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.

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.

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.

All Apologies

Hello!

This is just a short post today.

See ya!

Hahaha! I crack me up.

No, the real purpose of this post is just to explain my distinct absence from the wacky World Wide Web this week. Since Monday, I've barely set foot upon the virtual super-highway, let alone driven a big truck of comedic wonder down it.

That is because my real, paying job (as tedious and unfulfilling as it is) has decided to gobble up as many of my life's precious hours as possible this week. I've been shackled with three ten hour shifts in a row, PLUS I had to attend a stupid staff meeting at midnight tonight, which was RUBBISH, and has left me with no free hours in which to masturbate write my usual HILARIOUS 'stuff'.


I'll be working over the week-end too, but for those who care, I hope to update The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely tomorrow night-ish, and then do a new gaup on Monday-ish. Ish.

So: apologies for not frequenting everyone's fine blogs as much as I would like, and for failing to respond to e-mails and other such gubbins. And of course, I'm truly sorry for depriving you all of my incredible, shining wit and wondrousness.

Normal business will resume ASAP, unless I choose to sleep for a hundred years.

Be right back, chums!

- Fanton.

Flogging A Dead Dog

It seems I was not alone in my hatred for those effing lolcats.

Slowly but surely, the RIPdogs phenomenon has attracted loyal supporters like flies around, well, a dead dog, I suppose.

neOnbubble was the first to leap upon the morbid bandwagon, when Mark Hooper came up with two fine additions to the RIPdogs canon of his very own, giving the RIPdogs movement a much-needed shot in the paw.

Then, Mr. Scaryduck, a good judge of excellence himself, gave the RIPdogs a glowing endorsement in this post, which lead to literally many people dropping by the Sickbag to see what all the fuss was about.

Two of these many visitors then clasped the rotting canine corpses to their chests, and chose to highlight this brand new craze in their own blogs.

Sigg3 chose the RIPdogs as his link of the day, and also provided a fine link of his own, containing an image which could be seen as the very first RIPdog. Except not dead.

James Shearhart, of Elysium Asylum followed next, giving the RIPdogs a quick nod in his own fine blog.

Phew! Thanks, everyone, for lending your support to the RIPdogs cause. Soon, we shall have those lolcats (or as I hilariously like to dub them, 'loltwats') scampering back up their virtual tree, where they can stay for all ruddy eternity, as far as I'm concerned.

BUT WAIT! It's not over yet. As the owner of many fine blogs myself, I am in completely the right position to help my own cause, by instigating cross-platform promotion and developing a synergistic approach to branding, or some such bollocks that marketing men might say.

What I'm basically trying to say is that there are fresh RIPdogs (well, as fresh as they can be, in their condition) over on my HILARIOUS showbiz parody magazine, gaup.

Here's a sneaky preview:

Now go check out the rest.

Rest in Peace, out there.

- Fanton.

Weekend? What weekend?

I hate it when I get an idea.

Since Friday, when I first thought of creating a new website, I've been plugging away at making the bloody thing, wrote several posts, spent hours grappling with code, made some pictures, and then put it all together.

Now, it's finally done. Hoo-fucking-ray!

Behold the fruits of my tireless labours: gaup, a spoof celebrity news site featuring a whole load of stuff, including a lovely picture of a colon, and a half-naked Billie Piper.

I hope you guys like it. At least pretend you do. You have no idea how long I spent slaving over hot pixels for it.

And THEN I even did a new post for Lord Likely, and now I feel like I want to sleep FOREVER. Sometimes I think I must be a mental case. I have no idea why I do this to myself.

It must be for the chicks.

"Thanks, Fanton!"

Bloody hell. That wasn't very funny, was it?

Well, I think that proves that my brain is officially shutting down now. Plus, I think my eyes are melting. So I'm going to try and catch at least thirty winks.

Tara!

- Fanton.