It was just over two years ago that I switched the Harvey Mercheum website’s theme from Suffusion to Weaver Xtreme. Weaver Xtreme supports certain Google Fonts, and I chose Roboto Slab for titles and Roboto for text (Roboto Condensed in the sidebars). Kinsta just posted on their blog that the Roboto font family is the most popular on Google Fonts, with the Condensed style sixth, and the Slab style thirteenth. I guess I made a decent choice! My original inspiration for the combination was Brian Garnder’s post Top 5 Google Font Combinations, but unfortunately, that post no longer renders the fonts correctly.
Category Archives: Good reads
Greg Ehrbar post about the Richie Rich story records
Earlier today, Greg Erhbar posted an in-depth look at the records PolyGram made for Harvey under their Parachute label on the Cartoon Research website. The article mentions that there were five of the 33 1/3 RPM LP’s, of which three have been featured as exhibits here on the Harvey Mercheum website:
and Surprise Party!
Kinsta blog post on redirects
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I posted about how, while http: versions of hyperlinks to the Harvey Mercheum website will redirect to https:, the redirect is an extra step and slows the process down. I just finished reading a post on Kinsta‘s blog about redirects, and in it, they show measurements of just how much a redirect slows down page load time. You can read the full post here:
WordPress Redirect – Best Practices For Faster Performance
And yes, I use SiteGround not Kinsta for my hosting, but it does not matter to me where a relevant and well written blog post originates.
The Psychology of Collecting
I love collecting, and I love reading about collecting and collections. Online auction and gallery website Invaluable just posted an interesting article about why people collect. Even though it does not mention comic books or toys specifically, it is still worth reading:
1968 Collegeville Costumes catalog on Plaid Stallions
Halloween is just around the corner! In my childhood, the Halloween season started with a trip to the store to buy a costume. I remember shelves stacked with boxes, so many choices! Find a character I liked, then find my size. Then one year, I took a good hard look at the costumes, and realized that the character would not be walking around with their face and name printed on their chest. I never wore a boxed costume again.
Antique Trader article on collecting
Sorry for the lack of new exhibits. I went away on vacation for a week, and while I am back now, I am having trouble catching up. I hope to post a new exhibit this weekend.
Playthings with great popularity celebrate turning 60 on Antique Trader
While Antique Trader usually deals with things much older and more valuable than the Harvey merchandise featured here at the Harvey Mercheum, last week Antoinette Rahn published an article about toys. In “Celebrating six playthings turning 60”, Toni lists six toys that hit the market in 1957. As I just took a step closer to my 50th birthday last week, it is interesting to me to see toys like Wham-O’s Frisbee and realize they have not been around much longer than me.
Posts about Content Delivery Networks and Jetpack
I posted last week about making a number of changes to the Harvey Mercheum website, including activating Cloudflare and more Jetpack modules. WPMU DEV just updated this post about Content Delivery Networks:
Beyond Speed: 5 (More) Reasons Why You Should be Using a CDN
And WPExplorer posted about Jetpack modules:
Jetpack Modules To Level Up Your WordPress Website
I had mentioned that I was disappointed in the speed results of my changes, but still felt that I was moving in the right direction. Reading these posts reinforced this feeling. And based on the comment form change, I have re-enabled comments on posts more than 30 days old. New readers, please feel free to comment on older posts, and welcome to the Harvey Mercheum!
Have you noticed any of the differences? Have you tried the new comments system or the new Contact the Curator form? Now would be a great time to do so!
Harvey Comics covers!
While I was hiding, I also missed an opportunity to share a nice little article on Scoop about Harvey Comics covers:
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost two years since the Harvey Mercheum was the Scoop Savvy Site!
Photography and collecting
I was unable to post this weekend because I was at TerrifiCon. I will post about my trip soon. While I was away, I missed World Photo Day. Photography is very important to me, and to this website. Hopefully next year I will be able to properly acknowledge the day.
Also while I was away, the Washington Post posted an excellent article about the effect of the Internet on collecting. You can read it here:
With the Internet, collectors can find anything. Where’s the fun in that?
