Malarkey is Andy Clarke, a creative designer with a passion for accessibility and web standards. This is his personal website.

The Web Standards Collection partwork now available

A new year and tv commercial breaks are full of advertisements for partworks magazines. The choice is so vast that I really don’t know which ones to choose.

Should it be ’Creative Papercraft’, ’Aromatherapy and Natural Health’ (I just can’t imagine missing out on the free chickweed oil), or maybe even ’I Love Horses’ (purely platonically you understand). I think I might also have to start collecting the Country Bird Collection (calm down Colly, it ain’t what you think).

I love the business model behind partworks. They make it easy to build either a scale model of Wembley Stadium possibly quicker but more expensively than the real one. Or if you prefer to enhance your knowledge (or your love-life), why not sign up for ’Practical Sheepsheering’ or ’PC Success’ (get to know that girl on the Dell helpline really well)?

The Web Standards Collection

Looking around on the newsagent’s shelves, I could find no partwork about webstandards, XHTML or CSS. Judging by the popularity of 24ways plus the fact that Scrivs has amazingly not started one and being an entrepreneur type myself, I am proud indeed to announce the launch of my very own Web Standards partwork.

The Web Standards Collection, Issue one: Out now!

Week-by-week, The Web Standards Collection will offer you an essential line of code for you to build up your web site. The full colour magazine is packed with helpful hints and tips and each week comes with a hand-crafted polystone statuette of a star of web standards.

Issue one gives you the XML prologue and a statuette of Eric Meyer. The Web Standards Collection builds into a collection you will treasure forever.

At all good newsagents now!

Replies

  1. #1 On January 5, 2006 10:31 PM Zach Inglis said:

    Haha Class. Got me giggling out loud.

    LOL @ Colly joke.

  2. #2 On January 5, 2006 10:45 PM David Horn said:

    I used to work for partworks publishers Marshall Cavendish … riveting titles included: ’Get Crafty!’ - sadly not an introduction to petty scheming, and ’Superwife!’ - and again, sadly, not ’how to marry elastigirl!’

  3. #3 On January 5, 2006 10:56 PM Ian Fenn said:

    Put me down for a hundred autographed copies.

    BTW, does that mean I get 100 free XML declarations? Or is this offer limited to one per customer?

  4. #4 On January 5, 2006 11:39 PM Steve Williams said:

    Haha. One line per issue… that’ll be about 1,000 issues then - sounds about right for partwork publications!

    BTW, you forgot the introductory price 99p*

    *usual price ’5.99

  5. #5 On January 5, 2006 11:46 PM Colly said:

    Nah, I’m not into country birds. Too stuck up. Give me a towny slapper any day (but she gotta have brains, right?)…

    Did you know I used to be in the Young Ornothologist’s Club? True fact. I had a Kestrel pin badge.

  6. #6 On January 6, 2006 12:44 AM Yvonne Adams said:

    Excellent!

    Imagine small children everywhere playing with statuettes of Eric, Molly, Tantek, Jeremy, the Simons …

    Er, maybe not.

  7. #7 On January 6, 2006 01:11 AM FatBusinessman said:

    Includes free XML declaration!

    Genius! Absolute genius! :-D

  8. #8 On January 6, 2006 02:22 AM Ben said:

    @Colly - Didn’t we all used to be members of YOC? They might as well just stamp it on our birth certificates, really.

    As for this most excellent of publishing endeavours, I’m concerned about the 1,000 issue estimate: I’m not convinced there’re enough high profile web standardsistas to make die-cast models of. You’ll end up scraping the barrel of identity and including models of’ well, me, and even I don’t know who I am.

    Perhaps the plan should be adapted to include the same figures twice, but in different poses? "Baby Signs" Eric Meyer, "Local Cheese Purchasing" Jon Hicks, "Trachea Crushing" Jeremy Keith and "Quitting Blogging Forever" John Oxton (comes as a pair with "Resuming Blogging" Oxton model).

    With reissues like that, the _Series 3_ figures will be something to behold (not to mention "Brit Pack Special Editions", of course). Actually, does anyone need their soul selling for them? I’m on a roll with exploitative ideas’

    (Apologies to all)

  9. #9 On January 6, 2006 07:03 AM Matthew Pennell said:

    Brilliant! :)

    My wife used to work for those sort of publishers - apparently half of their "collect all 70 issues to build a scale Titanic/Ferrari/Cathedral" stopped after the first dozen due to lack of demand; so there are hundreds of model car enthusiasts with a beautifully crafted chassis but no car to go with it…

  10. #10 On January 6, 2006 09:27 AM Jens Grochtdreis said:

    It woulkd be brillant, if there was a magazine like that. Okay, Erics photo is not the real big seller, but you could optimize it :-)
    It is strange, that in Germany only the PHP-Magazine and polish PHP-Mag, which is avaliable in other languages too, is the only mag, which features webstandards. I had three articles myself in there.

    The only good british webdev-magazine is long gone. So what now? I can’t get used to these PDF-magazines. It is really frustrating.

  11. #11 On January 6, 2006 11:07 AM Stephen said:

    Is the "I love horses" partwork being reissued? Be still my beating heart.

    I still break out in goosebumps at the thought of the marvellous jingle (so good, that it was even remixed) that accompanied the original advert sometime last year:

    I love horses
    Best of all the animals
    I love horses
    They’re my friends

    Even Bob Dylan never scaled such dizzying lyrical heights.

  12. #12 On January 6, 2006 12:09 PM Rob Wilmshurst said:

    Uber good. I want one NOW!

    I think my fave partwork of the year so far has to be the scale model of a BMW. it has a 2cc engine and you modify it however you like.

    Issue 1 comes with a entire tyre! Free!

  13. #13 On January 6, 2006 03:05 PM davydesign said:

    I think my fave partwork of the year so far has to be the scale model of a BMW. it has a 2cc engine and you modify it however you like.

    Issue 1 comes with a entire tyre! Free!

    This reminds me of either a song or story about a guy who kept stealing bits from a car factory he worked in and eventually managed to build a whole car…
    Anyone else heard that one?

  14. #14 On January 6, 2006 04:41 PM Rob Wilmshurst said:

    @davydesign: nope, never heard of it. but now I wanna!

  15. #15 On January 6, 2006 06:02 PM Mike WS said:

    @ davydesign
    I think it was a song by Johnny Cash. I heard someone talking about it on the radio only last week though I don’t know what it’s called and it might not have been the Man in Black anyway but the song exists.

  16. #16 On January 6, 2006 06:27 PM Mike WS said:

    @ davydesign
    UPDATE: Through the wonder of the BBC Listen Again web site, and while I’m waiting for The Now Show to begin, I did some research and can confirm that it was Johnny Cash though they didn’t mention the song’s title I’m afraid.

  17. #17 On January 6, 2006 07:29 PM Mike WS said:

    @ davydesign and Rob

    The Now Show has finished and thanks to Google I have found out that the song is called ’One Piece at a Time’ and it can be found on ’The Essential Johnny Cash’ album.

  18. #18 On January 7, 2006 10:50 PM Elsa said:

    Fantastic idea - hahaha

    I can confirm that YOC membership was compulsory. I remember the yellow and black kestral badge too, and a crazy cartoon crow. Anyhoo…

    There really aren’t any good web design magazines out full stop are there? Perhaps because there is so much stuff online. Can anyone else remeber Cre@te, I bought a few issues but got sick to death of the interviews with people who thought they were great and the lack of any actual practical advice.

    Now I just stick to Computer Arts and Digit , with the odd copy of Edge thrown in, oh and Web Standards Collection now of course ;)

  19. #19 On January 9, 2006 09:28 PM Aaron Gustafson said:

    99p for the first issue?

  20. #20 On January 9, 2006 10:56 PM Eric Meyer said:

    Oh dear God in Heaven above.

  21. #21 On January 11, 2006 11:49 AM Ross said:

    no partwork will ever be better than "I Love Horses" - that is not a declaration saying I do mind…

  22. #22 On January 12, 2006 01:13 PM Ian Lloyd said:

    What do you get free with issue 2? Please tell!

  23. #23 On January 12, 2006 07:36 PM Malarkey said:

    @ Lloydy: "What do you get free with issue 2? Please tell!"

    Issue two will come with a fantastic DOCTYPE for you to use on your web site. As you might have heard, every web page needs a DOCTYPE and so this issue is a must.

    Now there are several different kinds of DOCTYPE, so we have decided to put one of each in every copy of The Web Standards Collection. To get the full set, you will need to buy more than one copy of the magazine.

    As the statuette of Eric Meyer has already made issue one a sell-out, we are sure that issue two’s statuette of Hard Man Dan Cederholm (complete with baby Jack) will also have readers queuing around the block!

    We are up for suggestions as to who to honour with future statuettes. Any suggestions?

  24. #24 On January 27, 2006 01:04 PM will said:

    I sure hope there is a centerfold poster of a nude Eric Meyer holding a sign that says:

    .clothing {display: none;}