Terrouge E-zine Archives

To better understand the conversation, grammer and small edits have been made.

Terrouge:
Hi, Dave. Thanks for being here.

Dave:
No problem

To begin with, when did you first start a Redwall website?

I started around 1995, as an un-official website. Later when Brian Jacques came to Calgary, I managed to arrange an interview with him, and shortly after I had permission to call it Official (June 19, 1996).

Were there many Redwall websites back then?

No, there were two, Iris Streambattle, aka Donna W., built the first, and I made mine a while after hers was already started.

What was the theme of your site? Was it a club? Or was it an information page?

The first site was an information page called the 'Unofficial Brian Jacques Web Site'. It was just an information page. When the club asked me if I'd like to join I made a website, which was sometime in early 1996. It had an open message board, and a guest book, but not much else.

When did you start the Official Redwall Club? Was that at the same time as the Official Redwall Site?

It was never really the Official Redwall Club. It really began to gain popularity when the Brian Jacques page became Official.

Tell me about the club, as it was before the Official Brian Jacques page.

The club consisted of about 30 members. It was basically a mailing list, but we had a lot of fun with it. The founder was Gabriel R., not me. I don't think there are very many of the original members still around anymore, I guess they moved on to something else.

How many versions of the page have you been through? Or have you stuck with this design the whole time?

There has only been 2 versions of the website. About twice a year I begin a new design, but never end up finishing it as answering e-mails and maintaining the site is very time-consuming.

How many e-mails do you normally get?

For a while I was getting upwards of 200 e-mails a day, but then I took my e-mail address off the site for a while to let it cool down a little. I now get 100-125 e-mails a day.

Terrouge:
I've heard that they are now printing the address for the page in the front of the Redwall books. Is that true?

Dave:
Yes, in the newer prints of the Redwall books Redwall.org is displayed in the front.

Do they do that in all the editions, or just in American or British?

Both

How many more hits are you getting daily as a result?

The numbers nearly doubled when it first started. Redwall.org now gets roughly 2 million visits a year.

Wow! How many hits is that a day on average?

I get about 700 different domains per day, and about 18 000 successful file accesses per day.

What're some of the other benefits of being the official webmaster of a best-selling author?

Well, it gives me a large amount of credibility on the net which can be a double-edged sword. I have to be very careful about what I do so it doesn't look bad on Brian Jacques.

Do you have any special priveleges, or free books, or anything like that?

I receive the newest books in the mail, sometimes before they are publicly available, and I also receive news early.

So have you read Legend of Luke yet? I know it's not publically available, but it has been published.

No, I haven't been able to get a copy of the book, but I received the book cover in the mail a few months ago.

Well, I guess that's about all. Thanks for your time, Dave!

My pleasure! :)

By Josh