Rejected Ad Banner

You may have seen an ad banner circulating around the Toon Zone family of sites within the last month. It's the same one blinking on my main page, promoting my bookstore -- after I showed it to Harley, she asked me to make a bigger one so she could put it into rotation elsewhere.

Harley is so nice that she gives everybody on her server free ad time. That's why you've seen that big fat "VALENTINE CHRONICLES" banner with the blue-faced woman so many times. I could have had a banner up at the same time, but I couldn't think of one -- or rather, I couldn't think of one that had a chance of being approved.

My first idea was to spoof on TZ's constant anime ads by having a Flash banner showing Gohan appearing in a fighting pose, then Mulberry karate-kicking him across the room. I knew Harley would be squeamish about poking her real advertisers, and that it had only a 10% chance of being approved, so I never created it. I figured THIS one had about a 45% chance, so I made it instead.

Imagine going to the TZ forums one day and in place of the latest anime DVD promotion, you got Mulberry with an apologetic grin in front of Harley's computer (the background is a real photo of her PC area). I told her, "I think it's funnier to mention Funimation, but if you're worried, I can change it to "the anime companies." She said forget it, I wasn't crossing this line in any form. Harl did think it was funny, though.