Andertoons Cartoon Blog

Oh The Dickensian Irony!

Two years ago I was still early on in my blogging, and I was doing a fair amount of movie reviews. So, when Christmas came, I hit our public library and checked out a bunch of holiday-themed cartoons. I think I did about one a week.

After posting a review, I'd also post it over at BlogCritics. It was still young then, and I still had lots of time to post elsewhere often.

Anyway, I posted a bad... OK, horrible... OK, really horrible review of the 1962 "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol." (You can read it here.)

I took a lot of flak for it over at BlogCritics, and, to be fair, "I can see myself walloping Tiny Tim with his own cane" was a tad strong. But what's surprised me the most is how this review comes back to haunt me each Christmas season (the review ranks #10 on Google). Talk about Dickensian!

Some of favorite comments include:

...no amount of "Bah, humbug" from you will tarnish my memories and enjoyment of this wonderful musical "that I will cherish all my days.

Anderson you're a pompous fool... relive your childhood like Magoo did,
and btw, learn to draw.

"RAZZLEBERRY DRESSING"! Go ahead and scream.

I responded to each for a while, and, again, to be fair, I sort of fanned the flames. However, I don't understand how this response from me...

See that's the great thing about a blog reviews vs. your standard newspaper/tv/whatever review - dialogue!

...garnered this from the original commenter almost a year later:

Wow! Just got a chance to read your comment to my response. I admire your sparkling comeback -- what a gem. The proficiency of your verbal skills is only exceeded by your extraordinary drawing skills. Simply brilliant!

Yeesh!

This year I finally got a comment on my original blog here.

You may be alone in your comments about the Magoo Christmas Carol. The musical score is much superior to the majority of future Xmas show specials like Santa Claus is coming to Town, Frosty the Snowman. Only Rudolph can be counted as an equal.

No, Magoo isn't Magoo. But the songs are moving, catchy, original and highly acclaimed. It is a feel good program, not filled with sexual innuendos or poor tasteless jokes. Most who remember this appreciate the simple fact that it is what it is.

So not only am I wrong, but apparently I can only enjoy a Christmas cartoon if everyone in it is farting while having sex.

OK, here's the deal – I didn't grow up watching this, so I don't have any fond memories to color my review. In fact, I'd never heard of this until the librarian suggested it.

My review is unabashedly a bashing of an older film, and maybe that's not fair, but just because it's some 40 years old and a Christmas film to boot doesn't mean it's good either.

I'm no animation aficionado, and I'll be the first to admit that my silly little cartoons pale in comparison to even the Magoo legacy, but good lord people, lighten up.

Technorati Tags: andertoons, animation, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, movies

Buttons - Full Color? Limited Color?

OK, I'm still working on the new site design, and I'm starting the little graphics for the left navigation buttons.

Cartoon compatriot Mike Lynch uses a limited palette now and again, and I thought these graphics might be a good place to try that. Plus I'm wondering if I shouldn't keep closer to the site's colors. (Again, I'm woefully color challenged.)

So, here's some looks at the first button's resting state:

Full color


Limited color


And it's rollover state:

Full color


Limited color

Any strong thoughts one way or another?

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, websites

Another Andertoons Redesign (I know, I know...)

OK, I know I said I was done with this, but I still felt that some cleaning at everyone's favorite cartoon site was necessary.

I really took to heart everyone's comments, and I think you'll like this.

Behold:

(Click the image to see it at 800 x 600)

I think it keeps the flavor and overall design of the original site...

(Again, click the image to see it at 800 x 600)

...while tightening things up and allowing for some small changes. (BTW, this will all go down sometime in mid January, so enjoy the current site while you can.)

I got rid of the waving/blinking guy (sorry), and the cartoon search triangle, which allowed me to fit a lot more in 800 x 600 before scrolling.

I kept the left navigation buttons, and actually enlarged them. No art for the left of the buttons yet, but that's coming.

The big box o' text is now a bright white to make things more readable, and recent cartoons got bumped up to a more prominent position.

Also, I tried to unify the design by utilizing a slightly rounded rectangular shape wherever possible, ass opposed to mixing odd shapes in the last design.

I also stuck to only web safe colors, so there's some subtle changes in color overall.

One more thing – when you rollover the buttons, they'll now appear to light up. (Check out the "Buy this cartoon" for an example.)

I'm really pleased with the end result. It's still familiar, but freshened up, and it'll allow me a lot more flexibility in content placement down the road.

Anyway, let me know what you think. Hope you like it!

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, websites

Venom (At Last!)

OK, I missed the new Spider-Man 3 clips last night, but you can catch them (as I just did) online here.

If you weren't at Comic-Con (as I wasn't), this will be your first look at Venom. Here's a few frames:

Technorati Tags: comic books, movies, spiderman

Andertoons Interview

Hey, there's a super nice interview with me over at Things I'd Rather Be Doing – go check it out!

Technorati Tags: andertoons, blogs, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, websites

Andertoons Redesign(!) - Part 3

OK, after a good night of sleep, some coffee, and some fresh eyes (I hate using that phrase now, but it's true), I still sorta like that last design. But only kinda.

After a good long conversation with my wife, I think I'm gonna leave the site just like it is.

I've gotten so many people writing to say how much they liked it, that it seems silly to make any sweeping changes just to satisfy my need to redecorate.

And that's really what it was I think. I look at the site every day, and after a while I start to get bored with it.

Every six months or so I dig into Photoshop for a weekend and totally redesign the thing from scratch. The wrinkle this time is that I could actually do it within my plans without a lot of extra cost.

It's kinda like a puzzle. My wife digs sudoku, and I like to make an 800 x 600 box that looks attractive, has everything I need, and functions well.

Anyway, the site works wonderfully as is, and everyone seems to like it (myself included), so let's just call this whole redesign thing closed.

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, websites

Andertoons Redesign(?) - Part 2

Wow. A lot of people didn't like that last design at all.

Most people said they missed the rollover menu on the left, and that the site was, well, boring.

After sleeping on it for a night, I have to agree. (One point for the wisdom of crowds!)

So, after about 3 hours of fiddling, erasing, deleting, copying, fiddling, etc... I think I came up with a concept that you might like better:

(Again, click on the image to see it 800x600)

It continues down past the screen break, but I wanted to see what would show without scrolling.

After playing with some basic shapes and some layer effects, I ran across this sort of paper scrap concept.

I tried to make all the shapes a little abnormal so it looked more or less hand cut, and I arranged them not necessarily in line with each other.

I've also decided to keep the rollover buttons on the left, but I didn't fill anything in pending a final design.

After so many hours looking at this it's honestly a little hard to be objective. So, crowd wisdom here I come!

Whatcha think?

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, websites

Andertoons Redesign(?) - Part 1

OK, so I'm considering changing the overall look and feel of the site.

I've already gotten some very nice and helpful comments on my previous post, so I thought I'd show you what I had in mind:

(Click on it to see it at 800 x 600)

The reason it's in grayscale is that I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to color.

So rather than confuse the design right out of the gate with horrible color choices, I thought this would make seeing the layout easier.

I'm thinking of ditching the little animated tabs on the left for a cleaner top menu. I'm thinking the words would change color on rollover.

Other pages would follow in much the same vein.

So, whatcha think?

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, websites

WWYD?

I'm doing some tinkering/cleaning under the ol' Andertoons.com hood, and my programmer asked if I wanted to make any design changes while he was in there.

Apparently the changes are wide-ranging enough that redesigning the look of the site wouldn't add to the cost. (Yippee!!!)

I've been dreaming about doing this for a good long while, and this is the perfect opportunity.

So, dear readers, what would YOU do?

What parts of everyone's favorite cartoon website would you like to see changed?

Color scheme? Layout? Fonts? Lemme have it!

Lose the waving guy? Trash the animated menu? Get all Web 2.0 on it? I'm open to anything!

Here's some current screen shots to get you thinking:

Please don't make me design the new site on my own! HELP!

Technorati Tags: andertoons, cartooning, cartoonists, cartoons, websites

Andertoons Oatmeal

No, this entry isn't about another Andertoons food product, it's the first Andertoons greeting card for Oatmeal Studios:

Not bad huh?

The kinda weird part is that a lot of this card wasn't done by me.

The color? Oatmeal. The inside cartoons? Oatmeal. The smudge under the word 'but?' Oh. I think that's Andertoons chocolate. Ahem...

Just for reference, here's the original:

Notice any other changes? (Hint - check the patient's gender...)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, it's just weird seeing my work redone by someone else.

Oatmeal is lovely to work with, the pay is fine, and they certainly saved me a ton of time and effort making changes. It's just a weird feeling looking at stuff that's mine, but that's not really 'mine.'

Here's some close-ups of the card's interior characters:

Some obvious Photoshopping from the original, but they definitely had to invent some stuff on their own. The woman's hair, for example, is probably more realistic than the women's hair I normally do.

And I think the coloring is nicely done – subtler and more professional than my version for Good Housekeeping:

Like I said, it's fine, just an odd feeling. I wonder if guys like Schulz felt/feel weird about this too.

I suppose after a certain point you're fine with it, and anyone of that caliber certainly has other things to think about, but it's a first for me.

Anyway, let me know if you run across this in the wild at Target or something!

Technorati Tags: andertoons, greeting cards