Checking In…

OK, I hate when bloggers explain why they’ve been away for a while.  It’s a lot of blah blah blah and no one really cares anyway, so I’m just going to say this:

22 full color illustrations (one of which contains 18 caricatures) for a large national client.  ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, I’m gonna keep this short so I can keep working, but here’s some stuff that I wanna yap about…

  1. I’m in the August Good Housekeeping with one of my kid/lawyer cartoons. 
  2. I’m also in the new Laughter is the Best Medicine book from Reader’s Digest.
  3. Recently a few radio stations in the Chicago area have changed their formats from “what we think will get the most listeners in our target group” to “whatever we want” (the second one is actually a station’s tag line) and I’m tuning in for an eclectic selection of just plain good music.  Note to syndicates/newspapers:  Don’t worry about demographics.  Give ‘em funnier comics and they will come back.
  4. My new Free Daily Comic feature is a wild success.  Tons of bloggers and sites are using the cartoon.  A few recent faves:

            Yet Another Comics Blog

            Heartland Technologies

            B2Blog

            Tumor Boy

OK, that’s it.  I’ll try to get more in next week. 

New Andertoons Features!

I promised you some big news, and, man, am I gonna deliver!

If you’ve been observant at our favorite cartoon website in recent days, you’ll have noticed what I think are the biggest changes to Andertoons since, well, Andertoons.  Let’s start with what has been the bane of visitors for years now…

Andertoons.com cartoon watermarks. It drove many loyal readers (and this cartoonist) crazy, but it’s now nothing but a bad memory.  Instead, cartoons now carry a simple copyright notice and my website’s URL at their tops, giving an unimpeded view of the artwork.

So what took so long?  The website wunderkind at Karma have engineered a solution that will allow me to continue to protect my work, while giving everyone a clear view of the cartoons. It’s something I’ve wanted from day one, but was never clever enough to figure out on my own.  Score one for surrounding yourself with smart people.

(OK, you serious webbies out there will, I’m sure, find a way around it, but I’d like to politely ask you not to use my cartoons without my consent.  Cartoons are how I earn my living and I’d like to continue doing that.  Thanks.)

OK, now on to some really fun stuff! 

I’m a blogger and have been for over a year now and I love the personal creative expression it allows me.  I get to share things that are uniquely me with a wide audience on a regular basis.

One of the things that I think helps define us is our individual sense of humor.  And it’s that idea that motivated the new (and free!) Andertoons Daily Cartoon!

Yes, now you can have my cartoons appear daily on your website or blog.  Simply pick what types of cartoons you’re interested in, cut and paste some code, and your readers will get to share your sense of humor too.

It will appear as a cartoon thumbnail on your site/blog.  But, when your readers click on it, they’ll be treated to the full size version in a small new window, again, sans watermark!  (Check out my right-hand sidebar for an example.)

What’s really neat is that you can pick the topics of the cartoons.  If you run a business-themed blog, you can get all business cartoons.  Church site?  Get all family cartoons!

Check out my new Free Toons page for the skinny on it all.  I think you’ll be as excited as I am about it.

There’s some more new stuff under the hood, and we’ve moved everything to what seems to be a good new host, but that’s about it for new features.  Don’t worry, though – as always, I’ve got a bunch of new ideas that should make Andertoons.com even better!

So, go dig around the site, pass the word, and enjoy the new changes!