Friday, August 26, 2005

How we make our funny cartoons

A good while ago, I put up a page about how I draw the cartoons. A couple of people thought it was quite interesting, so myself and Bif thought we might show you another aspect to the creation of the cartoons.

The following is a conversation, on Skype, between myself and Bif about the 'price is right' cartoon.

Now sometimes Bif will send me a perfectly formed script for a cartoon, and other times he sends me rather abstract notions which we discuss before I launch into the artwork. This was one of the latter...

2005-06-16
Bif: You there?
Frank: yup
Frank: on to john though, so might be distracted for a few minutes
Bif: ok, i'll just give new toon and you can get back to when you're ready
Bif: To his surprise, Ryan discovered that if you shop in the right place the price of fame could actually be quite reasonable.
Frank: ha ha ha
Frank: have you a mental picture of it?
Bif: no
Frank: Guy shopping with box of FAME on sale or something?
Bif: i'd like the fame to be more visually represented than that
[..]
Frank: how do you visually represent fame anyhoo?
Bif: screaming women, name in lights, paparazzi chasing him
Bif: i dunno
Frank: "screaming women, name in lights, paparazzi chasing him"
Frank: you are taking the piss aren't you?
Bif: i'm just trying to be helpful
Frank: try harder...
Bif: no
Frank: throw in a few burning zebras and whatnot..
Frank: i like my idea of a nice box of fame...
Bif: that's just being lazy
Bif: i thought you'd enjoy doing some screaming girls
Frank: are they naked?
Bif: well scantily clad at least
Frank: Anyway, I can see how you would think it's laziness, but surely the joke is actually better if it's something totally mundane... like next to the detergents?
Bif: i'm not sure. it would have to be a pretty snazzy looking box
Frank: well, of course.
Bif: give it a shot anyway
Frank: question is should it be on sale or what?
Frank: or 25% extra free...
Frank: or something...
Frank: or just "ONLY 12.99"
Bif: "NOW ONLY 12.99"
Frank: yeah...
Frank: Dollars or euros?
Frank: :)
Bif: euro
Frank: okeydokey.
Frank: We should put this conversation up on the 'how we make them' page...
Frank: but we might scare people away...
Bif: yes but it'd be educational
Frank: ok, i'll go have a look at doing it... talk to you in a while...
Bif: ok

I only noticed this second that I appear to have ignored Bif's instruction that the box should read "NOW ONLY 12.99". I have no idea why this is- I guess I just forgot what he had said! Sorry bout that Bif.

I have to admit if we could have 'visually represented' the fame it might have been an even better cartoon, but i have no idea how I might have done it...

Notes: Eddie's overcome...

Well, Bif handed me another pain in the ass cartoon to draw. He emails me and casually mentions he has a new toon:

"Once again Eddie's nerves got the better of him."
Eddie tied up in a corner as his nerves stand around cackling.

His nerves stand around cackling???

Now, I had drawn Eddie in a different nervous situation before, but I couldn't figure out how to do the nerves in that way - it seemed to me it would be easier to do his nervous system, as at least that would have the general appearance of a figure...

Bif came online when I was in the middle of it, here's an extract of our Skype conversation:

me: this toon is a bitch.
bif: really?
me: yeah.
bif: why?
me: WHY?
bif: haha

As you can see, Bif is very understanding when it comes to the abstract notions he has me trying to draw every week... he knew damn well what he was doing to me when he dreamed that one up!

then I sent him the rough unfinished toon and we discussed it:

me: here's where i am so far
bif: wow, that's not what I was expecting
bif: nice though
me: i thought it would be easier with a central nervous system rather than individual nerves.
me: not sure i was right now
bif: i don't think you were
bif: i can't imagine how you even thought you would be
bif: anyway, i've got to go

I think I may have been wrong alright. It was a bit of a pain to do and I'm not even 100% sure it works at all - does it look like a nervous system?? But Eoin just Skyped me to say it made him smile, so I guess it's ok.

Another thing I am noticing is that when I finish a cartoon I'm generally not that happy with it. But if I leave it a few hours and come back to it, I can appreciate the positives more. Wood for the trees kind of thing I guess. So I should really reserve my negative comments about my own work until I've had a chance to get away from it a bit.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Notes: A novel advance...

This weeks cartoon is pretty good, i think... not one of our best ever either though.
This week I did draw the lot 'out my own imagination' as John Spillane might say... as opposed to cogging any of it like I did last week...

After I was finished I sat back and looked at it, and for a second I thought "Why is it two guys?". Of course Milton is a guys name as far as I know, so that's why he's a guy. But the publisher didn't have to be a guy...

Thing is though, when I saw the word 'publisher' I thought of a guy. And that's what I drew. I wonder what proportion of publishers are male/female...?

It's a stereotype I guess. And cartoons rely on stereotypes to a certain degree. If it was a woman in the picture, would you get the cartoon so quickly?

Or would you have to stop and work out who was who and what was going on?

I have a sneaking suspicion that if it was a woman it wouldn't work so well. Not because it's funnier because it's two men, but because we wouldn't process the joke as quickly. Or am I just highlighing my sexist programming...?

Perhaps everybody else would get the joke just as quickly with either sex. If the woman was wearking a suit, as the publisher is in the cartoon, maybe that would be enough to identify her as the publisher - as long as Milton remained in a polo neck.

Ah the things these cartoons make me ponder...

Seriously though - comments on this welcomed!

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Site tweaks

Made a few tweaks here and there to the site today. Nothing major, nothing you'd even notice really. I added a graphic to the main page to point out that we upload a new cartoon every Friday - a lot of people don't notice that.

I also made the post titles a permalink to the post's own page. I had previously gotten rid of the permalinks by accident when I got rid of the 'time posted' yoke that blogger has. I just felt 'time posted' wasn't really relevant. I always liked the way the in wordpress the post title was the permalink so I opted for that. Strictly speaking I think I should have something actually saying 'permalink to this post' or something, but that would require more space than I currently have to play with, so until I rethink the design, this'll do.

Another thing I broke when doing the last bunch of edits to the site was the commment deletion. I fixed that again today coz we got a few spams last week and found we couldn't delete them coz of my messing ;).

That's all for now. I know the site needs more work - but it'll have to wait!

Any suggestions welcome here though...

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Marketing Funny Cartoons

You might have noticed that we allow people to display BifSniff cartoons on their own sites.

We felt, that it made perfect sense, as discussed in my previous post about online syndication.

As predicted by Bif, mostly it is the small version of the cartoon that people use - Bif spotted someone else providing mini toons small enough to fit in the sidebars of peoples blogs and websites and identified it as an excellent idea. So we cogged it off 'em ;).

If you display our funny cartoons on your site, the cartoon itself is a link back to our site, but we don't signpost that fact and so we don't get that many click throughs from them - despite the fact that the uptake has been pretty good.

I wonder if we should somehow signpost the fact that the cartoon is clickable... we don't want the cartoon to turn into too much of an 'ad' either though. We want people to want to have them on their sites. Without feeling we are encroaching too much on their space.

We recently increased the size of our branding on the small cartoons to clearly identify them as BifSniff cartoons. Which Bif had been at me for ages to do. I resisted it out of pure laziness, but I had to admit in the end it was absolutely essential.

But there's no way to measure the success or impact of that yet.

It has to be good for us though... Fear Factor Couple put our small cartoon on their Blog and then they got some great exposure - which means we get a part of that action too.

Bif noticed a spike in our traffic the other day, and he suspected it might be the Fear Factor exposure. Sure enough, when I took a look at their blog, they had just got some serious traffic to their site.

Now, not everyone who visits their site will notice the little cartoon in the sidebar, but a certain amount must. This can only be good for us. And at least now those that spot the cartoons can actually read the branding.

Hopefully the url BifSniff.com will even stick in some peoples minds!

Anyway, I'm just rambling now because it's past my bedtime, but I would like to say a BIG thank you to everyone who has liked our cartoons enough to put them on their own site.

Friday, August 12, 2005

A contentious claim...

I really like this cartoon. When Bif sent it to me first I laughed my ass off. Straight away I knew it was going to be fun to draw. And it was. The end result is easily one of my all time favourites. The joke is spot on and I'm really happy with the illustration.

Probably the reason I'm so happy with the illustration is because I ripped off most of the elements from other, better, illustrators. Most of the contents of the cartoon are based on actual bible illustrations I found on a Google image search. The background is from a picture of 'Saul persecuting the christians', Jesus himself is from 'Peter the fisherman' and the other characters are from 'Jesus teaching a new commandment'.

Anyone who had a christial upbringing probably knows the type of illustrations anyway, coz I guess we all had those bible picture books either at home, at school or at church.

Anyway, I wanted this cartoon to have a familiar feel to it, so I thought it better to emulate the style of those pictures as much as the Bifsniff style allows, rather than make something up completely from scratch.

I know making something up completely from scratch might have more artistic merit, but I don't think it would have had the same comedic effect.

And I'm so happy with the result that I will happily take any critisism for 'cogging' and let it roll off me like water off a ducks back.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

My Top Ten

I already posted this in Bif's musings, but I thought it would be a good idea to reproduce it here because it's on-topic and people might have missed it first time around. Oh and by the way... tomorrows cartoon would definitely be in my top ten. Not sure who it would displace, but it's DEFINITELY one of my favourites... more on that later! Do feel free to comment about your own favourites here, we'd love to know which ones make you laugh!

1. Almost inevitable... - had to pick this one. I love the simplicity of it. Also it was our first colour cartoon.


2. F O'Bourke - the character just turned out right. I love him. The sick bastard.


3. Burnt Out - i was worried about drawing this one I remember. But it turned out nicely.


4. I Spy... - Dunnoe why... I just like it. Feels nicely balanced.


5. Swing low sweet chariot - I love this one. The joke is so ludicrous and the picture turned out nicely. Nice and bright too.


6. Close to you...
   - another one I dreaded drawing, but in the end it turned out to be one
   of the best images, I reckon. Busy, but nicely balanced.


7. Fishing cartoon - I really like this picture. I was proud of this one. Such a happy looking image for something so grotesque...


8. Christmas Cartoon - Much as I hate Christmas things out of season, this has to be one of
   my all time favourites. Great joke and I was happy with my drawing.


9. When will I be famous? - Does the fact that I act have something to do with my love of this
   one? I don't know... but the joke appeals to me and I think I got his
   expression right...!


10. Guns and Roses - Another one that made me laugh when Bif sent it to me first, and I like the proportion of the gun.

Change of direction - creative process

From now on I hope to post more often, in smaller posts, about our funny cartoons. I think I will probably have little bits and pieces to post on many of the cartoons we produce. Even if it's just to let you know which ones I am happy with, which ones were tricky to do and which ones just fell into place.

Every week I draw the imagery for one of Bif's cartoons. It always amazes me the different experience each one can be. You would think at this stage, after a year, that the process would be constant, but - no.

Sure, I have the actual technicalities all worked out, I put up an article before about how I actually draw them - but still I feel the process differs each time, some are a dream to draw and some are a nightmare.

And it's not necessarily the one's you'd expect - sometimes Bif will send me a cartoon I think will be an absolute nightmare to draw, but it's like the challenge draws out my best work. Other times it doesn't ;).

At times a funny cartoon Bif sends me that I really like and think will be a cinch to draw just doesn't turn out as I had hoped. There are two that spring to mind that I really liked and had a pretty clear idea in my head of how I wanted them that didn't turn out quite right, and funnily enough they are quite similar in theme: one is the recent sea legs cartoon and the other is the bad start cartoon.

Now, they're not awful, and usually even when I'm not happy Bif thinks I'm being too harsh on myself - but I had originally thought they would be very strong cartoons and they ended up only alright. From an illustrative perspective that is.

Then on the other hand, I thought the apocalypse now cartoon would be impossible, but it turned out quite nicely I think. When I got the text for the malpractice and eggs cartoon I thought Bif was a complete bastard for coming up with it. But I was quite happy with the way it turned out, even if I haven't met anyone who really got it so far!

And then there was the best man cartoon. These ones are the ones I love. I said to Bif I didn't know if I'd be able to do the joke justice, but it just fell into place for me. It practically drew itself. Same with the close to you cartoon, don't get me wrong, there was a lot of work in researching those birds and everything, but still everything just fell nicely into position. The composition just kind of fell onto the page (or wacom tablet as it happens).

Anyway these little comments and observations are the kind of thing I'm going to try to post more often about, as well as any other interesting things that occur to me about our little venture. Hopefully the odd post will actually be of interest to someone!