Funny Cartoons

Important Notice! Please Read.

2006-12-05T18:23:00.000Z

Lots of changes going on here at BifSniff.com.

This blog is being phased out, as is Bif musings. We're moving to WordPress and with that move will be other changes over the next weeks and months. All good changes I assure you.

So... if you read this blog regularly either on the web you may want to change your bookmarks to the homepage where all content will be from now on.

If you read this blog through RSS, you'll need to update your RSS readers...
I recommend grabbing the new feed for BifSniff which will contain all the posts - cartoons, my posts, Bif's posts - the whole lot!
Available here: The big BifSniff feed.

If for some reason you only want my posts, you can still do that... the link is:
Frank's Feed.

And of course you can grab Bif's on it's own too: Bif's Feed.

Or just grab the cartoons: Cartoon Feed.

I hope you like the new site!

Words Fail Me...

2006-12-02T03:20:00.000Z

Wow. I... who EVER thought this was a good idea for a toy... surely.. surely...
Never mind.

Stumbled upon this from some site or other, it's up on Flickr.. if anyone can track down the origins, please leave a comment!

Tim Biskup

2006-11-30T13:55:00.000Z

Ages ago I bought a couple of odd things in Tower Records in Dublin - odd little creatures that came in a little plastic egg called 'The Stack Pack'.

I particularly liked the little red guy - up on top there in the image - and he sits on top of my computer monitor. When I opened up the egg to take him out there was a little insert with a drawing of him inside, which I liked almost more than the toy itself.

Today when I was checking up on what was going on at the Clamnuts blog I followed a few links which led me to the site of the creator of these guys, Tim Biskup.

Worth checking out, he's got some lovely work - check out this poster, this painting or this toy.

Studio 60 - entertaining.

2006-11-28T16:14:00.000Z

Watched a few episodes of 'Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip', Aaron Sorkin's new series.

Sorkin is the man who previously brought us the West Wing, but don't expect the West Wing here - it's not as smart as the West Wing.

But it's really good fun.

Yeah, it's entertaining, even if at times a but schmaltzy - but hey, the West Wing suffered from that too.

Several familiar faces in there, quite a few from the West Wing.

Mathew Perry is great (I didn't once think of Chandler), and Bradley Whitford's performance is just as great as in the West Wing - but his character is a bit Josh-like, just not quite as well written.

Check out this intro - and if it reminds you a little of Network News, rest assured they at least acknowledged that by referencing it themselves!

Memory Lane.

2006-11-24T16:03:00.000Z

YouTube is great, but it makes for lazy blogging! Never mind, this is too good not to post...
Thanks to Damien Mulley for kicking this off!

Damien got me thinking about the shows I used to watch when I was young and can barely remember them... The one that got me thinking was his Manimal clip, reproduced here:

This immediately reminded me, for some reason of Alias Smith and Jones:

And then Sapphire and Steel popped into my head:

Which reminded me of the Greatest American Hero:

How could I forget Remington Steele:

But there were other shows I used to watch that I can't remember - just snippets in my head. One had a psychadelic intro of two guys falling through time and space or something...

Oh, and one of my favourites, though it used to scare me to death... The Incredible Hulk. I still ove it and have several of the TV movies and episodes on DVD!

update: Conor O'Neill left a comment on Damien's blog linking to this:

Which I would have said was the one I was thinking of above but there's no psychadelia... hmmm, I think it was two older guys anyway, I'm not sure it was a kid - but I think it was the same kind of premise. Anyone any ideas?

update: Worzel Gummidge used to scare the hell out of me.

update: Conor O'Neill to the rescue - in the comments here he suggested the show I was thinking of with the two guys falling through space and time was 'The Time Tunnel'. I think he's spot on. I couldn't find any clips exactly as I remembered, but this is close, the two guys are right and I remember the titles - also the 60s type psychadelic stuff I vaguely remember is in the background on the Wikipedia page Conor sent me to:

My MTV continues... 'the great intoxication' - David Byrne

2006-11-17T18:59:00.000Z

Still my MTV: "If Jesus Drove A Motor Home" Jim White

2006-11-17T18:56:00.000Z

(Frank's own MTV) It's good to be in love: Frou Frou

2006-11-17T18:47:00.000Z

Frank's own MTV

2006-11-17T18:43:00.000Z

Waiting for the man...

2006-11-17T18:29:00.000Z

Lou looks pretty out of it. Seems a bit out of synch too, but I still love it.

Don't ask me, I don't know.

2006-11-17T18:13:00.000Z

I dare you to watch all of it.

Babel

2006-11-14T18:22:00.000Z

I want to see Babel, the new film by Alejandro González Iñárritu who directed Amores Perros and 21 Grams.

It features, among others Brad Pitt, Gael García Bernal and Clifton Collins Jr.

"Tragedy strikes a married couple on vacation in the Moroccan desert, touching off an interlocking story involving six different families."

The user comments on IMDB seem very positive, which would indicate to me that it is as good as it seems from the trailer.
here's an extract from one user comment I found encouraging:

If you – like me, and so many others – found 'Crash' (2005) offensively finger-wagging and dumb (its inherent message was: "Racism is bad."), Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel will make it up to you with refreshing intelligence, respect for cultures and crisp acting. The plot outline is difficult to do justice in one sentence but much like Crash it explores culture clashes in life by navigating multiple interweaving story lines.

Check out the trailer.

But there's no sign of it in the cinemas according to Entertainment.ie and I can't see any Irish release date on the IFTN website...

Meh. Anyone know anything about an Irish release date?

But Elvis is the King...

2006-11-13T15:47:00.000Z

Nick Cave is a genius.

2006-11-10T14:49:00.000Z

The other day I had a song stuck in my head, I knew it was Nick Cave but couldn't remember what song it was as it was only fragments of the verses that were knocking around the inside of my head. I knew it was something a bit older and this prompted me to listen to some stuff I hadn't listened to in ages as I tended to listen to the more recent material of late.

I quickly located the song - it was Mercy. Great song. YouTube has a live version of Mercy which you can check out.

Anyway, in listening to his older stuff I discovered that on the album 'From Her to Eternity' there is a cover of 'In the Ghetto'. WTF? How did I not notice that ever before since I have the album for years and years and years??? Maybe I knew at some point and then forgot. I do that sometimes. Anyway, here it is, courtesy of YouTube:

YouTube has loads of Nick Cave material, all of it worth looking at, including a live version of 'Into My Arms' and the video for 'As I Sat Sadly By Her Side', the lyrics of which (on my bad days) I completely understand.

More Jimmy Scott

2006-11-09T18:56:00.000Z

Just found a brand new clip on YouTube of Jimmy Scott. Only one up there. Wish there was more...

I saw Jimmy Scott play recently - he was amazing. This clip does not do him justice, and it ends rather abruptly, but if you haven't heard him before maybe it will encourage you to seek out more of his stuff. I bought the cd advertised on the left and can vouch for it's excellence. Buy it using the link on the left and I get .00003 cents or something.

I'm on holidays.

2006-11-09T13:39:00.000Z

I came across these cartoons, xkcd.com, somewhere recently - maybe Bif put me on to them, I can't remember. While there are a few cartoons doing the rounds which share a similar style at the moment, it doesn't take from the fact that these are still really funny.

Today TCAL reminded me of their existance and I went browsing a few of the cartoons.

First of all this one made me laugh, and made me decide to adopt the phrase...

This one, along the same kind of lines in a way also made me laugh:

This one I like a lot because it shows I'm not the only one who considers these things, which I really thought I was:

I also just realised that reading xkcd.com cartoons is greatly enhanced when you realise that hovering over the images reveals further insights into the toons via the alt tag text. Also Firefox cuts off long alt text at a certain character length or something so I had to switch to IE for full viewing pleasure. Annoying.

I have not replicated the alt tag greatness in this post when I was hotlinking the images. I assume because xkcd.com gives the url of the image under each cartoon that he encourages hotlinking and will not shame me online for doing so. Hope hope.

Go to xkcd.com for the full viewing pleasure experience. Start with this great one if you like, which also has a great alt tag!

Village Magazine publishes BifSniff Cartoon!

2006-10-30T23:26:00.000Z

I am very proud to announce that Village Magazine published a BifSniff cartoon in their current issue (Thursday, October 26, 2006).

They published one of our recent cartoons and it looks really well. It's just inside the back cover so it's easy to find if you pick up a copy.

Do pick up a copy, because I read that the magazine is in some financial trouble, and personally I think it's a great magazine. It seems to be a magazine that divides people into three categories though:
a) Those that buy it and like it.
b) Those that love to rant about how awful and lefty it is.
c) Those that don't know it exists.

Category c seems the most prevalent in my experience, which seems a shame. I can't back up my opinion with hard fact or anything, but one example I seem to remember about Village Magazine is that it spoke realistically about the War in Iraq and wasn't afraid to make points that the other media in Ireland seemed only willing to publish when opinion had turned in America and it was safe to start asking pertinent questions.

I used to buy it a lot when it was launched, but that was back when I had decided to know what was going on around me. I have since decided that was a mistake. Ignorance is bliss.

Little Jimmy Scott - Everyman Palace, Cork

2006-10-30T13:12:00.000Z

This weekend was the Guinness Jazz Festival weekend in Cork, and I went to see Jimmy Scott play in the Everyman Palace last night.

I'm not a big Jazz music fan. It's an area of music I just never got into. I'm sure there's loads of jazz I would like, but I never really know where to start - and here's the real problem: a lot of jazz is instrumental.

I need a voice in music to keep me interested. And if any voice is going to keep you interested, Jimmy Scott's will.

I found a great article on Jimmy Scott that's worth reading if you don't know who he is.

The support were a group called Five Play, and they were great. The thing with jazz is I sit there knowing that the musicans are really talented and playing really well, but I'm bored. Until the vocalist starts up. The vocalist in Five Play (who are all women) is a Portugese singer Maria Anadon, and she has an incredible voice.

I am very grateful that she was such an amazing singer because, through no fault of the band, I would have fallen asleep otherwise. Apart from finding instrumental jazz boring, the heat on the balcony of the Everyman Palace is crazy. Something seriously needs to be done - air conditioning or at least some kind of fan system is badly needed. I love the balcony in the Everyman because it's a great vantage point and the sound is great up there, but having been to several plays and gigs on the balcony the heat is a real problem.

Anyway, on to Jimmy Scott. Scott's band came on first and expertly bored me with what was probably an excellent instrumental number. Then Jimmy Scott was helped on stage. Scott is 81, and seemed to have some difficulty walking - walking somewhat awkwardly with a wide limp but at the same time with an oddly sprightly gait.

When Scott began to sing his voice also is an odd contradiction - incredibly fragile and yet definite and strong.

A hormonal disorder, Kallmann's syndrome, is responsible for Scott's unique high pitched voice, often described as haunting, but it is not just the quality of Scott's voice that makes him unique - his timing and phrasing of songs and his obvious love for what he is doing also make his music irresistible.

The aforementioned article puts it like this: 'No one sings slower or farther behind the beat than Jimmy Scott; his long, melismatic flights freeze conventional time'

Jimmy Scott himself seems frozen in time, speaking unapologetically in the jazz-speak of a fifties hipster adds to the slightly surreal quality that lends itself to the cool of Jimmy Scott.

A lot of the jazz classics have fairly obvious (and well known) rhymes, and singing as slowly as Scott does and with such elongated pauses (often before the last word in a line) you might think that the song would become predictable and tedious. Not so - Scott's style means that you know what's coming and you are savouring the moment he sings a word or line before he ever gets to it, in the same way you might look forward to a planned holiday for weeks beforehand.

I was not overly familiar with Jimmy Scott before going to the gig, only knowing him from the Twin Peaks 'Fire Walk With Me' soundtrack (where he sang Sycamore Trees') and Lou Reed's 'Magic and Loss' album.

I was not disappointed - Jimmy Scott is a legend. You know it as soon as you see him - he emanates legendness.

Scott sang a handful of songs, classics such as 'Pennies from Heaven', 'Embraceable You', and his original hit from the fifties 'Everybody's Somebody's Fool' - all given the unique Jimmy Scott treatment. He then took a break and let his band bore me with some more instrumental before coming back to do another handful of incredible songs.

It was a short enough gig, one got the feeling that the legend was not up to singing for longer. Scott left the stage to massive applause and cheering which did not let up even when the house lights came up.

Scott's piano player came out and explained that while they were hugely grateful for this reception, they had to look out for 'the master' and there wouldn't be an encore, but on behalf of Jimmy Scott he thanked us.

There was an immediate standing ovation, which was incredible really considering there was to be no encore, but Jimmy Scott had completely captivated the audience and there was huge love for him in the applause. On hearing the response Jimmy Scott looked out from backstage and came on stage one last time to wave and bow.

If you get the opportunity to see Jimmy Scott live, grab it.

Anti War Meeting, Cork

2006-10-30T14:15:00.000Z

Just got a note about this, don't kno wmuch about it but looks interesting:

Anti War Ireland (Cork Branch).

QUALITY HOTEL SHANDON

TUESDAY 31ST OCTOBER 8 PM

Speakers will include 2 ex C.I.A. men who will speak on the USA and ISRAEL.

2 ex US soldiers who were interrogators at ABU GHRAIB prison .
These men are now conciencious objectors and active in the Peace Movement.

More Funny Pictures...

2006-10-18T03:11:00.000+01:00

For newcomers to BifSniff.com, I do most of the website maintenance around here. Which lately hasn't been much, to the chagrin of Bif. Recently I wondered if we should consider targeting 'Funny Pictures' as an SEO term - in other words when people search on Google for 'Funny Pictures' that they would find us.

I wrote about that on the 2nd of October - it is now the 20th and already, with just one post titled 'Funny Pictures' it is number 6 in our search terms charts!

Here's how it breaks down in our stats at the moment:

1. free cartoons
2. funny cartoons
3. funny cartoon
4. cartoons
5. funny
6. funny pictures

So you can see all the work we put into 'Free, Funny Cartoons' paid off, but then straight after that Funny Pictures is our next most popluar search term. Now, that's only 50 odd searches or so, but it's interesting nonetheless, especially considering that if you search Google for Funny Pictures we hold position 324! If we had a higher position we could grab a shed load of traffic I reckon.

Anyway, this post has two purposes, an update for those of you who are interested in these kinds of things, but also to say to those of you who came here looking for Funny Pictures that we provide a weekly cartoon... click here to see the cartoons.

In the meantime, here's the freshest toon, hot off the press as it were, I just got through drawing it.

Hope you enjoy. If you found us by searching for 'funny pictures', leave a comment!

Late cartoon....

2006-10-13T01:24:00.000+01:00

Yeah, I'm afraid the cartoon is late again.. not certain of the ETA on it at the moment - I just have too much on at the minute, my head is going to explode.

So please, bear with me...!

Thanks!

Irish Political Top Chumps in the paper!

2006-10-09T02:38:00.000+01:00

Cian, of Irishelection.com just emailed me to let me know that we (BifSniff and Irishelection) are in the paper!

They even quoted Bif's bit of blurb for the Taoiseach's card, he should be chuffed about that!

Read 'Blogging the election: Who comes up trumps?' on the Examiner website!

I tried to kill him...

2006-10-09T01:54:00.000+01:00

Aimlessly browsing YouTube.com when I came across this. Does anyone else find it disturbing at about 4 and a half minutes in when you're watching the ex-president of the United States ranting about Osama Bin Laden 'I tried to kill him, I contracted people to kill him...' etc etc...

Wouldn't 'I tried to bring him to justice...' or 'I tried to bring him to a fair trial...' be nice to hear?

I dunnoe. Scary place this world.

Irish Political Top Trumps...

2006-10-08T01:48:00.000+01:00

Yes, this weeks cartoon was late. Sorry. But I have a good excuse.
Bif had an excellent idea which we ran past Cian at IrishElection.com and between us all we've come up with Irish Political Top Trumps!

Anyway, the cartoon was late because I'm up the walls busy and IrishElection.com were having their election conference and we really wanted to launch the idea there.

So Cian and Bif put their heads together and came up with the text for the first six cards and I drew them up just in time to have them ready for the conference! But I had to abandon the BifSniff toon till now.

But we did get the Trumps done up and the idea was launched at the conference and the first six were made available as a pdf download.

We intend to do these cards in lieu of cartoons for a while until we get a full deck together at which point we will have a few decks printed and hopefully they'll be available in time for Christmas!

The Bertie one is up now at IrishElection.com, but wait till you see Willie O'Dea, he's my favourite I think at the moment. Although Enda Kenny is good too. Fuck it, they're all good. Go and download them!

Came so far for beauty...

2006-10-05T11:41:00.000+01:00

Just got back from a whirlwind run up to Dublin's Point Theatre to go to the Leonard Cohen Tribute 'Came So Far For Beauty'. Left Cork yesterday afternoon just in time to get to the theatre - well nearly (Dublin. Traffic. I hate it.) we may have missed a couple of songs at the start, which was annoying at first but when we realised we were at a four hour concert we figured we could afford to skip a couple, even Nick Cave songs.

Great night. Some truly incredible moments - moments of incredible muical beauty, moments which were honestly moving. And then also some stuff which one friend of mine described as craptacular, which was more than generous to it.

In a four hour concert packed with musicians and singers, I won't remember everything that was good but here are the highlights for me:

Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons) was superb. He made Leonard Cohen songs which generally have one note in them soar and swoop and flow and rise and fall and god knows what else. Beautiful.

Gavin Friday came on and whispered his way through 'Who By Fire' which I thought was going to be brilliant but it just never really took off - his next song was helped by having Antony on backing vocals and at some point Gavin came on with someone called Mary Margaret O'Hara and did 'Hallelujah'.

Wow. Gavin did a good job with Hallelujah, but it was Mary Margaret O'Hara's incredibley unique take on it that really made the song something special. It's near impossible to describe. Gavin began the song in his own throaty and dramatic style, and at first I thought some of the strange high pitched vocal stabs she was taking at the song were mistakes, until she suddenly took off, changing the rhythms and patterns, breaking in on Gavin's vocals in unexepected places, at times singing beautifully softly and at other times furiously screaming.

I think a lot of the audience weren't impressed, some didn't know what the hell to make of it but I thought it was genius.

Nick Cave did several impressive songs including his fabulous version of Suzanne with Perla Batalla & Julie Christensen (Leonard Cohen's backing singers) which is available on the I'm Your Man soundtrack.

Jarvis Cocker also really impressed, pretty much any time he came on stage, but particularly on his duet with Beth Orton, 'Death of a Ladies Man' which they both made an amazing job of.

It was a night for duets really, another highlight of the show, possibly THE highlight for me was the duet between Lou Reed and (I think) Julie Christensen. They sang Joan of Arc, a song I never really liked but they made sense of it. I'm a big Lou Reed fan, but I had to admit that earlier in the night his renditions of Cohen's stuff were good but not particualrly earth shattering. But this was. I hope there is a recording of this out there, I would love to have it.

They were the big moments for me, Laurie Anderson did some mad stuff (what else wouls she do), some people I never heard of did some woeful stuff, oh wait! I forgot - The Handsome Family did some great stuff, particularly their version of 'A Thousand Kisses Deep'.

At one point in the night, just as we were taking the interval a man stood in front of our seats. His face was oddly familiar. I couldn't place him but I had an instant dislike for him. I asked Jeremy if he knew him and he said it was Noel Dempsey. Right. That's why I know his face then.

Also, after the intermission I was able to navigate back to my seat by Glen Hansard who was sitting directly above us on the balcony. Handy.

Looking forward to seeing him play with the Frames on Friday night in the Everyman in Cork!

Thanks to Jeremy and Gemma for the excellent birthday present of tickets to Came So Far For Beauty, and for the lift up and down!!!