Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Well,
I gave you a hint recently about our new t-shirt, I told you it was related to
F O'Bourke the Family Butcherer.
'Family Butcher' is a sign you used to see a lot of in small towns, in Ireland anyway, I guess these days it's all Centra and Spar and all that, but I'm sure there are still some good old fashioned Family Butchers around. For those of you who look at the F O Bourke cartoon bewildered there is an extra "ER" at the end, making him a Butcherer of Families rather than a friendly Family Butcher.
So Bif came up with the excellent idea of an old fashioned Family Butcher type logo, but for our own resident Family Butcherer instead!
As an aside, it is REALLY difficult to locate old fashioned logos when you want them. When you're not looking for them they seem to be everywhere!
Anyway, here's what I came up with:
And so, without further ado, I present to you our latest t-shirt:
And it's our first plot print design, here's what Spreadshirt says about plot print:
Look and Feel
Flock print feels great: somewhat velvety and a bit elevated. And it looks soft. Flex print is slick, smooth, shiny and elegant.
Durability
Both plot printing styles are absolutely high quality, they don't fade and your design will last longer than your shirt.
So we hope you like the design, and if you do - go on, buy one. Buy two even, after all Christmas is coming...!
Buy from EU ShopBuy from US shop
I just updated the
home page. It's something I've wanted to do for ages but haven't had the time. Well, I didn't have the time this evening either, but I did it anyway!
As a result it's 2.30am and I am dog tired. So, I hope I have done an ok job. I felt the old homepage wasn't conveying enough information about the site, and I think this is an improvement, but I'd like to hear any feedback... what do you think... too busy looking? More interesting? Too much info? Too little info?
If you have any suggestions, or there's something you'd like to see on the homepage, I'd love to hear about it.
Please help me! :)
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Well, it must be Bob Byrne season here on my blog at the moment. I know I keep mentioning Bob at the moment, but hey, that's coz he's worth mentioning :)
Bob just published his
Nicholas Gurewitch Interview, Gurewitch is responsible for
The Perry Bible Fellowship, which
Bif has enthused about before.
Well worth a look. See, that's what I like about Bob - he sees the Perry Bible Fellowship, and he likes it, so he interviews the guy... why didn't we think of that!!!
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Saxton Freymann Gallery
Bob Byrne just sent me this link to pictures of creatures made of fruit... brilliant! Bob finds the weirdest things...
Meeting Bob Byrne and Emmet O'Neill.
I just got back from Dublin, a flying visit, went up yesterday. When I arrived up I went for all day breakfast at the first cafe I found that looked like it might serve edible food:
Eliza Blues. The breakfast was fine, the service super friendly. What's funny about that is that I will probably go back there based on the service, rather than the food. And it means I'm posting this in my blog.
Service in Ireland tends to be crap. Awful. Like you've broken in to somebodies house and are now demanding they bring you food and coffee! So when you get good, friendly service, it tends to be a shock!
Anyway, I'm ranting.
Thing is I sat down and texted Bob Byrne. I told him where I was and he said he'd come in and grab a coffee with me. So I sent him a text telling him I had on a red t-shirt. Not because I thought we should try to
co-ordinate our wardrobe or anything, but because despite the fact that I worked with Bob to get his
Clamnuts website up and running, we had never met!
It was great to meet the mad genius in person and chat about comics and web stuff - isn't the internet great the way it can throw people together like that!
Bob originally found our site through Google, and he is publishing some of our cartoons in his
free comic, The Shiznit, then he read a post on my other blog about
findable websites - and seeing as he had found BifSniff by chance through Google, he knew I wasn't just full of hot air. And so he contacted me about giving his website a new lease of life.
Since then we've had loads of great chats about blogging and so on by email, but until now we had never met. We discussed some exciting ideas like working on a proposal for
Irish Flash together
Also, Bob has a great kids book in the works and we had a really interesting chat about that. I hope Bob gets it completed and published soon, because I think it will be really special. I was grilling him on it a bit because it's something myself and Bif have been meaning to do for a long time.
I think 2006 might actually be the year myself and Bif produce our kids book.
Another little plug for Eliza Blues, Bob ordered a coffee, and because two large parties had come in it took a while to be served - the waiter apologised and said it was on the house!
Anyway, after meeting Bob, I headed out to Bray to meet up with Emmet O'Neill and his family. Emmet, Bif and myself have known each other forever, and have worked together on various bits and pieces. We worked together on
Sex, Booze and a Sheep Named John: CrimeScene which was an
Irish Flash animation.
Emmet is currently working on another John the Sheep project, written by Bif, which is a far more ambitious project. Emmet has come up with some lovely techniques which have resulted in some really gorgeous looking animation. Anyway, as well as meeting up with Emmet and his lovely family (wife Rhoda and two boys Sam and Isaac) we were discussing the animation - it's a complex piece, on one hand a simple story and yet with some very involved concepts behind it.
Which was proven by the differences in my reading of the piece and Emmets. Both of us had placed the emphasis on different concepts within the piece. It all began to get very intellectual indeed, which is pretty funny for a piece with a talking Sheep in it.
I'm really delighted to be involved in the process, and I'm looking forward to the animated sequences I'll be working on.
So it really is exciting creative times at BifSniff.com. I've also been working on another project with Bif and
Scribble, an Irish band. Myself and Bif came up with a great idea for a short animation inspired by a song of Scribble's. It's a very simple piece, which utilises my patented La-Z-Mation techniques, but I'm very fond of it. Unfortunately I've been promising to finish it for several years at this stage and just never seemed to find the time!
However it is now 96% finished and we hope to launch it in the new year. So keep your eyes peeled for more on that!
Phew! Long post, but I think you're up to date now!
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Exciting news, BifSniff have been invited to do a guest appearance on
CowPunch.com!
CowPunch has a lovely style - no wait, that's really not a good word to describe CowPunch... 'Lovely'... anyway, CowPunch has a GREAT style. If you thought BifSniff was odd, wait till you see this guys work.
Brilliantly sick, and very original. I don't like to use comparisons much - I know for example Bif isn't a big fan of people comparing us to
The Far Side, but I'll just say that if you like
Red Meat you will probably like CowPunch.
Anyway, we will be appearing as guests on CowPunch, Bif sent me a great cartoon idea for it. I think it's great anyway. Gloriously silly, as a lot of our stuff is, but funny all the same.
The guest cartoon features Brian and Martin, (I know the real Brian and Martin will be all giddy reading this...) so I thought you might want to familiarise yourself with the characters before seeing the guest strip.
Here are all three Brian and Martin strips we have produced so far - click on the small cartoon to go to the big version if you prefer:
Many, many thanks to Porter of
CowPunch for the invitation - our first guest strip. Even I can't wait to see it... :P
Friday, November 25, 2005
Next Wednesday I am going to the Geek dinner in Proby's Bistro, Proby's Quay, Cork, Ireland.
It's a blogger thing mostly, I think, and
Robert Scoble is attending.
Hugh MacLeod is also going to be there, as well as a host of great Irish Bloggers - including
Tom R, who put the dinner together.
And then there's me, representing
BifSniff.com. Ha ha ha. That should throw a spanner in the works.
A
list of those attending, and a map for directions, is available on the Wiki that Hugh MacLeod put together, put your name down and come along if you're interested.
I asked
Bif to come along but he grunted something I won't repeat in case I offend any of the people who are attending. I wasn't offended myself, but that's because I'm used to his grumpiness.
I just hope Proby's Bistro isn't a wifi hotspot, because otherwise...
I really like the illustration for
this week's cartoon. I'll be honest now, I'm not sure I did the joke itself justice - I tried several other ways of depicting 'idle hands' but none of them worked. Nonetheless, despite the lack of deckchairs or magazine reading hands I originally thought might be involved, I like the look of it.
I also had a lot more detail in it at one point, but it was too much. Too distracting. However seeing as I went to the trouble of drawing an oddly friendly looking demon tormenting lost souls (who might be screaming in agony, but could also just be trying to get his attention) - I thought I would show you, so here's a detail:
heh heh heh... he reminds me of the cookie monster....
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Bif's last post was on Friday the the 18th. It's now Tuesday the 22nd and he's been in such a state he hasn't been able to post anything. Not even to tell you that the reason he hasn't been posting is because of
some football match or something.
Scott mCCloud pointed to this, the first installment of a new comic,
THE RECOVERY OF CHARLIE PICKLE - issue number one.
The reason I point to it too, is because people often argue about whether webcomics are using the web to their advantage, or are simply putting the same static pages from the printed page on to the internet.
This comic shows how the web is a perfect medium for certain styles. Very clever approach.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Myself and Bif
made a decision some time ago to aim for a good Google ranking on the niche term 'Funny Cartoons'.
This decision was fuelled by several factors.
- We aimed for Google, rather than 'search engines' as Google has the lions share of search traffic.
- We went for a niche term (more targeted, less searched keyword phrases) to improve our chances of a higher ranking.
- We chose Funny Cartoons as our niche term as our research showed it to be the optimal niche key phrase for our market.
Overall, it has been a fruitful decision. We are on page 1 for
a Google search of Funny Cartoons.
Our stats for last month show that 27% of the searches that brought visitors to BifSniff.com were searches for 'Funny Cartoons'. Plus a further 4.1% for 'Funny Cartoon' - which in terms of actual visitors is 1327. Not too shabby. Mind you, if you want to REALLy put things in context, check out the
stats for BoingBoing.
Over the last few months we have been bouncing around quite a bit. In last month or two we were seeing a steady climb up the Google rankings, but today I notice we seem to be slipping down a bit again. It's a tricky business, and a competitive world this findability lark!
Of course, we will get to no.1 for a Google search for 'Funny Cartoons' - because we're brilliant. But it might take some time yet.
Also, long term plan would be to get a good result for a Google search of 'Cartoons' but that's a REALLY competitive arena and one we're just not ready for yet.
I post all this in the hopes that it proves useful to other cartoonists or webcomic peoples who are getting into web publishing and may need to give some thought to findability and search terms - I wanted to share with you two things:
- It's entirely possible to get traffic to your site by optmising your site for niche terms
- It's hard work! Don't give up. Keep at it. We've been working with 'Funny Cartoons' for over 9 months - does this mean our baby is due?!
I hope to get a chance to write up some tips on how to optimise your site for niche key phrases soon... I'll keep you posted!
UPDATE
We just fell off page 1 for funny cartoons, but we now appear at result 104 for 'cartoons' which we previously didn't rate for
at all! So good news and bad news there I guess!
This was a pretty popular cartoon we did - a good few people have cited it as their favourite BifSniff Cartoon. We thought it would make an excellent Christmas card.
You can order them through CafePress, a packet of 6 costs only $13.99 plus postage.
If you have bought any Christmas cards yet this year, you'll know this is a bargain!
Christmas cards tend to be pretty dull, I know I am biased but I think this is one of the funnier ones I have seen.
Plus, I'd really appreciate it if you bought them and sent them to people because it would spread the word about BifSniff another little bit. That's why we've kept the price really low.
Order a packet of 6 BifSniff funny Christmas cards now!If you like them, please buy them!
Thanks!
Ok, a couple of people have asked me to explain
this weeks cartoon. I thought it was because it was so silly they just didn't get it, and replied "there's nothing to get - it's just silliness..."
However, my two sisters looked blankly at me when I said this and then stared blankly at the cartoon again for what seemed like ages.
So I said "People always talk about reverse psychology, but there's no such thing as a reverse PSYCHOLOGIST..."
At which they then both cracked up laughing.
So for those of you out there who asked me about it and I said there's nothing to get, well I may have underestimated the bizarreness of our sense of humour - I guess after working with Bif this long I'm tuned into his oddness!
Sunday, November 20, 2005
I haven't done
Illustration Friday for a while, but when I got the email this popped into my head pretty much straight away, so I thought I should do it.
What do you think?
Friday, November 18, 2005
Just watched the
Superman teaser trailer, it's very nice. Looking forward to that. There's some very nice little snippets - not too much given away - with what looks like the young Clark coming to terms with his powers (always fun) and then a voiceover of his da saying "For God so loved the world, that he sent His only begotten Son, that whosover believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
Oh, no hang on... that's from the bible, what he actually says is "They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son."
It's
in the original Superman film, and I always remember thinking it was very biblical.
It makes a nice quote for the teaser trailer, and the biblical echoes and associations give it a lot of weight (for someone with a Christian background at least) - but I can't help wondering if perhaps it was hoped to stoke up a bit of controversy? I would have thought certain elements of the American Christian right in particular might be a bit squeamish about drawing parallels between Jesus and Superman.
Maybe not.
Remember this cartoon:
Of course you do, it was brilliant! Well, anyway, Bif contacted me the other day and said it had
given him an idea for a t-shirt.
Soon as I heard the idea, I loved it. I thought it was brilliantly weird and wonderful and for some reason - very funny.
So I did up a design for it. I wanted to make it a plot printed t-shirt, but I made a complete mess of doing that because I hadn't a clue what I was doing :(
The design got rejected.
But never fear! I went with a digital design instead and it workes really well. And so (drum roll please) may I present to you:
DEATH AND PENGUINS ta-da:
Image too small to see the design? Here you go:
What do you think? Are we completely nuts or is that excellent? All I know is I am getting one.
Oh and the good news is the experience taught me a lot about plot print designs, and Bif came up with ANOTHER excellent idea - the boy's on a roll... so look out for more on that soon - hint: it's inspired by
F O'Bourke!
In the meantime check out our shop (
European and
US) for Death and Penguins stuff.
Personally I like the version pictured above, check it out:
Mens Slim Contrast Tee - EuropeRinger T (AA brand) - US
Ok, a quick plug for someone who contacted me about a dvd they are launching. Why am I giving them a plug? Actually I was just asking myself that... I guess mostly because I said I would, but why did I say I would? Well, they asked for a banner ad and I really don't know enough about the product to lash up a banner ad so I said I'd mention it in my blog for them.
But I have had no opportunity or reason to work it in, so I have ended up, in order to keep my word, plugging it here like this for them!
Anyway, it's a
dvd called Pet Alien and it's for kids. It seems it's a hit Cartoon Network series. Doesn't look like my cup of tea to be honest, but Kids like the weirdest things these days...
In the spirit of full disclosure and all that, I was offered entry to a draw for some prize or other if I put up a banner, but I'm not putting up a banner so I don't think I'm eligible anyway. Just so's you know. ;)
Another cartoon I'm happy with!
This weeks funny cartoon harks back to an earlier cartoon we did:
F O'Bourke - as featured recently in
Zoinks Webcomic Magazine!
They're like companion pieces. They work well together too, I think.
I like Abe Worthing's pointy shoes. Don't ask me why. I was drawing him and I thought to myself, 'this bloke would wear pointy shoes'.
Speaking of
F O'Bourke, Bif had another truly inspired idea for a t-shirt... but I'll tell you more about that later!
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Meh. Still waiting to hear from
Spreadshirt whether my design will work or not. I don't want to show it to you in case it's not accepted, coz then you might get all excited only to discover we can't put it on a t-shirt anyway.
We want to use plot printing, rather than digital, for this t-shirt. But
for plot printing you have to do a design that conforms to certain criteria, and I haven't done many of them before so I'm not certain of the process yet.
I really hope it gets accepted, because this is a t-shirt I will be ordering myself. If no-one else buys one I won't even mind because I will have a very cool and completely unique t-shirt.
Except of course Bif will probably buy one too, seeing as it was his idea. Then we'd have to co-ordinate to make sure we both didn't turn up in town wearing the same t-shirt. We'd have to take it in turns or something.
But then people might think we were sharing the one t-shirt.
This could get complicated.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
I did a few more buttons, which I hope you might put on your site and link to us... why would you link to us?
Well, as a favour to us really. There actually seems to be a few of you out there who like our odd cartoons, so now you have us believing there might be even
more people out there who would like them - so we're trying to do everything we can to let them know about us.
Except we don't have much money. We don't make any money out of the cartoons, we make em fer nuthin and give em out free here.
We even let you put them on your website or blog for free.
We hope to make money out of them someday, somehow. Probably through some kind of merchandising, but we haven't a clue to be honest. We figure you might have some thoughts on that too! If you do, let us know!
Our thinking is if we can reach as many people as possible and grow some kind of fan base we can ask you what you would buy from us later. Used car anyone? ;)
We are trying some banner advertising too, but as I said we don't have much cash, which limits our campaigns somewhat. That's why it would be excellent if we could get a leg up from all of you...
So that's why we beg for your support!
I have a few new buttons for you to grab if you're up for spreading the word...
The Eye Button
This one is based on our
fishing cartoon:
The Free Cartoons Button
If you use this one,
please link to our resource page (http://www.bifsniff.com/resources.php):
The Severed Head Button
This theme is quite popular. It's based on the Frank's Head cartoon, and it works well on banners etc... people seem to like clicking on severed heads. So if you want to be a bit more abstract you could use this one!
The Tiny One
And of course the one I did yesterday:
Thanks guys, any and all help much appreciated!
Ok... another task that Bif has been on at me to do that I kind of forgot about and then remembered out of the blue...
A little button for you to put on your website to show us how much you love us:
Look how cute it is! We would be really thrilled if you would place this on your site or blog somewhere. A lot of blogs have buttons of this size on them (80 pixels by 15 pixels), so we thought it might slot in nicely for a lot of people...
We're really trying to get the word out about our cartoons, so we'd really really appreciate the help!
Please download the button and put it on your site with a link to us.
Ok, I'm going to get up off my knees now. ;)
I'm going to do some more of these soon as I have the time - I'd like to do a slightly bigger one that had the word 'cartoons' on it somewhere. Watch this space!
Monday, November 14, 2005
Bif had an excellent idea for a t-shirt. As soon as he told me about it I laughed out loud. It's not a cartoon, just an image. And a VERY bizarre one at that. It makes no sense. It doesn't have hidden meaning (or at least that I know of!). It really shouldn't even have occurred to Bif as an idea. But it did. And it's brilliant.
Ok, I'm excited about it, but now I'm building the hype and when you see it you'll probably be all disappointed, so I should really start telling you how crap it is and then you can discover it's excellence for yourself!
Yeah, you won't like it. It's not good.
Friday, November 11, 2005
Just put up
this weeks funny cartoon. And I like it. It's one of those one's I wasn't sure would work - but I think Bif's weird humour, combined with an illustration I'm happy with, result in an odd cartoon which is funny - even if you're not quite sure why.
You may recognise Clive from a previous cartoon... we last had him
chatting with his inner child.
I was very happy with the way Clive turned out this week. I was a little bit worried about getting his drunkeness across to be honest. But I think it worked out nicely. He has a nice 'stagger' on him, if you know what I mean.
Here's a question for you though. Is he pointing his button out for you, or is he considering pressing it? :P
Friday, November 04, 2005
Clamnuts comics website has just been relaunched. I know because I relaunched it! I've been working on this with Bob Byrne, the amazing one man band that
is Clamnuts comics. It's been a really interesting project, we've actually never met so far (We both live in Ireland but I live in Cork and he lives in Dublin -
see a map of Ireland) - though we plan to meet up on Sunday for a coffee now that the site is live.
Bob is the guy who produces '
the Shiznit', which is how we first got in touch with each other, Bob asked us to submit cartoons for 'the Shiznit', and we are featured in
Issue two - which you can download a pdf of. So anyway, Bob's old site didn't have much on it, nor did it really reflect his 'vision' for Clamnuts... I think the new site definitely reflects the nature of the beast far far better.
One of the reasons Bob asked me to help out was an
article I wrote on findability. That and the fact that he noticed that BifSniff is very findable! I hope I have helped create as findable a site for Bob.
One thing I did to help
Clamnuts become more findable was start Bob blogging. Wooooaaah... I've created a monster. You have to
check out Bob's blog. It's insane.
I should probably warn you that Bob's blog, and Clamnuts in general, is not for the faint of heart!
Anyway, here's to Bob, I have a lot of respect for him. He produces a lot of great work, and he is the first to publish us locally in Ireland.
Thanks Bob, it's been good working with you, here's to working together more!
