Harry Bells cartoon blog.

About time I did another review of a fellow cartoon blogger. This week it's the turn of Harry Bell, a serious artist that has been dabbling in the world of cartoons. Love this lion gag, and so does Harry apparently, as he entered the same cartoon in two caption contests! Harry seemed to appear from nowhere recently and has consistently scored highly in the cartoon caption contest. An interesting cartoon blog, well worth bookmarking in your cartoon blog folder (like I did).

The Cartoonist's Hat.

COMICALLY INEPT.

I've been overwhelmed by the numbers of cartoon bloggers who would like a review on this site. Fighting his way to the top of the list this week (should it be a weekly thing? Maybe it should?) is Joe from Comically Inept. I do feel duty bound to warn people that this site could be considered as NSFW, and it has some rude words scattered around it.

Joe is a willing victim. The following reviews may not be, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

© COMICALLY INEPT

Comically Inept is an interesting form of cartoon blog as it's very personal to the author, and his struggle with alcohol misuse and avoidance, but that is not to say that it's not amusing. In places it's highly amusing, as a mirror of real life. Self deprecating, witty and regularly updated. Drawing style is naive, but I think that's something that suits the subject matter the most. Listen to me? Like I'm an expert on art. This isn't art. It's real life humour, in all it's gritty reality. Enough of my waffling. Thank you Joe for being the first willing victim to a plug/review on clangnuts. Visit his blog here (if you haven't already clicked on one of the previous links). Better still, visit it, then subscribe to the RSS link.

For some reason the title of this blog looks a lot better in CAPITALS, than lower case. I don't know why this is.

If you have been affected by the issues mentioned in this blog post, and you would like your cartoon or humour blog featured, please contact me before next Tuesday. clangnuts@gmail.com

A NEW BLOG?

The purpose of this blog when I first started it 5 years ago was to showcase some of my cartoons. I had all sorts of unrealistic ideas about being able to update it every day, then every few days, then at least once a week, then sporadically.Currently is updated very sporadically.

It's not that I'm not drawing any more. I am. Sporadically. But most of the drawings I'm doing these days are being saved for rejection by some very big names in the magazine publishing industry! I don't feel it's proper that I post cartoons on here, and THEN offer them for first publication rights to magazines.

So what to do with the blog? It still gets a healthy amount of hits, which stay quite constant, apparently unconnected to how often I update it. 4,000 visitors per week is the norm. 

Since starting clangnuts.com cartoon blogs have continued to become very popular, so I've been playing with this idea for some time. What if, instead of just using clangnuts.com to promote my own (sporadic) cartoons, I used it to promote all the brilliant web comics out there instead? I have been collection hundreds of bookmarks to some truely exceptional cartoon blogs and web comics over the last few years, so there's plenty of choice.

Advantages would be:

• Regular updates to clangnuts.com
• Introduce some very good, but relatively unknown cartoons to a wider audience
• Less crappy cartoons from me (although I may still post the occassioanal one)

Disadvanges could be:

• Some cartoonists might not want to be featured here
• Creating hits for competing websites.
• Less crappy cartoons from me (although I may still post the occassioanl one)

Is this a good idea? Has it got legs? Would it be better to just fill the content with photos of kittens or something?

If you are a web cartoonist, and you'd like a review/feature or whatever it is I'm going to do, then please get in touch. clangnuts@gmail.com 

Will 50 be enough?

This weeks entry into the very special 50th Cartoon Caption Contest. There's prizes and everything, so I've tried really hard to make this one funny. Unusually I drew this at the last minute, and I had a peep at some of the other entries - which was good, because one of the ideas I had had already been posted. Saved myself a lot of bother there. I finished this one 20 minutes before the deadline.

Terrible Error.

Cyanide

I can't remember when I drew this, but I think it was something to do with the news about the Government Scientists quitting over the horse riding is more dangerous than Estate Agency or something. It's an orphan cartoon, so now it's on here.

I'm sorting through the many cartoons that have fallen to one side and have not being published here as yet. There's quite a few more.

Scheduled post. 

Back to normal.

Well that's all that shit over with until next time. Christmas was very hectic. The Handbag was wrong, for those of you interested, but it has been replaced with the correct one. I'm becoming quite an expert on Handbags. I know what a large Tote bag is for instance. That's if the snow doesn't hinder the delivery of the correct bag. Here's a cartoon that you've already seen in a different form, but this was the original version. I re-drew it for some reason, but I've got a feeling this works better than the other version, for some unexplained reason.

To avoid any stress for Christmas 2010, I'm going to start my shopping mid February. I'll have to buy mince pies with very long use by dates. The paper should be OK.

You can expect more frequent updates over the next few weeks, but you'll only be disappointed if you do.

Happy Christmas all blog readers.

 

Happy Christmas to all visitors, and thanks for your support and encouragement. Expect some big changes for 2010.

Get the other cartoons starting here.

Another Blog Template.

I've had to change the blog template again. The old one looked good, but the search function didn't work properly, so it had to go. In a clumsy attempt to get rid of the old templates search box I *&$£%* all the HTML up. An unfortunate side effect of this change, is that some images have been cropped. I'll have a look under the hood and see what I can do about that.

New Look Blog

I've decided to update the look of the Blog with something cleaner and simpler. Some of the gadgets that were on the old blog now need to be rebuilt, and some of the cartoons are formatted a little too wide for this template, but these are things I hope to correct over the next few days.

Fellow bloggers and cartoonists, I will restore the blogroll and links as soon as possible.

The search feature appears to work really well. Try it. Type Estate Agent, and you'll get a cartoon about driving instructors!

Halloween

Seems appropriate for the day.

Changes in treatment of heart attack patients.

NHS heart attack treatment change cartoon.

Well this has been a very good week for the blog. All figures are up, visitor numbers (thanks to some very helpful stumblers) and revenue is also up and most importantly the number of cartoons posted are also up. Had some real fun this week with the cartoons. There's lots more in the works, so please keep revisiting and tell anyone you know about this site. I'd also like to thank those who sent in emails with ideas for cartoons. While I can't make promises to draw every single suggestion (sorry Bill, decapitation just isn't funny, I tried) they have all been food for thought. You can email me HERE, or leave a comment on the blog below.

Buy cartoons for your Blog!

After 2.5 years of posting cartoons onto this Blog, I have decided now the ressession is upon us, this would be a great time to open up the Clangnuts Cartoon collection for sale, to Blog owners, newsletters, and publishers. Well, that's not strictly true. Over the years occasionally people have approached me to buy some cartoons, which I have mostly sold to them. What many of them have said is that they didn't realise that the cartoons were for sale or not - well they are. All of them. There's well over 300 gag cartoons here, so you're bound to find something you'd like, and if possible I can do commissions, although they will cost more than cartoons already in existence. Prices vary according to the scale of use, but for a small none commercial blog are very reasonable. All cartoons licensed are supplied via email or FTP in high resolution files and whatever image file format required.

Any cartoon signed Clangnuts, Clang or Steven are available.

EMAIL : clangnuts@gmail.com for further details.

No cartoons

Sorry there doesn't appear to be any cartoons available right now. Something has gone wrong with the host. Normal service will resume soon, or failing that I'll just upload them to somewhere else.
UPDATE: Cartoons are now appearing. Oh and I'll be uploading a new one today. So stay tuned. It'll be great. Maybe.

Life Insurance Urgently Required.

Life Insurance Cartoon.
...

Well it's been a while since I last updated the blog. I imagine many thought the blog was dead, or at least forgotten. I was beginning to think the same. Other things became more important than drawing for a while. Hopefully that'll now change. Those things that got in the way (I think it's known as RL in some circles), have inspired many ideas for more cartoons. Should be an update at least once per week. I suggest those that'd like to keep track subscribe to the RSS feed on the left hand menu <<<

Painful Suggestions.

Thanks for all the suggestions for the new tag line. I'm really inspired by all of them. As a test, I've changed it to one of Anita's excellent suggestions, but I might change this in the future. I'm even thinking of having several different ones that I could use in rotation, so please keep the ideas coming. Who knows, I might include them all in some way. I quite like 100% unicorn free cartoons as well (thanks Zoomar) but might change this to horse free as that it the one thing I have most difficulty drawing. There was a slight glitch in the system yesterday, as for some reason I wasn't getting any email alerts to the comments. Sorry about that. All sorted now.

I need a decent tag line.

The re-design of the blog is just about complete, but I'm stuck on one small detail. I need a decent tag line below the "clangnuts.com" part of the header. For now I have the totally un-inspirational "Cartoons" which is very boring and dull. I'm hoping that one of my lovely readers will come up with some suggestions, in the comments below - but it often seems that people don't bother to comment these days. Here's a few of the also rans, which I've rejected:

• Funny Cartoons. Bad Cartoons
• Think.Draw.Scan.Publish.
• Scroll down there's more cartoons!
• Unloved and Unpublished.
• Cartoons, not tag lines.

I've posted them, not to ask which is your favourite, but to hopefully inspire someone out there to come up with much better suggestions. All ideas greatfully received. Please comment, or I'll end up putting something awful up there! If you don't want to leave a comment, then please email me instead with your ideas. clangnuts@gmail.com

Right, what shall I draw now?

Fair Trade Sugar Cartoon.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7260211.stm

It's been a strange start to the year. Weeks have passed by without any cartoons being drawn to speak of. Don't know why, but I'm guessing it's something to do with allowing other, less interesting things take over my life. Housework, Paid Work, Eating and Making/building flat pack furniture. Some sleep was also involved, but that appears to be given as little consideration to the production of cartoons. I still watch the news, and think "that would make a great cartoon", but somehow I never manage to actually pick up my pens and draw.
I suppose I'm just incredibly unmotivated right now, and it's hard to get beyond that. On top of the usual pathetic excuses (for that's what they are) I've also been suffering from several bouts of life threatening 'man flu', which as all male readers of this blog will know is worst than the bubonic plague, and as most female readers will know as 'the sniffles'.
So today I've thought of another approach to this cartoon blogging lark. I'll just take a random cartoon worthy news story and draw the quickest, dirtiest sketch to illustrate my take on it.

New Year, New House, New Cartoons.

As some of you will already be aware, I'm moving house. This is the reason that I've not been able to produce any cartoons since the 3rd December. The cartoons will reappear in late January, early February. I have many ideas for some brand new cartoons.

I'd like to thank all those who've supported this blog over the last couple of years, and wish you all a happy and prosperous new year. 2008 is going to be a big year for cartooning. I'm inspired and feeling positive. Amazing how moving to a bigger, better house can do. Improved parking, and having a bath is all I need to produce some stunning cartoons.

Of course, for all those new visitors - there's a few hundred cartoons in the archive to keep you amused until the revamp. Here's the last cartoon of 2007:

Blogging about Blogging?

Blogging is a strange beast. For some people it's a very easy way to build a website. For others it's an attempt at making money. For some it just about having a voice online, that the whole world can read their thoughts, and what their cat had for dinner. There is millions and millions of Blogs out there. Most aren't that great, but as long as the person writing it is having fun, it doesn't matter.

...

What annoys me about Blogging now, is the sheer number of Blogs that are about nothing more than, er, Blogging! How to build a massive following, how to make $50,000 a week from advertising, how to make the best Blog in the world, how to get the best search results. How to write that perfect post, which will change the world forever.

...

A lot of it just feels like Blogging for Blogging sake, and nothing to do with providing something that people actually want to read.
Some Blogs are truly excellent in their own niche. This very post is leaning towards that whole concept of taking about Blogging on a Blog. I just wish there was more interesting content on more Blogs and a few less Blog experts, telling everyone how to make another Blog expert Blog.

...

I think within the Blogosphere (did I just use that phrase for the very first time?) it's almost impossible to replicate the content, or success of ProBlogger - which is probably one of the only Blogs worth reading to learn how to Blog successfully. Almost every other Blog about Blogging that I've read, has been a poor imitation of ProBlogger. Darran Rowse got there first (or at least early enough) and has the whole thing sewn up now, in my opinion. It's like someone trying to start another Microsoft. It just won't work, unless you can be 100 times better. Being just as good, or almost as good doesn't cut it at all.

...

This could just be me, not understanding what motivates people to Blog. I personally don't read Blogs to learn how Blog. I read them for interesting content. I'm not interested if other Bloggers want to read my Blog. They won't find any 'secrets' to my success (mainly because their isn't any success). I don't aim my Blog content at other Bloggers, I aim it at people who like cartoons. When I first started out, I didn't have a clue who it was aimed at. For a short time I was taken in by all the hype surrounding Blogging. I now realise I'm a cartoonist, not really a Blogger at all. I'm just using this Blog as a tool, to deliver my cartoons to the online world.

...

When I first started Blogging, I was interested in finding out everything I possibly could about Blogging. ProBlogger, and all it's imitations were fascinating, for around a month, and then I became very bored with reading the same old 'magic' tricks which didn't result in a million hits per day, or lead me to vast wealth. Yes, they'll all tend to say that it's all about the quality of the content, but in doing so most of them are providing very poor quality content themselves!

...

Bloggers, wake up. There is no magic route to great success and fortune. For some exceptional Blogs, there is, but we can't all replicate that success, just by typing a few words on our own Blogs or slaving away at updating them every single day, just to please the 50 people who read it everyday. Blogging should be fun, and should be about communicating within a niche that isn't possible in any other way.

...

Bloggers bitching about other Blogs is also quite irritating, but that is the subject of another post!

...

I got the idea for this post from:
http://honestknowledge.com/warriorblog/ Who advises to be contravesal in a Blog post, to get lots of hits and money and things. For a Blog about Blogging, it isn't as bad as the majority out there.

...

Comments, as always are most welcome. I'd especially like to hear from anyone who has taken offence at this article, and disagrees with my views, and even better, tell me where I can find an informative, and yet interesting Blog about Blogging (that is better than the two Blogs mentioned).