing to include. You should change the date at the bottom to 2008 instead of 2007 though.
Links
I normally don’t like how links lead to the same page in a different spot. Yours didn’t seem too bad though, and you made it quite tidy.
Originality
Perfect. Zing!
Organisation/Errors
I mentioned a few tiny things before, but other than that it’s okay.
Overall comment
William, your site just freaks me out. I love it so much! Yep. I love the originality in your site.
Your site makes me feel as if I’ve stepped into a comic book or something. I like how your site has that old feel. Still with the iframes, the enter page, everything. And everything appears to be done manually – everything just looks like it’s had a lot of hard work put into it.
Normally I like people having an ‘about me’ page, or even just a sentence about themselves. And in your FAQ I see that you clearly didn’t want to include anything of the sort. That’s completely fine, your site seems fine without one. I can see the personality in your writings and art, and that’s great!
Your site has many original ideas, and I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned that something is unique, but everything on your site is. Everything is excellent, you’re clearly dedicated to the site, and I’ll definitely be coming back to visit.
The only tiny problem I had was that you should make the splash page a bit darker, because your site is pretty dark, and you should make a good first impression. People want to see something dark to coincide with your site name, so maybe the black background wouldn’t be bad.
I hope you don’t think I gave you a nice review because you made me your SOTM. Hehee. I am still looking for that guestbook of yours! Well, that’s about it, keep up the excellent work, I bloody love it.
