Each of us at MahShelf is a comic addict and we do think a lot about our comics readers and artists. In this release we want to bring something refreshing and fascinating to our users to express more about themselves: theme customization in the profile page. Interesting enough? Here is an example of my own profile before and after I have made some changes.

However, I think orange header suits best with bright background and finally I have a personal profile page which is up to my satisfaction within a few seconds.

The reason we made this feature happened is that we just want any artist who is already creative with their comics, to be more creative personalizing their own library page. We believe this feature will improve the communication between artists and their fans as well as building up the brand name of the associated comics.

PS: We’ve been gradually switching to the new version and hopefully you haven’t noticed too many problems. If you notice any problems please let me know directly at memphis.dao[at]mahshelf.com.

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1. Penny Arcade

A web comic focused on video games and gaming culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The leader of web comics in general. Updated with a new comic strip each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

2. Ctrl+Alt+Del

A gaming-related web comic and animated series written by Tim Buckley. The name of the comic refers to the Windows command Control-Alt-Delete. Updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The comic’s focus has gradually shifted away from single strip gags towards longer story arcs and greater continuity.

3. VG Cats

Video Game Cats is a web comic written and drawn by Canadian cartoonist Scott Ramsoomair. Featuring the adventures of a pair of anthropomorphic cats, who often play the roles of characters in popular video games that are parodied in the strip.

4. Looking For Group

A fantasy-themed, World of Warcraft influenced web comic written by Ryan Sohmer and drawn by Lar DeSouza. The Comic follows the quest of Cale’Anon (an elven hunter) and Richard (an undead warlock), as well as their companions.

5. Teh Gladiators

A World of Warcraft based web comic written by Uros Jojic and illustrated by Borislav Grabovic. The artwork and story line really catches attention from WoW fans as well as comic readers in general.

6. Little Gamers

Little Gamers (LG) is a webcomic made by Christian Fundin (founder, illustrator) and Pontus Madsen (writer, illustrator). The cartoon series revolves around Christian, Pontus and mostly, video games.

7. Dueling Analogs

A gaming comic and as such most of the comics take place in the universe of the games discussed.

8. PvP

Also known as Player vs Player, is the adventures of a fictional video game magazine company and its employees.

9. GU Comics

A single panel webcomic written, drawn, and colored by Woody Hearn. Updated five times a week.

10. Crispy Gamer Comic Network

Crispy Gamer hosts three exclusive videogame-themed comics.

Ding! represents the WoW adventures of the gang at PVP. Story by Scott Kurtz.

Experience Points is about two characters, Barney and Victor, who represent the aging gamers … the guys that grew up on Atari and NES and just can’t get it out of their blood. By Scott Johnson.

Backward Compatible is a behind-the-scenes glimpse of life at Crispy Gamer by Aaron Williams.

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1. Superman

2. Spider-Man

3. Batman

4. Wolverine

5. The Hulk

6. Wonder Woman

7. Green Lantern

8. Captain America

9. Spawn

10. Punisher

And the answer is: ONE (1)

Misa Amane

Given that she has a pen, the Death Note and somewhere safe to watch the superheroes and write all of their names on the note.

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Characters used in the above artworks came from Dezignus.com as copyright-free designs. You can get the whole collection of  20 characters here.

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CC 2.0 photo from MK Media Productions@flickr

Many changes have been made, not only in graphic designs, but also in technical structures (a newer version of javascript library, brand new design in core system and database…). With this new architectural approach, site performance and stability of MahShelf have been improved a lot. In the future, it will be easier and quicker to add new features such as theme changing, profile customization…etc.

More coming soon!

The MahShelf editor team

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It has been quite long since the last time we updated our Blog. We have been over-occupied with all the technical as well as business development. For a small team, it was amazing that we could withstand such stress of being a start-up (especially in Finland, where winter lasts for 6 months and the weather discourages people to think positively). Regardless, there have been so many things happening around. For instance:

• We’ve won MindTrek award as Finnish start-up of year 2008. This was a rewarding event, proving that a web business for comics can be as attractive as any other ventures in Finland.

• After MindTrek event there has been quite a few blogs and articles writing about Mahshelf.com. For a full list of what people are saying about us, check out our Publicity page in this blog.

• In addition, the Mahshelf team has been actively following many entreprenerial events in Helsinki region, including events organized by ArcticStartup or Helsinki Metropolitan Entrepreneurship Academy – HMEA.

• And many other interesting meetings with people and companies…

CC 2.0 photo from teejaybee@flickr

For the present, as glooming as the economy climate is right now, we are still keeping up the high spirit here at Mahshelf. We are offering trainee positions at Mahshelf for entreprenerial people/ students, with or without working experience in IT and Media. So if you want to try out your strengths with challenging tasks at Mahshelf LTD, take a look at our Jobs page or send an email straight to jobs(at)mahshelf.com.

And last but not least, we will be releasing more new features from now on. The team has been building up something huge, and we will reveal that to everyone soon.

Happy reading, and Happy Lunar New Year!

The MahShelf editor team

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As we are aiming for a better environment where comic artists and publishers can feel at ease putting comics to MahShelf.com, there are things regarding copyrights we must make clear to everyone:

1. Copyright infringed contents are forbidden on MahShelf. All comics uploaded to MahShelf will be read though and checked by contacting the artists/authors/publishers. Any detected infringement will be banned immediately.
2. Copyright-free, fair-use (or the more popular term: Creative Commons) comics are allowed. Uploaders must link back to the original sources or mention the artists/authors/publishers’ names.
3. In case the artists/authors/publishers give their permission to upload their comics on MahShelf, uploaders must say so in the comics’ descriptions. MahShelf staffs will search and try to contact the copyright holders to confirm such permission. If no confirmation is received from the copyright holders in 1 month, the uploaded comics will be treated as copyright infringements.
4. Every artists/authors/publishers upload their own comics on MahShelf should also link back to their own sites if possible. MahShelf staffs will try to contact the copyright holders to confirm such publication.
5. In the near future, more filters and processes will be added to MahShelf to strengthen our commitment to protect comic artists/authors/publishers rights.

With great comics come great respectability. So to all comic makers out there, we give you our best regards!

The MahShelf editor team

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• Explore: Yes! All 3 main categories (Comics, Manga, Others) are now in one place: the Explore tab. We have also made some changes with the sorting mechanism so you can find comics much easier.
• RSS Feed: Also in the Explore tab, you can now subscribe to each category to get the latest comics uploaded to MahShelf.
• Forums: As you can see, we have added a Community tab, with the whole new forums so everyone can go there and discuss whatever you want.
• Chat room: The Community tab has one public chat room. So if you feel bored, go there and shout out something
• Profile Info: More things for you to fill in and tell others more about yourself. Check your account and see the Profile section next to the Setting section.

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• Enlarge button returns: since the last time we took down this feature because of some conflicts in the codes, many users have mentioned about putting it back, as reading in fullscreen ignores other things going on such as instant messages and mail notifications. So now it has been repaired, and has yet to show any error. One thing should be noticed though: after clicking the Enlarge button, an extra click on the Flash reader is required. If you try to roll the mouse wheel right after clicking the Enlarge button, your web browser will immediately exit the enlarge state.

• Better exploring: there has been a problem that everyone doesn’t know what to read and what’s hot right now. So we have decided to change the 3 tabs Comics, Manga and Others to display all books, instead of just featured ones. They are sorted in terms of Book views (Most popular), Book rates (Most rated), Number of comments (Most discussed) and Date added (Latest)

• IE6 issue: oh yes. There have been a hell lot of bugs of MahShelf in IE6. We are really sorry for the bad experience you had. But for now please bear with us and upgrade your web browser to a newer version, or switch to Firefox or Google Chrome. Thank you for your patience!

• CBR and CBZ issue: unfortunately for security reasons, we can not accept CBR and CBZ, or RAR and ZIP file types right now. But you can always rename the CBR and CBZ files you have to RAR and ZIP, extract them and upload to MahShelf for now. We will try our best to solve this issue in the near future.

Happy reading!

MahShelf editor team

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Thanks for visiting MahShelf! We have been most impressed with the recent number of visits from our users. In this month we will keep releasing even more cool new features for reading and sharing digital comics online.

So, first off, we are extremely happy with the feedback we’ve known so far. We are determined to make digital comics become the most popular trend on the internet, and also, to turn digital comics publishing into a profitable business. That said, please continue to let us know if there’s something you’d like us to improve. Just try suggesting something to us, and we’ll prove how much we value your ideas and opinions.

Anyway, back to the new changes. Last month, we’ve added many improvements to the site. Some major ones are:

• New explore page and reading trend feature
  

We’ve been receiving many uploads each day. While this is really exciting, we realized that many visitors don’t know where to start reading or discuss. Therefore, we bring you the new explore page, which can be accessed by clicking on the “view all” link besides the “Books currently being read” in main page. From there, you can easily find the most recent, most viewed, most rated and most discussed books.

Also, main page of MahShelf has a feature called “Reading trends“, which shows particularly topics that are  favored by other readers.

• Reading history
  

Suddenly forget what you’ve finished reading? You can use the “History” feature to help you quickly turn to the books you’ve read. This feature only available when signed-in.

• Book updates
  

When you subscribe to other users (Or add them as friends), you will receive notificatons of their new uploads in your “Account” page.

• Send message
  

Sending personal messages to other users in MahShelf is now possible.

• Display name
  

So, sometimes you just want to change your nickname, eventhough you don’t want to change the account name. Now you can modify it from your Account page, in the “Profile” tab.

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