Tuesday, February 28, 2006
This Sunday's Times did a run down of what it called
the coolest strips online. Without wishing to be over critical, the list, compiled by tech journalist Danny O'Brien, was hardly a well rounded representation of web comics at large. The first on the list was
Broken Saints, an award winning flash comic which, while deserving of praise, ended three years ago. The others on the list were
Diesel Sweeties,
Exploding Dog,
Scary Go Round and
Sluggy Freelance.
Modern Tales was thrown in as the obligatory 'look they might even be able to make money' example and
Comics.com was the representative for the old guard. No mention of the phenomonal success of
Penny Arcade, the great community support at
Comixpedia,
Achewood's highly innovative merchandising,
Keenspot,
Webcomicsnation or, well, the list could go on. Nothing wrong with the article as such, all those mentioned were worthy of it, but it's still a little disappointing that they couldn't really be bothered to scratch beneath the surface.
At last, there's an
alternative to the internet.
Brokeback Lego.
A convicted
Puppet Rapist has to readjust to life on the outside surrounded by puppets. Good old fashioned family entertainment courtesy of
Puppet Vision.
Screenhead has
two short clips of Bill Hicks summing up how I feel about witless hecklers, whether virtual or in the flesh.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Well
Frank mentioned it and
Emmet seemed to reiterate it -
today's funny cartoon might be a little obscure. Actually, Emmet suggested a whole new interpretation that was much simpler but that's neither here nor there. Funnily enough, I have no idea when I came up with this one. I just flicked through my little notebook and there it was - drunkenly scrawled across the page. One of my all time favourites, and somewhat obscure,
funny cartoon was born out of similar conditions. Just as a coincidence,
Eric Burns was snarking about another
single-panel comic that he believes makes you work that bit harder for the joke.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
So, how now and a what now? Well, as you've asked,
PVP has been picked up by
Uclick's GoComics. That means that alongside all your Garfield and Doonesbury goodies, you'll be able get PVP cartoons, wallpapers and animations for your mobile(cell) phone. Also joining the GoComics line-up is
GØDLAND and
Too Much Coffee Man. It's a great step forward for Kurtz and, indeed, for webcomics in general; as Kurtz is not one who's likely to forget how he started. Anyway, I don't know the man but I am delighted for him and I hope it's all onwards and upwards from now on.
Pirate copies of Brokeback Mountain in Turkey have been dubbed Faggot Cowboys - wonderfully progressive.
Want to know where little green Jedis go to unwind - why to the
land of the forty shades, of course. Watch the
slideshow here - better than anything the tourism board has ever come up with.
The fighting styles of Jakob Nielsen - all round usability tough-guy.
Statler & Waldorf online - fecking brilliant.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Right, right, I'm sure Frank has chatted before about companies responding to blog comments and the likes - it certainly doesn't sound like something I'd talk about. However, I have to mention it now. On
Monday I made a quite brief mention of a service called
Blogburst, which turned out to be just about as ill-informed as you'd expect from a lazy, good for nothing, ne'er-do-well as me. Well, no, actually you'd probably expect it to be a little more ill-informed but you get the idea. Anyway, I received an email from Adam Weinroth, the Director of Product Management at
Pluck, to clarify a few points. Firstly, he stated that once out of beta they fully intend to implement a blogger compensation model but for the moment they're just trying to get to grips with the dynamics of the whole system. He also pointed out that the only reason they didn't want ads within the rss feeds yet was to minimise the chances of layout breakage and the likes - which, to be fair, is what I figured in the first place. So, while I liked Blogburst originally anyway, I like it a whole lot more now and I'm quite impressed, borderline gobsmacked actually, that someone took the time to respond to my
wee mention. If you want to keep up with what's happening with
Blogburst they, quite naturally, have a
blog and they'll have several events going on at
SXSW Interactive in Austin Texas if anyone reading happens to live in that area. Unfortunately that's on the other side of the world from us.
The actors who starred in
The Road to Guantánamo were
stopped and questioned by police at Luton airport under anti-terrorism legislation while returning from the
Berlin Film Festival. Speaks for itself. Spotted at
BoingBoing, which has
tonnes of goodies today.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
I meant to mention it before but I forgot.
Ricky Gervais' podcast on Guardian Unlimited, that is. It's a free download with
Ricky, his
The Office co-creator Steve Merchant and their former XFM radio producer Karl Pilkinton. Apparently it's had 2.5 million downloads and has made a
cult-
figure of
Pilkinton. I don't have am iPod, so I've never really paid any attention to podcasting but I'm curious now. I wonder how effective a way it is to add value to a content-based site. I know
Tom does
one that works well for him in boosting his profile as a web marketing consultant thingy, and it's got obvious value for
hobbyists, but, being the money grubbing bastard that I am, I wonder is there a way to build a revenue model around a purely entertainment podcast - in the same way people have built revenue models around webcomics and blogs.
Monday, February 20, 2006
Even if you hate George Bush, you can at least be grateful that he's inspired
Kurt Vonnegut to come out of semi-retirement. If you've never read Vonnegut, go check out
Breakfast Of Champions - the book.
Not the film. Christ no, not the film.
Slaughterhouse Five ain't bad either.
Exactly One Billion Online Mazes - contains one billion mazes in high-quality printable PDF format.
Many, many
fun things to do with Liquid Nitrogen.
Scientist claims that
dogs have an inherent understanding of calculus. I don't, so I have no idea what he's talking about.
The top editors of the China Youth Daily were meeting in a conference room last August when their cell phones started buzzing quietly with text messages. One after another, they discreetly read the notes. Then they traded nervous glances. Google, Yahoo, take note.
Blogburst will take your RSS feeds, as long as you publish full feeds that contain no advertising, and will get them placed on top-tier websites. You won't get paid for it, though they will, but that might not be the point. Certainly, as a way of getting your content in front of more readers and subsequently driving more traffic your way, it sounds good. Plus, from looking at the site, they haven't entirely ruled out the possibility of featuring ads in the feeds at some stage. I like the look of it even if it's of absolutely no use to us.
Tom had a
sneak preview of
Edgeio, which seems to be setting itself up as an alternative to Ebay. I'm too lazy to explain what exactly it is and instead of stealing Tom's work, I'll just let you read it on his site. Oh and apparently he's
selling an antique Italian Cabinet.
Don't worry George...I'm going to shoot you all after anyway.
Friday, February 17, 2006
I wasn't sure how he'd handle it but I think Frank's done a fairly good job of our
first foray into soft-porn.
The
Great Outdoor Fight is on. I don't
why but I'm
especially enjoying the
current Achewood storyline.
A guy takes photos of his kids, puts them on the internet with a funny caption and calls it a
webcomic. It could quite possibly be
immoral but, you know,
funny immoral. I just hope he realises how much his children will hate him once they hit their teens.
An
interesting read on how
Tunecore, a music delivery and distribution service that gets music you created (even cover versions) up for sale on iTunes and Rhapsody without asking for your rights or taking any money from the sale or use of your music, is challenging the music industry's oligopoly of Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner. Sort of along the same lines is an article, I found through
Comixpedia, about
how musicians should start following the lead of web comics. Anyway,
Tunecore is only in beta and it's hard to tell if it itself will survive but really, any gobsheen at all should be able to spot the sea-change. How long before we see the
Penny Arcade of independent music?
A
Calvin and Hobbes searchable database - does exactly what it says on the tin.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Right, right, right, the first
Beaver & Steve book is available. 100 full colour pages, 8 pages of original material and excerpts from James Turner's sketchbook. All for just £8 sterling. It looks good and Beaver and Steve is a great little comic but, you know, buy it/don't buy it - why should I care, I'm not James Turner.
My old lade takes the time, on every one of her 10 childrens' birthdays, to remind us of the exceptional pain she was going through that day all those years ago - so I guess
she might empathise with the mother in this Cowpunch.
Change the headline and
this probably wouldn't look out of place in
The Onion.
As it turns out
Garfield would be a hell of a lot funnier if weren't for the bastard cat's snarky remarks.
KidneyThief aims to feature the work of upcoming UK artists and designers, then turn the best they have to offer into t-shirts and other merchandise which will then be sold to retailers - earning money for the impoverished artist. It's a great idea and, obviously, a near perfect utilisation of the web. Or it would be, if it weren't for that fucking God-awful unusable interface.
And just because I feel there isn't nearly enough nudity on
BifSniff Funny Cartoons - a list of
stupid nude calendars. And note that's got both male and female nudity - see how the egalitarian in me shines through. Though quite what's stupid about the
Australian women's football(soccer) team calendar, I don't know.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Bad Sweater Guy is worth a mention here because I used to have a number of similar/worse jumpers (sweaters) in my day. The only difference is I used (and in a couple of cases still do) to wear mine without even so much as a shard of ironic disdain. I actually developed a love of patterned jumpers and cardigans through my late gran-uncle Dennis, who used to show up at our house in a wonderful array of garish knitwear.
As pointed out over at
Drawn, some
Israeli cartoonists have come up with a brilliant response to the Iranian paper Hamshahri's holocaust cartoon competition - they've launched their own
Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoons contest.
“We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” said Amitai Sandy (29), graphic artist and publisher of
Dimona Comix Publishing. “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”
The respose to the venture seems to be a bit mixed but, apparently, there have been enough entries to justify putting the deadline back. Now, we could have done with that sort of reasoned response to the whole thing long time back.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
To many people today is Valentine's day, a day of flowers, romance, whispering sweet nothings and all that other shite. To me, today is the 10th anniversary of the death of the greatest football manager that ever lived -
Bob Paisley. Football fans will always be divided on who the greatest manager ever was, of course. Man. United fans will cite
Sir Matt Busby or
Fergie, Leeds will claim
Don Revie and Forest fans will call for
Brian Clough to be lifted to the throne (and all that is before we even look beyond the English league). For Liverpool fans it's either the legendary
Bill Shankley or
Bob Paisley. For my mind it's Paisley. His record was phenomenal by any standards and he is largely credited with revolutionising the way football was played. For a man who had to be persuaded to go into management,
the amount he achieved was astonishing. Sadly, some time after his retirement he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Though it wasn't well known at the time, shortly before being diagnosed he was almost offered the Republic of Ireland job. Obviously it wouldn't have worked out but, without knowing what was ahead, it's amazing it didn't happen. After his death, he was honoured by the club with the opening of the Paisley Gates at one of the entrances to Anfield.
"
There was only one Bob Paisley and he was the greatest of them all. He went through the card in football. He played for Liverpool, he treated the players, he coached them, he managed them and then he became a director. He could tell if someone was injured and what the problem was just by watching them walk a few paces. He was never boastful but had great football knowledge. I owe Bob more than I owe anybody else in the game. There will never be another like him."
Kenny DalglishFriend and journalist
Stuart Hall pays tribute and, no, none of this has anything to do with
funny cartoons but there you go.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Yeah, yeah, nearly Valentine's day. Why not
send our
wonderfully touching and romantic cartoon to your special sweetheart.
Our good man
Ignatius M. Dedd is now contributing to
Bring It On! I don't know what, if anything, that means but his
first offering is a pretty nifty.
Kick.ie is like an Irish version of
Digg but with the potential for contributors to earn revenue from running Adsense ads. Found that at
Irishlinks, which I stumbled across on
planet.irishblogs.info.
Still waiting on Frank to get into full on pimp mode but in the sickly one's absense, I'll mention the old
Irish blog awards again.
Voting ends on Friday and apparently there are alot of categories are still very close.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Due to Frank's
generally sickly disposition, we've had to get in a guest artist. Up stepped
Bob 'Clamnuts' Byrne and the
finished article speaks for itself. I'm thinking that if, or realistically speaking when, we finally have to admit defeat and have poor Frank put down - Bob will be able to step up and take his place. I know this might upset their respective families but, really, once they get over their silly emotional attachments, they'll realise this really is the best thing for me. Anyway check out
Bob's site, he's got some genuinely top of the range stuff over there and
his blog is, well, curious. You could even write a letter to the Arts Council complaining about
their ignorance in refusing to support him in his endeavours.
Naturally, we're running a little behind on the latest funny cartoon but rest assured, it is coming. We've a great
guest artist and it's going to be well worth the wait.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Frank is getting out of hospital today but we've still lined up a guest artist to do tomorrows funny cartoon. It should be really good.
If you thought those cartoons were an affront to Muslim sensibilities, you wait for
the blow-up doll.
A police e-fit in Norfolk, England has prompted
a search for a burglar from outer space. My first thought was 'Christ, it's
Willie O'Dea'.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez
tells Tony Blair to go right to hell. I'd vote for him just for that.
Strangeco - purveyors of the peculiar. I just love them. From
The Booted Glamour Cat to
Bastardino to the
Aniballoon Bone Bear and, of course,
The Ramones Toxic Teddies.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Right, right,
voting is now open for the Irish Blog Awards. We're nominated in the Arts and Culture category, which we probably don't deserve to win. I'm sure when Frank is up and on his feet again, he'll handle all the pimpage. Me, I don't really care. Mind you, there seems to be plenty of great reading in amongst all the nominees, so at least there's that.
We didn't win in the
Best of Blog awards but
Dead Guy did and that's a good thing.
One of the best uses of interactivity I have come across in a long time.
I wish I had the time to go through
Bearskinrug properly but I don't. If you do, you should. If you don't, well at least run your beady ones over
this.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Ok, yes still no cartoon. Sorry but that eejit Frank is after getting himself hospitalised. He's now lying around, making doe-eyes at all the nurses, without so much as second thought for his duties to the website. Shocking. And yes I'm serious. Frank's in hospital. Apparently he's ok now, just waiting on some test results, but he might have to stay in for a couple more nights.
Friday, February 03, 2006
According to the Copenhagen Post, Jyllands-Posten printed the now
infamous cartoons '...after reports that artists were refusing to illustrate works about Islam, out of fear of fundamendalist retribution. The newspaper said it printed the cartoons as a test of whether Muslim fundamentalists had begun affecting the freedom of expression in Denmark.' Well, I guess they got their answer. Job done. Thank you very much.
No cartoon today. Frank is sick. Very, very sick. Or so he says. We've no buffer of cartoons made up either because we're a pair of procratinating arseholes. Sorry but it can't be helped or, well yes, it could. But there you go. We'll try sort something out soon.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Recently, Mike Belkin started a kind
Comic Strip Idol search for an artist for his syndicated strip
Unfit. With a little help from Scott Adams, of
Dilbert fame, he got over 80 artists responding - amongst them
Krishna from
PCWeenies. You can have a look
at all the entries and then give your thoughts at the
Dilbert blog.
Bob Byrne of
Clamnuts and
Shiznit, em, fame has a great post up on
Make Comics Forever detailing
everything he's learned in the last five years.
I have a certain affinity with
todays Alien Loves Predator - I'm constantly getting caught by those bastarding contraptions.
For that someone special in your life this Valentine's day -
Law & Order SVU Valentines cards.
