TheYakShack News

It's a wrap

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 18:00:01 GMT

Well finally, I think I've done it.

OK so I wanted to wrap up all my strips so I could concentrate on a new one without any nagging loose ends hanging about. I've uploaded all my Yak sketches, converted all my old Marmaduke strips into web format. Man, everything is up on this site. We're talking about my entire archive of cartooning, limited as it may be.

A little while ago (OK a long while ago) I wrote 3 strips for Bob's Your Uncle to kind of round it off a bit and make it feel like it kind of ended. The first of those strips I drew in January. 2008. The last, I drew today. Yes, it's taken almost 2 years to get through 3 strips. That really makes me feel kind of unproductive and I guess it's entirely justified!

Anyway there it is... enjoy. Of course it's been left way open in case I ever want to start drawing it again but that probably won't happen... new ideas tend to get in the way of that sort of thing. Onwards and upwards!

So when I make my long-time-coming return to the webcomics world I will have a new (or new-look) strip and a new site. It'll be epic, trust me. If you want to be kept in the loop, just subscribe to the RSS or you can even follow me on Twitter! I protect my tweets but don't worry, I'll approve you so long as you don't look like a spam bot ;)

Until then, I bid you adieu!

Bob's Your Uncle (03/10/2009)

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Shiny new RSS feed

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:00:30 GMT

Hey Yak fans! Check it out - we've got a shiny new URL for your RSS feeds.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, this probably doesn't concern you as much, but I'll explain later. For those that get exactly what I'm on about, you will want to point your RSS reader at this new address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/theyakshack.

This has the dual purpose of a) providing an address that isn't going to change, even if the site does. This means I can tinker to my hearts content and flip the site on it's head if I wanted to but all your news will still come through the same place. And b) it tells me how many of you lovely people are actually reading what I'm writing. This allows my ego to be inflated (or crushed, depending on the results) in real-time. Science in action!

For those of you who are still in the dark about RSS, let me explain. It stands for 'really simple syndication' or 'rich site summary'. It all boils down to being able to read all the news and updates from the sites you are interested in all in one handy location.

Online, there's Google Reader. For the Mac there's NetNewsWire. For PC there are plenty available but you'd better hunt around as I haven't found one I really love yet...

Try it out - you might just like it!

New Bob's Your Uncle

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:00:53 GMT

My my! This is a turn up for the books...

Remember back at the beginning of 2008 when I said I was going to post 3 more Bob strips to sort of tidy off the story and put it to bed until a time when I might want to use it again? Well here's the second strip!

Rest assured you'll see the conclusion, however satisfying or unsatisfying you may find it, a lot sooner than you saw this one!

Bob's Your Uncle (25/04/2009)

Thu, 31 May 2012 00:00:00 GMT

Archive complete...

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 07:00:34 GMT

That's it folks, with this comic the archive is complete. I have (to my knowledge) archived on this site every single piece of sequential or series-based artwork I have produced to date.

Of course this excludes the countless doodles that I have produced over the course of my years in this life but if they are any good I have no doubt they will make it in some form into a comic.

I had set myself the goal of having started drawing comics again regularly by the time the last of The Yaks went up. I've been posting the Yak pictures up every Saturday for the past 24 weeks which gave me almost 6 months to get my act together and yet other commitments keep getting in the way. The Yaks took about 20-30 minutes to clean up from the original scanned artwork from over 10 years ago so it wasn't that which was taking up my time.

Over the next 11 days I hope to get some of my other commitments out of the way. This isn't to say I will be able to start drawing again in 11 days but I hope to be a good step closer. If I pull it off it's going to be ace!

Before I start drawing again I want to have an ace site to put it on. The current version of The Yak Shack is great but as a programmer it's old and outdated. I'm surprised I've managed to get so many jobs based on my web development skills with it in my portfolio and so it needs a bit of redevelopment to bring it up to date. Once I've done that I will be ready to start pumping out the toons again, which really encourages me to get on and get it done!

News is sporadic here at best and so if you're interested in keeping up to date but want it to be with the minimal amount of hassle just register and make sure you choose to receive the email updates, or subscribe to the RSS feed. And don't worry, the new site will even have bits explaining what RSS is for the uninitiated!

I've got my handwriting in a font!

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 05:00:24 GMT

This is kind of cool and exciting - I've turned my handwriting into a font!

My handwriting isn't the best and so you might be wondering why I'd even want to bother. Well I like comics that look hand-lettered. When I try to hand letter comics it looks awful and I figured the main reason for that is because I don't draw each letter consistently.

With the help of Fontifier I was able to draw decent looking letters in my own handwriting, at my own speed, trying as many times as I liked to get each letter right, and then download the result. I have to say I was pretty impressed!

This service only costs $9, is instant and I think you'll get better results the higher the resolution of the letters you draw. It's based on the assumption that you'll print out the template they provide, write on it and then scan it in to send it. I just used my Wacom tablet to cut out the boring bits and did it straight onto the template file. But the template was only a low resolution gif and I drew my letters at the size they provided it, so I think my letters came out slightly jagged (only really visible when using the font at really large sizes).

But I'm really happy with it for the money and as you can see it looks great at comic sizes. If you're in the market for a font of your handwriting, give these guys a go!

New look homepage!

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:00:59 GMT

Well not really. I just tweaked the code so that it's not the comic with the most recent date on the front page - it's the comic that was actually posted most recently!

It took so little work I really don't know why I didn't do it for all the time I was posting all those old Marmaduke strips! Ah well, live and learn. It's probably because I've been meaning to redo this site for so long now... I think a shiny new site would provide the incentive to get back on the comic wagon!

Just gotta find the time to do it. It will come, just keep watching this space and enjoy the yaks while they last.

iTunes Movies

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:00:39 GMT

Just looking through iTunes movies. Some are £10.99, some are £6.99. You can rent a £10.99 film for £3.49 but you can't rent £6.99 films. WTF?

Why use the same format as a video rental shop by making older titles unavailable when one of the best thing about digital distribution is that the less popular titles don't have to go to make shelf space for the new stuff? It seems a little short-sighted to say the least.

Now I've often thought it would be nice to bookmark tracks or albums in iTunes that I was interested in. I can see why Apple might have seen fit to not include this functionality - it doesn't take long to listen to the preview. If you like it you buy it; if you don't, forget about it. Once you've bought it you don't have to listen to it immediately so it's ready and waiting for you whenever you're ready.

With film rentals it's a different matter. I rent a film and I've got to watch it within 24 hours or whatever the time limit is. I can't buy a stack of film rentals and watch them when I'm ready because when I'm ready they might well have expired. As I was looking through the lists of films there were loads I thought I quite fancied seeing but as I don't have the time to watch any of them in the next 24 hours I didn't click on any of them. I will probably forget about them once they drop off the 'Most Popular' charts, too. Sale lost. Or 'Sale FAIL' if you will.

If there was a list I could make of films I want to see then I could keep my future evenings in all in one place and not miss any, despite the film decreasing in popularity. What's more, Apple could use that data to remind me of the films I want to see on the iTunes Store home page (a la Amazon wishlists). They could even use it to figure out what kind of films I like and therefore which films to advertise more prominently to me.

How can they have not made this yet? It seems so obvious, doesn't it?

When Yaks Attack...

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:00:51 GMT

Here we are again. I've found another stash of historical cartoon goodness in the Vault! I shall be posting them here as and when I find the time to do the necessary photoshopping.

This collection is from a little book which I made (yes I actually made the book) called "The Official Doodle Book (With Yaks)". It's a set of just 24 Yak drawings. Now I don't know where the original, first ever yak drawing is but I think these are among the first once I had a head for the concept.

So if you are a fan of the yaks, I hope you enjoy the following single-panel cartoons. They aren't supposed to be particularly funny but I enjoyed filling up that book so they have some good memories attached!

Oh, I intend this time to try and have the most recent strip posted on the front page but I haven't written that bit yet so for now: here's the first one!