December 9, 1998: Two new members have been added to the Ring, Percival's Underground Complex and Luke's Secret of NIMH Website. Both are also on the Links page. Also, changed the look of the title page a bit, with green box, and added a cool new background to the Archive page.
In other news, I'm pleased to announce that I'm running a contest to find the best funny caption to a NIMH II image. See the Sequel page for more details.
Finally, I've already sent an image to many of you, proposing that we all use it as the background to our pages during the week of the sequel's release. For anyone who didn't get it, and is interested in joining the protest (and who has a NIMH page, naturally), here it is.
November 26, 1998: You've probably already heard of the list of screengrabs from NIMH II that Computolio found. For the benefit of those who can't access it, or for whom access is too slow, I've collected them on the Sequel page and added captions to them. Enjoy!
November 3, 1998: Two new mistakes, courtesy of Tracey Gail. Also added what may be Don Bluth's email address to the Archive section.
In other news, I've been contacted by a guy who says that he's got a line on a video of cut footage from NIMH! He says that the video is coming from a woman with a connection to NIMH, and he is going to buy it. Then he's going to put it on computer. You can get the full story from him, at jbrisby@hotmail.com.
I also got in contact with John Cawley, author of The Animated Films of Don Bluth. It was entirely by accidentt (I bought an item he was selling on eBay.com), but I hope to get him to contribute some of his articles to the Archive, since he must have enormous files. Stay Tuned!
October 6, 1998: The main new thing is a new logo I've been working on. You can see it on the Archive page, but I'm considering a major reorganization, maybe offering a choice between fast and slow loading versions of my title page, using the new logo for the faster version. I might even offer a choice for frames. Nothing's cast in stone, and quite frankly, although I love the new logo, I also love the old one. The new one is quite a bit faster to load though. Somebody help me make up my mind! Also, I put a scan of the poster into the Archive. It's very nice.
September 14, 1998: Ta-Daaah! The Secret of NIMH Presskit has been added to the Archive. I got it from the eBay auction site, so special thanks go out to Daphne Lage for putting up a link to it! PS, Daphne, it included a great copy of the Strauss/Justin picture. Enjoy!
August 29, 1998: Ok, I don't actually have anything new to add, but I couldn't let my first anniversary pass without some sort of notice! And I do have a bit of news I'd like to share...
Thanks to Daphne Lage putting up a link to the auction site eBay, I bid on (and got) a Secret of NIMH Presskit! Thanks Daphne! The kit will be going up soon, of course. (I haven't gotten it yet.)
And, I tweaked the Links page a bit, and added two new links.
August 20, 1998: Added a whole slew of new Mistakes, some found by me, some submitted. Thanks everyone! Hope I didn't lose any in the shuffle. Sorry it took so long to put them up :)
In other news, I've had to remove David Gonterman from the Secret of NIMH Ring. He revamped his page, and decided that he didn't want the ring logo cluttering up his design, so he's gone. To replace him, please welcome JR "The Witchsmeller Persuivant" and his terrific new NIMH Adventure Game!
July 21, 1998: I've been very busy with new duties as Community Leader, so it's taken a while to get to this update. Got a new article in the Archive from Andrew Keiswetter, Fantastic Films June 1982. It's really cool, but be careful: it takes a long time to load! It's also one of the most sloppily edited articles I've ever seen in a professional magazine. Never mind the spelling mistakes, entire blocks of text on the last page are simply mixed up and misplaced! I've put inklines to mark where the discontinuities occur, but you'll have to hunt a bit to unscramble the mixups.
Also a couple of additions to the Mistakes, courtesy of Nathaniel Price, with a few more to come once I've verified them. Finally, I made a banner, if anyone wants to put it on their links page. You'll find it on my links page.
July 2, 1998: Happy Canada Day everybody! Ok, so it was yesterday, it's not like most of you know the difference! *g*
Two new articles for the Archive, sent in by Jeff McGinnis from the San Francisco Chronicle. Thanks for checking out your library, Jeff! And again, I'm pleading with the rest of you to do the same. The Articles Are Out There!
June 26, 1998: Two new additions: Andrew Keiswetter sent me an article from Britain's Starburst magazine. It's got some really good pictures. I apologize for the size of the file, but I had to blow it up a bit to get the text to even approach legibility. Even so, it's particularly hard to read (yellow letters on light green background). But, as always, an HTML version is also included. Thanks, Andrew!
Second, I've put up some rough drafts of a pic of Robin that I sent in to Kristin Blomsted. I thought they were worth looking at. As usual, they're in the Art section.
In other news, more articles are on the way from Jeff McGinnis, who went looking up some old newspapers in his local library. I really appreciate his effort, and I'll have them up as soon as I get them. Also, I've completed the training program to become an Area51 Community Leader, and am currently waiting for the Liason to get in touch with me to start the orientation process. Wish me luck!
June 4, 1998: A major addition today, and a pretty cool one too: The Secret of NIMH Script!
June 2, 1998: The two new articles are up in the Archive. One, the article from Comics Journal submitted by Andrew Keiswetter, and the other my letter in Entertainment Weekly (Hey, I got an ego too, you know!) Also added a new Mistake and a brief comment from Edwin about animated vines, and put the new background on some of the other pages.
June 1, 1998: Changed the background image for the site. Thought the old one was a bit too gloomy. I may make it the background to all pages of this site. Updated the Links a bit, to reflect changes in Ravepro's page. Added a few suggestions I got for Mrs. Brisby's voice to the Thoughts on the Sequel page.
In other news, new articles are on the way. I got the article Andrew sent, and it's a very interesting review. Also, Entertainment Weekly printed a letter from me in response to their "Top Five Mice" piece. Of course, I'll post the letter here as well, when I get the chance ;) Finally, if I seem a little busy lately, it's because I've been approved as a Geocities Commnity Leader. I'm in training right now, so there's not much time for other things, but I try to keep my hand in.
May 11, 1998: A new article in the Archive today! Just a small one, from a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, listing the top five movie mice of all time. Guess who made the list?
Another article is being sent to me by Andrew Kieswetter from Australia, but it might still be a while before I get it. Also, I've just made my first update of the Quiz scores on Jeff McGinnis's page. Five new names added to the list. No new Memories yet. Finally, I've split up the What's New page so that older news (from 1997) is in a separate file. The file was getting a bit large. Not sure why I keep the old news anyway, except that it's kind of a nice record for my own use.
May 7, 1998: Just a few changes to the links page. Jeremy has a new address, so I switched it over. Also added a new page by Megan Lucas (author of "All's Fair in Love and War" from the Nimh Fan-Fiction Archive)
April 23, 1998: Switched the rest of the pages to the new lettering color. Also, we have a new member to the Nimh Ring, Nathaniel "Seoman" Price. Welcome, Seoman! His page is also added to the Links page. Also put up a link to Lynxcat's old location, since it seems that her updating is dragging on and on...
In more personal news, my courses are over for the semester, and I aced Later Twentieth Century History and Children's Literature. Don't know yet about Precalculus, but I know it's not pretty. Sigh. I've applied as a Geocities Community Leader, which means helping out homesteaders with their pages and patrolling the neighborhood for rule violators. Stay tuned!
In addition, it's time to start putting all this new free time to work, so sometime this summer, I plan to start putting up some new essays of my own opinion. "Bluth vs Disney" and "Movie vs Book" are definitely in the works. Plus a few ideas that I don't want to give away yet.
April 16, 1998: I just put up Joshua White's college paper on Secret of NIMH. I wasn't sure where to put it, but eventually I decided it should go in the Archive. I'm hoping eventually to be able to include the professor's commentary, but it might be a bit too personal to share with the world :) Anyway, thanks Josh!
Also, I'm trying out a deeper shade of yellow for the text on some of the pages. I think it's easier on the eyes. You can see the new shade in the Archive, the Mistakes, and right here in the What's New section. The old shade is still everywhere else. Am I right that the new shade looks better and is easier to read?
April 14, 1998: Guess what? The Archive has just been named a "Featured Page" by Geocities! It means more storage space, and hopefully a bit of publicity too. Special thanks to Area51's Community Leader DawnFyre for her help, and for recommending my site to the higher-ups :) Stop by and visit her page here. If you like dragons, it's for you!
Also, it's official. The Douglas College Student Society computer lab is closed for the semester, so any messages sent to my school email address (seykel@dcss.douglas.bc.ca) will go unread by me until at least June. I've pretty much abandoned that address anyway. Nothing ever comes there but spam and school messages.
The Mistakes page has a few new items. With finals now in full swing, I've gotten a bit behind in answering emails in general. If Andrew Kieswetter is reading this, I've tried to answer your messages but they keep coming back "undeliverable" so I'll just tell you here that I got your suggestion for a mistake, but I didn't include it because I just wasn't able to see any difference in Jeremy's bill.
Finally, Joshua White has sent me a copy of the paper he wrote for his college English class, about The Secret of NIMH, and he has given me permission to post it on my site. It will be up soon.
April 3, 1998: I've replaced my old text based table of contents with buttons, and shuffled the order a bit. Way back when I started this page, I made a decision that I didn't want to clutter up my page with too many buttons and graphics, but I've been persuaded to change my mind on this point. I would really appreciate feedback on this one folks: Is it better this way? I'd like to hear what people think. Hopefully this will help me to be chosen as a Featured Page on Geocities, so feel free to leave complimentary statements in the Guestbook too ;)
April 1, 1998: I'm sorry to say that I've come to a difficult decision...the Archive will be shut down immediately and retired.
April Fool! Actually, I plan to be around for a while yet. I've done a little housecleaning, at the suggestion of Area51/Lair's Community Leader, DawnFyre. I've moved the Bloom County comic to the Introduction page instead of the main page, and created a new page for the rings.
Also, Computolio has sent me another improved scan, this one of the Newsweek review. Thanks, Duncan!
March 23, 1998: It's been a while (for me, anyway) since my last update, and there's not really much new to report. Actually, just a lot of little stuff:
In other news, those of you who heard about me losing my job at the petstore where I worked for almost four years will be glad to know that I am once more employed, at a much better wage, in a carpet warehouse. It aint brain surgery, but for my needs, it's a dream job. (I get to drive a forklift -heh heh)
Finally, although major additions won't be made any time soon (not until summer at least), I do still have plans for future essays. I've been wanting to do a comparison between the book and movie for some time, especially as it would provide an opportunity to respond to that bitchy woman who wrote the article slamming the movie (Computolio has a link to it. He calls it one of the snobbiest articles ever written about NIMH and he's right). Also planned is a huge article exhausively comparing NIMH with Disney. All of that will have to wait however, until school ends and until I can overcome my legendary procrastination.
March 9, 1998: Well, I suppose it's pretty obvious what's new today; namely, a new logo! I owe Jeff McGinnis special thanks for grabbing the center image for me. Thanks Jeff!
I also owe a majorly huge apology to Kriztin Blomsted. I harrassed her endlessly, for help with fonts for it. I sent her a copy of a new logo design I was working on at that time, and she sent me no less than four alternative fonts to choose from. Then, I abandoned the design I had at that time and went in an entirely different direction, so her work went to waste. Kriztin, I apologize profusely! The only thing I can say in my defence is that the new design does look far better than the design I sent you (What I sent you before was pretty ugly by comparison, wasn't it?).
Finally, I also added the GeoGuide, which has a few advantages to it, and got rid of some of the clutter that wasn't doing me any good, like the ads for StartingPoint.
March 4, 1998: There's not really much new today, except for a few new Mistakes, but I'd like to let everyone know, in case you've been trying to reach me, that one of my email adresses has been down for the last week. I can still be reached at my main address, skeptic2@hotmail.com but the address given me by Douglas College, seykel@dcss.douglas.bc.ca has crashed. No one seems to know when it will be up again.
For the record, I also try to discourage people from using it, as it will probably be discontinued come summer. (You may wonder why I use it at all then; well, the answer is that sometimes I need to send an attachment, and the school computers won't let me do that with Hotmail.)
February 28, 1998: I'm offering a new image for the right side of the Ring logo, so you might want to visit the Ring homepage and download it. It's far better than the old one. Thank J.D. McGinnis for screengrabbing it, and kindly letting me use it.
Also put up a cute item sent to me by Megan Lucas. It's an "interview" of the Nimh characters about the sequel. It's up on the Sequel page (where else?). Plus, a new Odd Bit of Dialogue on the Mistakes page.
Other than that, not much to report other than some minor housekeeping, removing the "new" from things which have been up for a while, things like that.
February 23, 1998: A couple of new items added to the Mistakes page, including my first ever visual mistake (well, more of a sight gag really). Both new items are courtesy of Jeff McGinnis.
I've finished the translation of "Justin's Troubles," so you can expect to see it on Kriztin's page fairly soon.
February 16, 1998: Andrew's page disappeared for a while, but it's back (yay!). I've updated the link. He's also the newest member of the Secret of Nimh Ring. I've added two new sections to the Mistakes page, "Odd Bits of Dialogue" and "Unanswered Questions."
The Oscars were announced last week, and Anastasia picked up two nominations. One for best score (musical or comedy) and one for best song. I'm glad that it got the score nomination, and I'm also glad that the Academy has started dividing the score category between dramatic scores and musical/comedy scores, since it gives Anastasia an outside chance to win (but it'll probably go to The Full Monty). As for the song nomination, I'm disappointed, first because it only got one nomination, and second, because they nominated the only bad song in the whole film! "At The Beginning" was far better than "Journey to the Past."
Also, I'm working hard on a translation for Kriztin (my friend has turned out not to be much help). I've got a little more than a third of it done already.
February 12, 1998: I updated the information on the Sequel to reflect the new information dug up by Computolio. It was an essay long overdue for a rehaul! The NimhMUCK website is back up, so I updated that link as well. Also added a link to a page well worth checking out, Ravepro's Secret of NIMH Page.
In other news, I've finally managed to get my hands on a copy of the Secret of Nimh Comic, courtesy of Vince Palacio, a heavy-metal rocker all the way from France. Unfortunately, it's in French, which I only know a little of (I can hardly help knowing a little, being Canadian and all). It's interesting to compare the French with what I know the English is supposed to say...Did you know that the phrase "Top Secret" has entered the French language in the same way that "joie de vivre" has entered English? Anyway, huge thanks go out to you, Vince!
Vince also submitted a story (also in French) to Kriztin for the Fan Fiction Archive. I have a friend who is fluent in French, and so there's a chance I can talk her into a translation. If you're reading this, Kriztin, stay tuned!
February 9, 1998: I found an old cartoon I drew expressing just how I felt about Jurassic Park. I figgered why not put it up? It's in the Art section.
January 30, 1998: Ok, hold on to your hats, folks, you're gonna LOVE this. I've just put up my first-ever piece of non-high-school-doodle Nimh fan art. It's a sequel to the infamous Kiss picture, and I think it'll become a classic in its own right. It's up on the Art page. Don't miss it!
January 28, 1998: Polished up the Open Letter a bit, finished it off, put it into final form, etc. I'm genuinely surprised that it ended up being so long!
Also, I see that the Archive has passed the 3000 visitor mark. Would the 3000 visitor let me know who he or she was? No prize or anything, I'm just curious.
January 25, 1998: Added several mistakes, and also added the Anastasia review to the Anastasia webring. J.D. McGinnis' Secret of NIMH Quiz is fully operational (thanks for the mistakes, J.D., sorry it took me so long to get to them). Andrew's webpage seems to have vanished. Added a scanned version of the Films on Screen and Video article.
January 21, 1998: The Open Letter is pretty much done, although I will probably continue to add to it. I had to do it in two parts, because for some strange reason, I can't make text files larger than 28K. I don't know if it's Geocities, Microsoft, or the Douglas College Computer Lab I should blame, but it's probably Microsoft. Added a couple of new awards, both from pages with Anastasia material.
Oh, and I may have finally tracked down a copy of the comic book version of Nimh. Someone offered to mail me a French version. I'll let you know if and when it arrives. In the meantime, thanks in advance, Vincent!
January 14, 1998: In my eternal efforts to have the Archive be the last word in Nimh-formation, I've given it a major facelift. Let me know what you think! Also, a new article has been added, courtesy of The Witchsmeller Persuivant, a Nimhfan from the UK.
January 13, 1998: The major addition is complete! As of today, you can read the articles in the Archive either in their original forms, or in a text-only HTML version. It took a lot of hard work to do, but those of you who have said that the articles took too long to load, or were too difficult to read should find this a major improvement. Thanks for the feedback, I think this is a great change for the better!
January 11, 1998: Just a few housekeeping items to take care of. Updated the link to Krizten's Robert C. O'Brien page, since she and Chris Moon have combined their pages together. The new page is also the newest member of the Nimh ring.
Another update: Remember that major change I said I was planning to finish by April? Well, I hugely overestimated the time it would take, and you can expect to see it by Friday at the latest. Only three months ahead of schedule too. I figured I should get it out of the way while schoolwork was still relatively light.
January 5, 1998: Added two new items to the Archive. Also added a couple images to the Anastasia review. Computolio did the recoloring of Mrs. Brisby. Eventually I plan to redo my Brisbyline using his version.
January 4, 1998: Continuing to add to the Open Letter. Added another mistake to the list.
January 1, 1998: Happy New Year everyone! I'm adding a new essay today, a review of the film Anastasia. I decided to do it in the form of an open letter to Bluth. It's not finished yet, and as long as I'm writing it as though for Bluth's eyes, I plan to talk about a few things besides Anastasia. You'll get the idea when it's done.
And, in case anyone cares, my courses from last semester all went quite well, and I start a new semester on Tuesday. And over the next four months, I'm planning to be working on a major change to the Archive, in response to a few suggestions I got. I'm going to wait until it's completely done before I spring it on you, but expect it around April.