Monday, January 31, 2005

Fuzzy Knights

The things people will do to promote their webcomic. It's a three and half minute long mockumentary and it's 5.5mb in size.

Friday, January 28, 2005

Madness just utter madness

Ok, I'm back sooner than I expected but sometimes you stumble across something that is just top shelf stuff. Just came across this story through Comixpedia and I nearly cracked up. Christ only knows what they'd say if they saw some of things that I used draw, and write about, when I was that age. It's like the guy from the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund said, what young boy doesn't harbour violent fantasies? It's why we played cops and robbers and watched the A-Team. It's why video games exist. At the end there's a quote from the school system spokesman, who says he "would rather deal with the situation today and have all three of these children alive and than to deal with it after the fact and possibly having some of those kids not be alive." By having two of them arrested? Taking his job into account, I'm going to assume that he's aware of the term over-reaction. Then again, maybe if he'd been in charge when George Bush was a kid we'd be looking at a whole different world right now.

Minor hiccup

We had a minor hiccup and some downtime on the site, largely due to my incompetence, but everything's ok again.

This weeks cartoon is kind of dedicated to my buddy Andrew O'Sullivan, in the sense that it uses his and his girlfriends names. It's also his birthday soon and I'm too tight to buy him a proper present.

I'll probably be back later with a proper post.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

PVP Syndication

I was reading not so long ago, and anyone who follows webcomics probably did too, about Scott Kurtz and his efforts to have his strip syndicated by offering free for a trial period (I think). It was a really interesting idea and it seems to be paying off to some degree, despite rumours that one of the papers had dropped him.

What I think is really funny about this, is his efforts to produce a family friendly version for mainstream papers. Where he complains...

You would not believe what has to be edited out. I can't even say "God." If Brent says "God, that's awful." it must be changed to "Man, that's awful."

So I guess, all things considered, my dreams of global syndication are pretty much shot to shit.

By the way, I've read alot of PVP and I'd hardly call it risque. That's not a criticism, because it is quite cute, but it's hardly Red Meat. Maybe Mr. Kurtz should take a look at syndicating outside of the US.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Digital Strips and the demise of Garfield

As a further addition to the list in my last post, I found a link to Digital Strips on Comixpedia today. It's another webcomics review blog etc etc. But what's interesting about it is they're doing a review show/podcast thing. I haven't listened to it yet but I might someday. Or I might just get Frank to.
There was also a link to an interesting article comparing the rise of online comics to the demise of Garfield or print cartoons as a whole. Not that the article itself is actually interesting, it isn't, but the fact that people are really catching on to the whole potential of webcomics is. The funny thing is we can get a write up like this and have people post completely unsolicited praise to forums we've never visited, yet we can't even get a local magazine to give us the time of day.
More news on Comixpedia about some lass' comic Girls With Slingshots, which I've never heard of, having signed a licensing deal with 360ep, a marketing and licensing management company. I don't know the lass involved or the comic or what the deal involves but it sounds like a good thing, I think.

Friday, January 21, 2005

Big Changes, eh?!

So we've made some major changes at BifSniff Cartoons. Obviously, most of you will realise that this is mostly to do with impressing the old, big, boss-man Google and therefore getting us some more traffic. So, that said, you should understand that I am doing this under protest. I have no interest in communicating my deepest inner thoughts with you. I have no desire to offer you my insight or opinion on any topic whatsoever. I just don't care for it. Just so you know. Now we understand each other, I'll continue.

BifSniff Cartoons started when Frank found some old cartoons we'd done about six or seven years ago (I think), in some box somewhere. We thought they were cute and decided to upload them to bifsniff.com, a website I'd had for ages but hadn't done anything with. After a while, we started to really get into it and now we're putting an awful lot of work into it. That's when I started having a look around for online comic directories and communities - so I could whore our fine product to the world. And that's when I found this amazing, flourishing, and sometimes scary, community. There are millions of folks out there doing these online comics. Some are great and some are awful and some are weird. But alot of these people are very dedicated to what they do, sometimes updating every day. I can't even imagine what sort of sparks would go off, or what blood vessels would blow, if I even hinted to Frank that I thought we should update every day. And we only do a single panel cartoon. (By the way Frank, I don't think we should update every day, so you can stop hyperventilating and get back to whatever you're doing.) This impressed me and scared me, in almost equal measure. I'm not going to go into details because now I'm bored but what I will do is give you a few links, so you can go look around and be impressed and/or scared for yourselves.

Online Comics Directory
Websnark - interesting online comic commentary. Probably thinks about these things a little too much but, you know, what harm?
Buzz Comix listings. Vote for us, you know you want to.
Comixpedia - Comics news, both on and off line
The Web Comic List - does exactly what it says on the tin
Evil Network Comics Blog because they said such nice things about us.

That's all I can think of for now. So I'm going to go. Hope you like the cartoons and I hope you pass them on. Also you're all - except for Brian Barry because he's just a nuisance - invited to leave any feedback you want regarding the cartoons, the shop etc etc. I probably won't take any notice but Frank might.

New Musings Area added to site!

This area is brand new, and will offer you new insights into the bizarre brain of the Bif.

While the area looks a little bare right now, soon it will be filled with insightful commentary on subjects that will astound and confound you.