+++
title = 'About Silicate'
slug = 'about'
weight = 4
+++

## Author & History

Hi! I'm Christian Aribaud! Some may also now me as "Bohren".

I've loved webcomic for as long as I can remember! Just imagine -- artists creating
amazing comics, and they put it online for all to see! And *for free*! How cool is that?

And since they put their work online for free, I wanted to help them.

There are two things I know well: software development and speaking French. Yes, I know, I'm sorry.

I helped a few times the webcomic [Pepper & Carrot](https://www.peppercarrot.com/fr/) but nowadays
I'm one of the French translators for [Rising Sand](https://risingsand.glass/)!

And while I love webcomics, I also saw these past years how things can get dire for the
authors -- platforms degrading, exploiting artists, shutting down, embracing that *freaking
GenAI trend*...

And then two things happened : I got interested in [Hugo](https://gohugo.io/) and the RS website
ran into trouble with multilingual support.

I wondered if I could give artists a way to create simple webcomic websites using Hugo without
having to relly on third-party platforms or WordPress.

Silicate is the result.


## Why the name Silicate?

I chose Silicate as an homage to Rising Sand, because it's what got me started!

Also, "Silicate" is pronounced like "Silly Cat" in french, which I find very funny.

{{< center >}}
![A silly cat](silly_cat.png)
{{< /center >}}

## Contacts

If you want to send me questions, feature requests or suggestions, you can do so here:

* [@bhoren](https://bsky.app/profile/bhoren.bsky.social) on Bluesky
* [@bhoren@mastodon.art](https://mastodon.art/@Bhoren) on Mastodon