Ancient Web: Karla Freberg's K-World Gave Her Family an Animal Cast

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

One way to make your family into a fictional universe is to give everybody an animal identity and draw them together. Karla Freberg did exactly that, and her little website kept the results online.

Visit Karla 'Vix' Freberg's homepage.

The page introduces Karla as the creator of K-World, an imaginary franchise with five different groups of animal characters. The homepage names Scylen the Greyhound and links a few of her drawings, alongside a photograph of the Freberg family. A note says the latest pictures were updated on August 28, 2004. The copyright statement covers her K-World artwork from 1990 to 2007.

The characters came from real people

The family animal-art page explains that she enjoys drawing relatives as animals. Her sisters appear as a lioness and a poodle, Karla as a fox, their father as a bear, and their mother as a hummingbird. There are illustrations of family members running together, group portraits, and collaborations with sister Kristin, who supplied sketches that Karla colored.

Two descriptions tie the pictures to actual family correspondence. One was made from a letter sent while Kristin was at West Point in 1997; another came from a letter written while she was in Iraq in 2003 or early 2004. A personal animal drawing becomes an unexpected record of a family staying connected across great distances.

Karla's trivia page adds the familiar early-web questionnaire. She lists drawing, weightlifting, newspapers, wildlife books, and computer games among her interests. Favorite titles include Star Fox 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Age of Mythology, Sonic Adventure, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. She also names her sisters as important inspirations.

The art pages are not a finished commercial franchise catalogue. One homepage announcement still says the project is under construction. That is part of the site's charm, but also a limit: we cannot infer a large fandom, business, or completed fictional world from these surviving pages.

The older personal web often mixed self-portraits, family photos, fan interests, and elaborate private mythologies without separating them into distinct online identities. This small site preserved that mixture almost untouched.

Browse the family animal drawings and the trivia questionnaire.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.