Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

10 results.

Chain Status

August 22, 2011
Chain Status

If you’ve been on Facebook for any length of time and/or have more than a few FB friends, you’ve likely seen statuses like the one in this strip. At first it wasn’t so bad, but I started seeing several of them a day, posted by multiple people.

On their own, some of them aren’t so bad. But then they start getting preachy and passive-aggressive, like one that suggests you weren’t raised right if you didn’t re-post it as your status. They vary, but the general insinuation is if you don’t re-status, well, you’re just a bad person.

“Set this as your status if you have a [insert relative] in heaven…”
“Re-post this if you love your kids…”
“Make this your status if you think mean people suck…”

It goes on and on. What’s weird is I’ve never seen anyone actually use the same status as anyone else. So I wonder if anyone is ever re-posting at all. But then again, the original posts are being written by someone.

Either way, I hit the “unfriend” link several times this week.

About the Art

Obviously still playing with character designs. Came to the sad conclusion that only a select few cartoonists can pull off the single oval for eyes (Bill Watterson, Dave Kellett), so I’m playing with options. Better, but still has issues.

The thing that’s been hardest about drawing these on paper is that it’s infinitely harder to deal with mistakes than on the computer. Things get out of proportion easily and you can’t just scale them. Sure, I could do a lot of post-production after it’s scanned, but that defeats the purpose. What you see is what I drew, for better or worse.

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Introducing Google [insert keyword here]

July 18, 2011
Introducing Google [insert keyword here]

I’m a little slow to this, as Google+ was launched a few weeks ago. Even so, I’m still seeing people asking for invites. It’s curious how Google can whip people into such a frenzy, begging for an invitation to something they (likely) don’t even understand. You want it because you know not everyone can get it right away.

Maybe as a web developer with my fair share of time building social applications, I’m a tad jaded on this topic. I’m frequently asked “are you on X service?” or “are you using Y app?”. I frankly just don’t have time to jump on whatever bandwagon is pulling through town today.

As for Google+, I think it’s adorable that the Googs are still trying. Wave has been officially killed, and Buzz never seemed to really make any sense to anyone. I’m sure this new venture is a real achievement in engineering. The interface I’ve seen so far is kinda slick. But a “Facebook killer”? Far from it. Absolutely nothing can overtake Facebook, or even come close. I say that with no joy whatsoever.

What really will be telling here, is how Google+ grows and evolves after the first wave of salivating early adopters are already on it. For now, I’m just not interested. But I’ll be watching to see how it goes.

About the Art

As promised, this is another black-and-white strip, penciled and inked on paper. You’ll also notice that there are new characters. These are by no means final character designs. I’m doing a lot of experiments lately. Some things are sticking, I’m throwing others out. It could take several more strips for character models and overall tone to solidify.

But I figure if I wait until I have everything perfectly envisioned, I’ll be forever publishing another strip. Just gotta dive in and put ink to paper.

Comments welcome!

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Poker Face

February 10, 2011
Poker Face

So after much rumor-mongering, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently did a cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live. He had a brief bit during the opening monologue, in which he watched host Jesse Eisenberg (who portrayed Zuck in “The Social Network”) open the show. Eisenberg was then joined by Andy Samberg, doing his own Zuckerberg impression. A spastic Zuckerberg fidgeted backstage, complaining to SNL producer Lorne Michaels that HE was the real Mark Zuckerberg and that he’d “invented poking”.

Thus, this strip was born.

For more on the SNL appearance, check this out.

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Ping Pong

October 20, 2010
Ping Pong

Steve Jobs reportedly asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to dinner, presumably to talk about integrating Facebook into iTunes Ping. As I wrote and drew this strip, a couple things struck me. Sure, Steve wants people to be able to add new Ping friends via Facebook, but seems totally uninterested in any data flowing out to Facebook the other way. Kind of the opposite of what a social network should be. Wonder if Mark actually pointed this out.

The other thing is that, despite both these guys being billionaires, they really are not on the same playing field at all. In the grand scheme of things, Zuck is still just a punk hacker that’s got a lot to learn. Doing a decent presentation would be a good start :)

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MyPhone

September 24, 2010
MyPhone

Recently, Michael Arrington at Techcrunch reported that Facebook was “secretly building a phone”. Facebook very quickly denied anything of the sort, and emphasized their commitment to supporting mobile implementations of their platform. Of course, there are still people that have latched onto this nonsense and still believe it to be happening, despite any real evidence.

This strip was inspired by a joke someone made on the “This Week in Social Media” podcast about what a MySpace phone might be. And here is the result.

On a personal note, I can’t for a minute believe Facebook would get into the phone wars. Just seems like a pointless diversion, given the other decent ways to get Facebook on mobile devices. That said, nothing Zuck does surprises me anymore.

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SquareFace

August 24, 2010
SquareFace

Facebook just rolled out Facebook Places, their answer to web-based checkin apps. Right away, a few astute bloggers realized the Places logo was a not-so-subtle reference to their main competitor in this space…FourSquare.

My prediction is that Facebook will handle places like they handle most everything else…poorly. However, their 500+ million users will make its adoption skyrocket, and at least for a while, it will dominate the space. But after a while, I think once people get exposed to and educated about check-in services, they’ll end up migrating over to services that have gotten it right.

Update: This strip was featured on The Daily What on 8/24/10. Thanks guys!

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Do You Like Me? Click One.

April 27, 2010
Do You Like Me? Click One.

At the recent F8 Developers Conference, Facebook recently changed “Become a Fan” to “Like” when it comes to registering your feelings about your favorite brands, artists, etc. Seemed that “like” was kind of a generic feeling and maybe Facebook should provide a few more choices.

Also, I did the Twilight poster artwork separately, so I may make that available if anyone wants it.

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Patently Facebook

March 2, 2010
Patently Facebook

Facebook recently was granted a patent for their news feed, they claim to have invented in 2006. This strip looks ahead to what else they might try to claim.

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Foursquare Is So Zucked

February 4, 2010
Foursquare Is So Zucked

According to a “source”, Silicon Alley Insider posted recently that Facebook was working on Foursquare-esque check-in functionality. While Facebook has not officially commented, I think there’s little doubt this will actually happen. The article points out a few reasons why Foursquare should be worried.

For one thing, Facebook is something you (probably) already use, and you’d be sharing this information with people that are already your friends. Convergence of your existing Facebook account and check-ins could eliminate the need to use one or more other apps. And it follows one of the tenets of social media apps, in that you’re going to gravitate to the apps your friends are already using. As much as I used to like Pownce, hardly anyone I knew used it….and so neither did I.

The other point, and this is the one the strip makes, is that Facebook “can afford to fail”. With their engineering talent and money, why not throw some developer’s time at a “beta” check-in app? If it takes off, great. Foursquare then needs to evolve, and fast. If not, whatever. It’ll just get thrown on the pile of other stuff Facebook is surely working on that we may never see.

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Jesusbook

March 15, 2009
Jesusbook

So, here we are, post #1 of my new webcomic. I’ve been saying for months (maybe even more than a year), that I’ve wanted to get one started. The delay can be blamed on any number of things, but it’s all some variation of either a lack of time or confidence.

Over the last few months, I’ve posted several pieces of artwork to my Deviant Art account, and have been doing a ton of practice work, and watching how other artists are doing their strips. After I spent a lot of time doing some cartooning work for my employer, it was obvious I really wanted, and needed to do this.

I’d started off by creating a little service called Avatomics, where I’ll do a custom cartoon avatar for you from a photograph. I’ve done a few of those so far, and it’s helped me build up some more practice and confidence, enough to actually take the leap.

So here it is, the first one. Not sure what it means that the first strip features Jesus, but the point is that I’ve passed this major hurdle….getting started. As for the name “Happy Accidents”, it’s a name that I’d wanted to use for something for a while, and I’ve never been able to find anything better. It seems almost like the story of my life, in a way. Things just kind of happen accidentally, and they end up working out. In my art, I think my best output is the result of happy accidents. You turn off the wrong layer, or apply the wrong color, and voila, you’ve stumbled on something even better.

Will the strip have regular characters? At first, no. Some characters may be based on myself or people I know, but right now, I just want to dive in without the added burden of having to create new character models, back stories, etc. However, I’m sure as things evolve, regular characters will start to appear.

One last thing I’ll say is regarding regularity. At the absolute worst, I’m shooting for one strip a week. I would absolutely love to do two. Right now it’s taking a long time to do one, but as I find shortcuts and get a system down, that will get shorter. So for now, I’m not committing to a schedule, but I think over time, a schedule will present itself.

So welcome to my little venture. I hope these will be at least mildly entertaining, and I absolutely welcome feedback and critiques. Welcome!

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