Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Redesigning Children With Luke Chueh

Frank redesigned the home page last night. He didn't tell me he was going to do it but there you go. Let us know what you think of the new look.

If I ever have children I'm going to decorate their walls with the works of Luke Chueh.

And since there's no following that.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

UEFA Acknowledgement For The Laughing Dead World Cup

Well, even though we get feck all recognition from our own football association and have an under-21 international manager who actively encourages young players to leave our club, at least UEFA have taken the time to acknowledge us and our ambitions.

Here's a great ad for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2003. Odd that two years later is the first I've seen of it.

Do you see that laughing gimp, in the red t-shirt, on the left - that's actually Frank in the flesh. Now you know.

And finally, to try to stay on the subject of funny cartoons, have a look at Dead Guy. Updates every Monday and it's well worth a read.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Funny That

So Frank got up to all sorts of exciting and creative things this weekend. I got drunk. Frank has loads of interesting news, even letting slip that we're thinking about doing a childrens book next year. I have a hangover, so I'm finding it very difficult to even think. Funny that.

Friday, November 25, 2005

George Best - Rest In Peace

Anyone who follows football, or any sport I'd imagine, will surely be saddened by the passing of the legendary George Best. Most famous for his time with Manchester United under the management of Matt Busby, the Northern Ireland international also plyed his trade with the San Jose Earthquakes, Fulhan, Dunstable, Hibs, Stockport County, Toronto Indoor Soccer School, Jewish Guild F.C. and, of course, our own Cork Celtic. Aged 59, Best died of multiple organ failure after developing a lung infection last week. Some may be quick to dwell on his infamous drinking problem, which led to a liver transplant in 2002, but surely we'd be better to remember the genius. Up there with the likes of Pele, Cruyff and Maradona, as one of a glorious elite of fantastically gifted players. His ball skills were described as mesmerising and he has been credited with bringing the word dribbling back into the vocabulary of British sports writers. Best scored 180 goals in 474 appearances for United, winning two league championships and a European Cup. The consensus today, regardless of what team you support, is that football has lost one of it's greats and it's a truly tragic waste. And, just this once even, let's hope the press leave his family and friends to mourn the loss of someone special in peace.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Blomkamp's Distinct Boondock Business Models

Ok, yesterdays link for the short film didn't last long but now you can see it here. It's quite cute and well worth a look but even more impressive, by the same director, is Tetra Vaal Robot. On first sight I was kind of dissappointed because I assumed it was a guy in a suit. However, on further watching, I soon realised it wasn't. Neill Blomkamp is surely going to be someone we'll be hearing alot more about.

Comixpedia linked to an interview, over at The Onion A.V. Club, with Aaron McGruber where he talks about the animated version of his comic strip The Boondocks. Haven't seen the show yet but I'm pretty impressed at how he kept so much creative control.

Over at Comicon, Joey Manley's talking about webcomic business models. It's nothing startlingly original but he does have some interesting insights. I will say one thing though, I don't understand why he's so astonished that people are making a living out of webcomics. Right from my first encounters with the web, I assumed it was only a matter of time before it became a hive of independant content developers making a living outside the confines of mainstream media. You see traditionally people trying to self-publish indie comics, or anything else for that matter, always hit the same wall, finding a sufficent audience within reach of their limited distribution arm. It was a difficult and prohibitive obstacle but it's not there anymore. Whether your comic is a pretty standard cutesy strip, something a little more off-beat or geeky based; it will find an audience of some sort - assuming of course that it's any good. Now that doesn't mean you'll definetly make money, at least maybe not enough to live on, but it's only obvious that some people will. Yes, there was some initial craziness that back-fired badly and finding the workable business models took time but it's really getting there now. It means you have to be more than a content creator but there you go - learn to live with it and the benefits could be quite phenomonal.

It's also now about time for other artists (said through gritted teeth) to see what's happened here and start adapting it to their ends. The potential that webcomics (and blogs) have shown could, with some imaginative thinking, be applied to musicians/bands in a way that I don't think I've seen done yet. Of course, they'll have to break with the whole single/album mentality that has become so ingrained. Once they do that and they start realising the possible benefits of file-sharing, well maybe they'll start noticing how obselete the record companies, whose attention they so crave, are beginning to look. For film-makers/animators it's a little trickier, due to the prohibitively high production costs, but, in time, I'm guessing there'll be a way of working it. At least, I hope so.

Oh, oh and if you're still reading, check out our new t-shirts and stuff - that's not a request by the way, I get the distinct impression you people think I'm asking you to do these things but I'm not; I'm ordering you, now do it. We have a European shop and one for the rest of the world.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

How Transforming Copyright Abuse Effects In Joburg

Yes, yes, yes, Cork City won the league and I've been a little slow off the mark since then. So what? It's not like I'm not prone to the odd hiatus anyway.

Now this is kind of interesting, a guy called Jeff Wamester (I think that's his full name) has started up a blog, SoulCanon, chronicling his attempts to turn his webcomic into a business. The webcomic itself doesn't seem to up yet but he's got alot of posts about different strategies and ideas. I'll probably have a better look through when I get a chance.

This is pretty cute - a news reading site presented in the form of Daily Dinosaur Comics.

The Chilling Effects Project tracks internet copyright law abuses and aims to inform people of their rights so they won't fall prey to the same sort of abuse. It's another one I definetly want to take a closer look at.

Finally, the man behind the utterly fantastic Citreon Transformer ad, Neil Blomkamp, has released a short called Alive In Joburg about aliens arriving in South Africa. It's a pretty large file, so I haven't had a chance to watch it yet but it's supposed to be fantastic.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Death Loves Penguins So He Does So He Does

There are only two things occupying my thoughts today and, no, Roy Keane leaving Man. Utd isn't one of them (even if he was born just up the road from where I grew up). Nor, funnily enough, is today's funny cartoon - even though it is pretty good (Frank talks about it though). No, the only things, besides women of course, floating around the arid desert of my mind are Cork City's impending title-decider and these fantastic new t-shirts we got up.



Because Death Loves Penguins, yes, I'm telling you he does. Again, Frank explains how they came about here and you can buy them here if you're in Europe or here if you're in the States or Canada or Australia etc etc. Even if your too tight, or you live somewhere so cold that stunningly beautiful t-shirts are pointless, spread the word for us, please.

That other thing, I'm not talking about it out fear of jinxing it.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Stop Flirting With The Music Advertising Inside My Head

Right now, I can hear the faintest sound of music playing somewhere around me but I can't find it anywhere. There's nothing here that should be playing music but, somehow, something is. I am not making this up folks, it's really happening and it's really getting on my nerves.

Anyway, I stumbled across this very interesting site yesterday. It's a video hosting site called Revver, where they place an ad at the end of your clip so that you can earn revenue from people viewing it. It's a good idea and one that interests me alot. However, I have a couple of reservations here. One is that alot of the stuff on there is just commercials or other clips that people have picked up around the place. Not sure if everyone who submits could really, honestly, stake a claim on copyright for the material in question. I might be wrong but if I'm not, that could become problematic. I'd be far more interested if the focus fell on original content and we weren't just looking at another dumpalink or kontraband. Not that there's anything wrong with them, they are what they are - I'd just like to see something different take form. My other reservation is that you only make money if someone clicks on the ad after your video. Is there no value in the seeing of the ad anymore? Has brand awareness suddenly lost value. I'm not necessarily criticising Revver on this one, I think it's become a trend in internet advertising as a whole. But the thing is, while pay per click works on text based ads and the such, it seems wholly inadequate to let someone show, what amounts to the equivalent of a print ad, and not expect them to pay for it. They throw up their brand, graphic, slogan etc and you only get paid for a click-through. That's not right. And, possibly, even more so on video content because I know I rarely click on links in video clips.

The music is playing opera now and it seems to be moving around the room.

Right! Stop the internet! Stop it now, you've gone too far. It's one thing fictional webcomic characters having blogs but this is going too far. Danielle Corsetto sets up a MySpace page for her Girls With Slingshots characters and people are flirting with them. It's wrong and it's got to stop now. It's making me feel very uncomfortable now.

Our Minister for Defence seems to prefer a hands on approach. The music seems to have stopped now for some reason.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Horatio's Electronic Broken Radio Rules

Ok, I watched CSI: Miami last night and I seriously need to know; is Horatio Caine meant to be gay? I mean, I understand we're probably talking a closet case here but, should we be expecting him to come out at some stage soon.

Here's a worthwhile venture I found through BoingBoing, the Electric Frontier Foundation (sounds alot like a seventies Electro band) have launched a Bloggers Rights fundraising campaign.

'Here at EFF, we're fighting hard for bloggers' rights. We've created the Legal Guide for Bloggers, we're litigating the reporter's privilege for online journalists and we are working hard to defend bloggers' rights to free expression, political speech, and anonymity, just to name a few. But we need your help to spread the word, grow our membership and keep fighting. So we're launching a special membership campaign specifically for bloggers. We've created a button for you to put in a permanent space on your blog that declares your support for bloggers' rights, and for the work EFF does to support them. The button links to our Bloggers' rights campaign.'

If Frank reads this, you might even see one up here. On the subject of Frank, he doesn't think I break as many of his rules as I think I do - if you follow me. Well, we'll have to see about that.

I very nearly got excited about this - Neil Gaiman in Ireland and doing an interview for RTE (Ireland's National Broadcaster) radio. But then I remembered I don't care. I'm pretty sure, at some stage in my life, I liked something that Gaiman did but I couldn't, for the life of me, tell you what it was.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Hellboy's Pepper Gorilla Diary

It's no big secret that one of my, possibly my only genuine, ambitions is to develop an animated series based around the characters in this short we did (who will also appear in the short that's about to go into production). So I was very interested, when fumbling around on Drawn, to discover the production diary for the Hellboy animated project. There's only three posts, albeit interesting ones, at the moment but I'm thinking I might be following this one quite closely.

I just noticed Frank has some interesting advice for newbie bloggers over on his 9mmfilm blog. I didn't really read it because, well, I have to listen to his drivel all the time anyway. However, at a cursory glance, I think I break every rule of blogging he has up there.

The Times (of London) has an interesting piece on The Gorillaz recent 'live' perfromance. Apparently, they use an old Victorian parlour trick called Pepper's Ghost - updated of course.

'To make Pepper’s Ghost appear, someone offstage would be highlighted so that the light waves bounced off a piece of glass, strategically placed at an angle. The reflected image would appear to be onstage. It is the same principle used in fighter aircraft, where a ghostly image of graphic flight and radar data float before the pilot.'

You can watch the performance here. Thanks to Drawn again. In fact, I don't know why you don't just read Drawn, it's much more interesting than here. Just don't tell Frank I said that, of course.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Literally Hotlinking The Wrong Side OF My Self Destruction

So Frank likes today's funny cartoon, even though he wasn't sure it'd work. It was something we debated because I loved the idea from the get go but Frank just didn't get it. It happens that way sometimes. It probably means that no one will get it and I should have listened to Frank in the first place. But I didn't and I'm happy I didn't because I love it. I love it for a few reasons actually. One, I think Frank's done a really good job on it. Two, I like Clive as a character (I'm very seriously considering doing something more with him). Three, it's got a big red self-destruct button with a 'Do Not Press' warning and who doesn't like them. And finally, four, it has the word 'literally' in it. Which gives me the chance to bitch about one of my pet gripes. 'Literally' is one of the most misused terms doing the rounds at the moment. Nobody seems to know what it means. I've watched numerous News reporters, people who you'd assume have some level of higher education related to the English language, use the term to describe things that are anything but literally. Just one example that springs to mind was a reporter doing a piece about the launch of the last Harry Potter book. At the end of the piece the lass closed off by saying that the books were 'literally flying off the shelves'. Now had they been 'lterally flying off the shelves', I would have expected that to be a much bigger news item. Flying books, that's got to be big. Books thrusting themselves through the air under their own volition. That would be big. But they weren't. The books were 'literally' being picked up off the shelves by customers. That's what literally means. To take something by it's literal meaning, without exaggeration and not open for interpretation. I won't get into an extended English lesson but the word is pretty self-explanatory and there is, literally, no good reason to get it wrong.

We, despite giving away two cartoon feeds, still get a few hotlinkers. However, normally and for the time being, we don't particularly mind because it's mostly people who like our stuff and we don't want to be hostile to that. However, I noticed in our stats today that we're being hotlinked by someone who is a)slagging us off b)calling us English c)suggesting that we desperately want to be like Americans and d)(though this isn't really my problem)suggesting that English people in general yearn to be like Americans. Now, I'm not about to slag off Americans because I just wouldn't generalise based on one ignorant arsehole but I will say this, I'm Irish and I'm very happy about it; I do not have any desire to be American or be like an American. Which brings me to the second point, I'm not English. No offence to English people but I'm not one. There's a big difference. Do Americans like being called Canadian or the other way around? I doubt it. Though I will clarify here, because I'm Irish and this could be misconstrued, I have nothing against the English. I have plenty of very good friends from England. I have family in England (as I do in the US) and it's by no means out of hatred that I reiterate my Irishness. I'm not going to the first point because the guy has every right to slag us off if he doesn't like us. He's not the first and he won't be the last, that's fine, I'm not that thin-skinned and his contention wasn't particularly original anyway. Still, he should have linked back. At least that would show he has some courage to back up his conviction. Anyway, it just annoyed me and I thought I'd mention it. It's also quite possible that I'm only getting riled because the example he's showing is, possibly, the only one of our funny cartoons that I really just don't like. And no I'm not going to link to him, he didn't to us.

I think I must have gotten out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Tom's 80,000 Defamatory Spaghetti Monsters

So I found a pretty interesting post over at our buddy Tom's site. In it he details an IM conversation he had with another Irish blogger. Basically, they this blogger had to remove posts from his site under threat of legal action. In reality, all the blogger was doing, was reporting what he was reading elsewhere in the press about a company, who had been sued for mistreatment of their employees. Yet, he had to pull the articles because he hasn't the resources to defend himself. Which, as Tom points out, begs the question, how many bloggers are out there happily posting everyday unaware of the potential threat of legal action? Which is all just my really long-winded way of drawing attention to Digital Rights Ireland, a group (quite possibly of superheroes) dedicated to defending Civil, Human and Legal rights in a digital age, who have produced a pamphlet with advice for bloggers and web hosts on libel and defamation.

This is fantastic, Bobby Henderson, the creator of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, has been given an $80,000 advance to write a Pastafarian Bible. “My hope is that readers won’t know if I’m trying to make a point about pseudoscience or if I’m a complete nut,” says Henderson. “I’ll be really disappointed if it doesn’t spawn a cult.” So will I.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Universally Syndicated Bespectacled Throw Rugs

Had one of those impromptu drinkng sessions last night. Went in town to get a few bob for the week from the drink-link and then stopped in the pub for a quick one. Hey presto, some pints and a few whiskies later, I'm standing outside another pub listening to a very charming, bespectacled lass, with what looked like a throw rug wrapped around her, explaining how the latest trend in Japan is to have an arse printed on your pants so that they look see-through. I made a brief attempt at verifying this today but, really, I couldn't face what I might be confronted with. God only knows why I'm telling you this.

Daku, over at Digital Strips, has picked up on another interesting article about the demise of newspapers. Nothing new there really except that newspapers are now pushing to have their websites included in their circulation numbers. Now that's got to have some interesting connotations for bloggers and web cartoonists alike. Also, in relation to that, Comixpedia has a link to an article about Universal Syndicate doing a deal with TokyoPop to bring Manga to US newspapers. It strikes me as odd that it's taken them so long to cop on to the appeal of manga.

Could someone please tell me this is some sort of joke. Even if you're lying, just say it, I need the reassurance.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Insanely Avid Gamble And Hobbes

First off, and most importantly, Cork City are still on for the league and cup double, thanks to a 2-0 away win over Shamrock Rovers. Roy O'Donovan and Joey Gamble provided the goals to sink nine man Rovers.

Found this through the Flight Comics blog, which I stumbled across at GingerPixel. It's 12 interstitials featuring Insanely Twisted Shadow Puppets. They were created by animator Michel Gagné and done entirely in Flash.

It's been bobbing around for a while but I just haven't had a chance to listen to it. It, of course, is avid Calvin and Hobbes fan Len's interview with Bill Watterson's mum. seems just a little insane if you ask me.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Zoinks! Ratbikes!

I don't think I mention this often enough, so I'm just taking the opportunity to remind you of Zoinks, the webcomic newspaper. Details of the December issue are up now and there are some very interesting contributors in there. They've also dropped the price, if you need an extra incentive and Bill is going to do an extra Voices In My Hand for every 50 issues ordered. Now what more could you want from the man?

Look - motorbikes! Actually they're Ratbikes, supposedly the ultimate distilled evolution of motorcycling. I wouldn't be big on bikes, or motorised vehicles of any sort actually, but I know a few bikers who'd get a kick out of some of these contraptions. Of course, they'll probably have seen all of these ones because that was in Cork.

Friday, November 04, 2005

Funny Blue Clamnut Twins Called Hernandez

Well, as always, the new funny cartoon is up and Frank seems to be pretty fond of this one. I was a little hesitant about this one, wondering whether it was just me who'd get it. But Frank liked it, so we ran with it and I think it looks good.

Anyway, over on Frank's blog he's talking about the launch of the new Clamnuts website - not for the faint hearted or easily offended or even the not that easily offended but, you know, I have my limits. Clamnuts, run by one man army Bob Byrne, is the home of Shiznit, probably the best little comic in the world and almost certainly the most insane. We're in issue two, which you can download here.

While we're in Bob Byrne territory, here's something I think he'd appreciate. Found this comic yesterday and, finding myself completely puggled by it, I had to follow up. So here they are, the white supremacist answer to the Olsen sisters, it's Prussian Blue. Two multi-talented, all singing, blonde haired, blue-eyed, white power supporting, twelve year old darling twins. "We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white. We don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race." Awwww, isn't that adorable.

Finally, a Los Bros Hernandez exhibition in L.A. I'll never see it but if you're in the area, you've got to have a look.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

The Unbalanced Indignance Of Modern Lemons

I have seen some strange scare-mongering in my time but this - Attack Of The Blogs(registration required but you could always use Bugmenot) - article in Forbes is right up there. It's a long invective on the curse of 'the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective'. Allied with the likes of Google, Yahoo and Micosoft (who have also been the victims of these vicious assaults), these Attack Blogs are only going to get more 'toxic'. There is also some useful advice for anyone who wants to defend their brand. Or you could try the much more useful advice available here. It's actually quite strange because it has some valid, even obvious, points but it's very hard to take it serious when it's so utterly and indignantly unbalanced. For an interesting, and fair, take on the article pop over to Doc Searls because I'm just too lazy to be that fair.

It would seem that Eric Burns of Websnark has got a little of his own medicine from Modern Humo(u)r Authority. Todd Lemons has taken him up on his recent leanings towards 'crazy incest' by highlighting how much time Eric has spent talking about his own work recently. He could have a point. Personally, I'll hardly ever stop at Websnark anymore. Eric, however, has taken it all very gracefully.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Nando's Funny Cartoons And City For The Double

Well, well, it looks like we're moving on up in the world. We've been sitting pretty in Google's top ten for funny cartoons for a while now. Which is nice. We've also started our first advertising campaign, through Blank Label Comics, and will be hoping to reap the rewards there over the next couple of days.

DJ Coffman, of Yirmumah, has a link up on his Making Money blog for an article reporting the decline of the newspaper market and the shift in advertising dollars to online media.

Liverpool finally seem to be getting their act together. Five goals in two games is not bad for a team who have struggling in that area and, finaly, Nando showed his class. Let's hope it keeps up. Meanwhile, Cork City are still on for a league and cup double with a 2-1 win over Bohemians. The run in is going to be a hard slog though with three away games left before a last day (possibly) decider against main challengers Derry City. All the same though, it's good times. Also ex-city favourite Kevin Doyle is doing well in the English Championship, which makes a bit of a mockery of those who do down the Eircom League.