Mekka blue FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Do the characters in mekka blue really exist?
Mostly yes. Most characters are more or less authentic. Do not assume, however, that the originals are always like their cartoon characters. Especially, if you should ever happen to run into them ;-)
What the characters say, for instance, are not always actual quotes. The strips are based on actual events, but usually they are, well, a little enhanced. Most of the time, I am not as dumb as my character, most of the time, the other guys are not as smart as theirs (harhar!).
When are you going to publish the next cartoon?
As soon as it’s drawn. This should happen once weekly, usually on Sundays, though sometimes I won’t find the time for it at all, whereas sometimes, I will update it more often than once a week. Mekka blue has been known for a few long hiatusses.
That’s right, it’s being updated irregularly. That’s because it’s my spare time and my money that is being spent, not yours.
Is there a way to chat with you?
Yes. Most of the time, you can reach me in the ways listed below. Please keep in mind that the languages that I speak are: German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, a tiny bit of Swedish and some French.
| service | name or channel |
| AIM | mekka@mac.com (not an e-mail address) |
| Yahoo! | mekkablue |
| MSN | mekkablue [at] gmail [dot] com |
| Google Talk | mekkablue |
| ICQ | 200763082 |
| Skype | mekkablue |
| Gizmo | mekkablue |
Can I link to mekka blue?
Yes, you can! If you want to link to a specific mekka blue, please follow this scheme: http://mekkablue.com/yyyy/mm/dd, where yyyy is the year, mm the month (in two digits), and dd represents the day (again, in two digits). For instance, http://mekkablue.com/2004/01/15 is a valid direct link to the mekka blue from January 15th, 2004.
Why is it called mekka blue? Are you a Muslim?
For one thing, mekka was my IRC nickname, which in turn derived in the most elusive way from my family name. I’d like to leave the blue part open to your imagination. See if you can figure it out by reading the cartoons …
And oh, I am not a Muslim. In fact, I am not very religious at all, but consider myself an agnostic. Don’t get me wrong, I respect religion and its importance and all that jazz, but I am not exactly a believer myself.
How long does it take you to draw a cartoon?
Usually a couple of hours, but my mileage varies greatly. Sometimes, it’s done within less than an hour, sometimes I’m sitting at it forever.
How do you produce the cartoons?
The cartoons are drawn in Illustrator, the consecutive site update process happens through a web interface. So all I have to do is draw the thing, and push a few buttons.
Other applications involved are Safari, skEdit for the occasional HTML twisting, TextMate for messing with Flausch’s Ruby code, Cyberduck for maintaining the whole SFTP mumbojumbo. And I am doing all this on the final generation PowerBook G4 with OS X, and I couldn’t possibly imagine doing it on any other platform :-)
How did you get your own domain, mekkablue.com?
I got it as a birthday present. Thanks a whole lot to Flausch, Hop, Kathi, and Marina (alphabetical order).