Items of Interest (Interest May Vary)

It's lazy blog-post time, as I present a selection of links and 'things' that may be of interest to you (and you) with the minimum of writing in between, and without the need for any jokes or anything approaching creativity. HOORAY!
First up, here's a YouTube video based around my good chum Stu Munro's excellent webcomic, Ray the Otter.

Ray the Otter is a foul-mouthed, misogynistic, racist otter who appears in his own comic, dispensing all manner of offensive quips, much to the bewilderment of his little friend, Mr. Peepers.

Ray has been released from the confines of the comic panel, and thrust into a semi-animated toon by Daveula creator Tom Butler. The result is excellent, disgusting and excellent once more.

Here it is now:

My other good chum, Mike Whaite (he of The Carrotty Kid pilot episode fame) has gone quiet recently, but then returned yesterday in a blaze of glory, with this excellent animation featuring a potty-mouthed hippo singing John Denver's classic track, Annie's Song. It's ruddy ace.



In Lord Likely news, I recently received my first-ever piece of Likely merchandise - a selection of mini-cards bearing his lordship's handsome face, made by those fine folk at moo.com. They are really lovely.

Here they are in fabulous blur-o-vision:


And look! You can even use them as bookmarks! HOORAY!


I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with them. I might send them to loyal Likely fans, or sneak into bookshops and slip them between the covers of every Dan Brown book on the shelves. Decisions, decisions!

Finally, my spoof showbiz website gaup has spluttered back into life, with five - yes, FIVE - new articles awaiting your perusal. Meanwhile, The Carrotty Kid has ground to a temporary halt again. Man, it's hard work juggling all these sites, you know.

That's it for this highly fascinating round-up of stuff and things. See you next time!

- Fanton.

You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'

Wow. You guys. You guys.

Since yesterday's rather pathetic plea for cash donations to help renew my hosting for my www.thecarrottykid.co.uk domain, you gorgeous, lovely people have taken pity on my terrible plight, and left me richer to the tune of some forty pounds.

Big, sticky thank yous go out to Summer, Shawn, Stephen, Richard and Diane. You are all one hundred percent spectacular. Thank you!

I am genuinely touched and humbled by your generosity. It's the spirit of kindness and humanity on display that has really made me a richer man today.

Well, that and the forty pounds, obviously.

All this loveliness has made me want to dance with joy. In fact, let us all dance together. Let us dance naked, like this lot in this excellent video for a song called Toejam, done by the Brighton Port Authority (aka Norman 'Fatboy Slim' Cook, Talking Heads' frontman David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal). This video made me smile, the song is lovely and it features the most inventive use of censor bars I have ever seen.

I bestow it to you as a big, sloppy thank you to all of you who donated to Carrot Aid.

Enjoy. And thank you again!

- Fanton.

Money For Nothing

Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man's world.

- Abba, 1976.

Ah, how wise those Swedish songsters were!

Money must be funny in a rich man's world, because it sure as heck isn't funny in this particular poor man's world.

Yup, I'm utterly skint this month, due to a hilarious (read: depressing) chain of events involving the Student Loans Company, my bank and a shed-load of charges. Bastards.

As such, I have precisely fifteen pounds to see me through the rest of the month, which means I could well be dead by the time you read this, if my new diet of super-cheap pasta and baked beans conspires to kill me.

To rub further salt into my penniless wounds, I received notification that my renewal payment for www.thecarrottykid.co.uk (my excellent webcomic) was declined, due to the aforementioned lack of funds, which is doubly annoying because I spent the past two days working on that damned site, only to learn it could disappear just like that.

I have tried to reason with my webhost, but they tell me its an automated process, and after an unspecified period of time, accounts that are in arrears will be deleted.

Sigh.

As well as wiping the Carrotty Kid from the internet, this'll also have a knock-on effect on all the sites in the Likely Empire, as Lord Likely's site and this very blog both use The Carrotty Kid's webspace to host various images and bits and pieces.

IT COULD MEAN THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.

I don't like to beg, but as the forces of evil rise against me, I figure I might as well throw down my hat and ask for a few pennies from benevolent passers-by.

So, I give you: Carrot Aid.

If you have ever found yourself chuckling at my crazy cartoon carrot, or if you have simply enjoyed the bright colours and swirly lines, then perhaps you would like to donate a little bit to the Carrot Aid Carrot Fund. Or, if you are an avid follower of His Lordship, maybe you too could see your way to throwing a few coins in my virtual hat? Pretty please?

Obviously, I'm not going to force anyone to part with their precious cash, nor will I hate you if you don't give anything, but in these desperate times, desperate measures are called for, so I thought I'd give it a try anyway.

You can give to Carrot Aid via the ChipIn widget below, or via PayPal directly. Or, alternatively, you could buy one of my fabulous t-shirts on redbubble.com, and thus get something back for your donation!

Just two pounds could save me from having to eat Pot Noodles ever again.

Fifteen pounds could save a young carrot's life.

Thirty pounds could help keep a sozzled aristocrat in whisky and gin for an entire day.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to stump up a few coins to allow me to continue churning out my high-quality comedy products. I promise to pay you back in sheer wealth of chuckles!

Maybe.

Cheers!

- Fanton.

I Wish I was a Doodlebug

It's Doodle Time!

The lovely Claire is once again throwing open a doodle-based challenge to all those who read her frankly fabulous blog, A Little Piece of Me.

The challenge? To doodle, dammit!

I missed the last Doodle Week, (due to me being slightly crap at getting around to stuff) but this time I'm ready. I even have my finest crayons at hand.

The theme of today's Doodle Challenge is the Doodlebug, and so here is my take on this particular theme:

Man, I wish I was a Doodlebug. Those extra limbs would come in handy for completing the many projects and ideas I have floating about, but for which I never seem to have enough time.

Curse you, Doodlebug! Why must you mock me this way?

Talking of doodles and projects that have been neglected (God, I'm great at linking things together) today also heralds the return of my semi-successful webcomic The Carrotty Kid. It's been six long months since I last did any carrot-based cartoonery, and I have missed the little orange bugger a bit. Look, here he is now, doing some kung-fu or something:


Bless him. Why not visit the homegrown hero at his website, so I don't wind up having wasted an entire day? Please?

Right, I'm off. I think I've got artists' cramp. Then again, it might just be wankers' cramp. It's hard to tell, really. I've done a lot of drawing today, but I've also done more than my fair share of tossing, as well. Ah, well!

Next time I take on Brent's challenge, thrown down from the almighty Comma! Will I succeed, or fail terribly? And why is everyone out to challenge me, anyway?

Find out at some point this week!

Tara for now!

- Fanton.

The Shirt Off My Back

Hey, consumers!

Do you like t-shirts? Do you like wearing t-shirts? Do you like wearing t-shirts with vaguely amusing pictures upon them?

You do? WELL YOU'RE IN LUCK!

In association with the fine folk at redbubble.com, I have designed not one but TWO wonderful t-shirts for you to look at and then buy and thus keep me alive for another month.

First up, this jolly little number featuring a certain Mr. Grim Reaper:


Oh, Mr. Reaper! You'll be the death of me! Buy this shirt, HERE!

Secondly, it's the return of everyone's favourite homegrown hero, The Carrotty Kid, who has gone from failed TV pilot, to failed webcomic and is now a lovely t-shirt, ready to adorn your chest or breasts. KA-POW!


Buy that tasty little number, HERE.

Who knows? If enough people buy a shirt, maybe I can stop eating the stuff I find on the floor.

redbubble is quite a funky Australian-based site, of which the marketplace is only a small part. There is an excellent social side to the site, allowing you to meet some sickeningly gifted artists, chat to them, and then you can gaze in awe at their fabulous works. It's a bit like a gallery, except there's no creepy guards following you about making sure you don't touch the Pointilists.

I thank the sexily talented cleandemon for drawing my attention to this wonderful world of wonder.

Bye-bye!

(Buy buy).

- Fanton.

I'm Bringing Carrots Back

While I take a break from the ball-crushing schedule of updating The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely, I have begun work on a couple of new and newish projects.

The first is TOP SECRET and cannot be revealed yet, lest I jinx the whole enterprise and ruin it for ever. Not that I'm superstitious or anything. (Anyone have any four-leaf clovers or rabbit's feet on them?)

The other is the return of my other, more family-friendly creation, The Carrotty Kid.


I stopped updating The Carrotty Kid's site earlier this year, largely because I began to think that maybe I was actually no good at this cartooning lark, despite having doodled and scribbled for most of my life.

However, I still draw the odd picture for Lord Likely's site, which I've enjoyed doing, and thanks to my recent assignment of drawing comic strips for the vue cinemas newsletter, I've suddenly felt a resurgence of confidence in my (admittedly limited) abilities. Especially when I submitted the last vue comic, which I was particularly proud of, and which I've reproduced here for you to look at with your eyes:

Haha! Oh, Batman!

As well as rediscovering my artistic mojo (as it were), I've been reading a fair few webcomics which have all inspired me to pick up my pens again. Stuff like the ever-excellent Dinoballs, Jamie Smart's new venture Whubble and the legendary Beaver and Steve have all given me the cartooning itch, which I am now determined to scratch. Scratch hard until it BLEEDS.

Thus inspired and full of fire, I've decided that I am going to relaunch The Carrotty Kid's website next month. I love the little vegetable vigilante, as he was a creation I came up with as a kid and has been my most successful idea yet, earning me some paid work from the UK's finest animation studio, Cosgrove Hall Films, which in turn led to CK becoming the star of his own three-minute pilot episode which would have led to a full series, if only Children's ITV hadn't imploded in on itself. The swines.

The new-look Carrotty Kid will be a bit different from before. I'm going to re-jig the character's design slightly, and I'm going to change the site's format a bit to prevent me (and the readers) from getting bored. Hopefully the end result will be one-hundred percent excellent, and nought percent rubbish.

Of course, with me going back to cartooning, my other ventures may have to suffer slightly. Lord Likely will be dropping to a twice-weekly update schedule (from his current three posts a week), and my spoof showbiz site gaup may well be killed off altogether, unless anyone reading wants to pick up the baton and run with it.

So there you go. Get ready for the return of everyone's favourite kung-fu carrot, coming to a monitor screen near you in June 2008. Go and visit the website now to see a bit of teaser art, and an exciting countdown clock, counting down the days until CK's rebirth.

It's so exciting, you might just PEE.

In other news, please welcome back Mike Whaite to the internet. Mike was the guy responsible for pretty much all the animation in The Carrotty Kid's pilot episode (which you should go and watch and remark on how excellent it is, by the way) and a guy with whom I seemed to click instantly. He's ridiculously talented and excellent, so check out his wondrous portfolio here and fab little website Popmash. He good.

And finally, keep checking Lord Likely's site, to read some truly excellent guest posts from some fine guest writers. Everyone's done a tip-top job thus far, and I thank you all from the bottom of my trousers. Thank you.

Right. That's it for now. I've got vegetables to draw. Tara!

- Fanton.

So Close, And Yet So Far

Those of you who follow the fate and fortunes of the publishing industry may already know that The Friday Project - a small publisher set up in 2005 with the aim of converting the best of the web to proper books - went into liquidation last month.

What you probably won't know is that last December I had quite a jolly meeting with the (entirely lovely and very amiable) folk at The Friday Project, with a view to publishing a proper, fully-fledged Lord Likely book. With pages and a cover, and everything.

The meeting went very well, so this news is doubly sad, as it means the end of what could have been the Greatest Literary Event of All Time. But hey ho, such is life.

I'm making quite a habit of getting tantalisingly close to having my work published or screened. As well as the Lord Likely book, I also managed to get very near to getting an animated series made based around another of my characters, The Carrotty Kid. I got all the way up to the pilot episode stage, before the UK kid's TV market seemed to implode in on itself, and the series never came to pass.

Still, I got a shiny DVD out of it, containing an exciting glimpse of what could have been:

So, I'm still struggling on, and still hoping that one day one of my ridiculous ideas will finally earn me some money.

Now, can anyone spare me a tenner?

- Fanton.

Getting Back to Business

Hello, chums!

This is another slightly dull inform-o-post, designed to fill your head with facts about my life that you probably didn't wish to know. For that, I apologise in advance.

Actually, no I don't It's my bloody blog, and I'll do as I please. ALRIGHT?

Anyway, having been kept busy lately by various work-related shenanigans, I am happy to say that I finished my last comic strip for the vue Cinema newsletter this morning (at the ungodly hour of half four in the morning), thus freeing up my time once more to do other stuff. HOORAY!

First on my agenda is tossing off a post for the British Speak blog, where Lord Likely will be cuming up with as many different euphemisms for having a wank, purely for educational purposes, of course.

Then, I hope to finally get around to updating my poor, neglected gaup site, and maybe even do a few new RIPdogs and other such nonsense.

Plus, I have plans for my sadly abandoned Carrotty Kid site, which I aim to get around to some time this Millennium. Whew!

Of course, most of this stuff will have to wait until 7pm on Saturday, as between 6.20pm and 7pm I shall be glued to my TV set, like a wide-eyed child, gurgling with glee at the return of one of my all-time favourite television shows, Doctor Who.

I can't help it. I love the time-travelling lunatic.

I'll leave you with the trailer for the fourth series of the BBC's family-friendly sci-fi smash-hit, while I go off and visit some of your blogs that I've been too busy to visit lately. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Will you ever forgive me?



I'll be RIGHT BACK.

Tara!

- Fanton.