Category: News

  • Cartoonists Needed around the Web

    Our good friend George of Addanac City is looking for guest cartoonists to run in June.  Bastard beat out my own request by 5 days.  Look for my request on Sunday or Monday to coincide with thd 2010 version of the Bearman Charity Challenge.

    And speaking of Charity I got word of another cartoonist looking for help raising money for charity as well.  Yamino of Sister Claire, is trying to get as many cartoonists to submit a series of 10 limited edition postcards of their characters to auction off for charity.

    Finally Byron is taking an extended Spring Break from 1977 the comic and also is looking for Guest Strips to fill the void.

  • Other Contests Around the Web

    As well as my own Editorial Cartoon Caption Contest (still time to enter), there are several friends around the net that are also doing contests.

    Jill at Elemental My Dear is holding a contest all month long encouraging readers to use to their own blog to “submit a post that reflects the saying “April Showers Bring May Flowers” in any format you may like such as…photography, poetry, short story, cartoon, etc.”  She will link to your posting and give away 3 5×7 photos.

    Ken at Rick the Stick is encouraging readers to come up with creative ways to promote his webcomic.  I tried my hand at a theme song for Ken (we’ll have to wait and see if Ken ever lets it make the light of day as I need Britney Spears engineer to make me sound good).   Contest goes through the 25th of this month and the winner will be tooned as a guest star in the strip.

    Samantha of Life’s a Witch is having a one week contest to win copies of her comic collections.  Every tweet or comment on her site will earn you easy entries.

    Finally, not a contest but Nate is looking for guest cartoonists to take on his adorable characters from Knocking on Heavens Door as Fan Art.  I have to clean up my act before I can figure out what to submit.

  • Reminders – Banner Ads and Facebook

    Just a reminder if you are on my links page that I need your 125×125 banner ad.  If you are not, let’s talk about link exchanges (just contact me)

    Also if you are on facebook, I finally launched a fan page where I will update there.  If you would be so kind as to become a fan and then tell some of your facebook friends to do the same I would appreciate it.

    Look at the people below…they are lonely and want you to join them.

  • Free Ad Space on Beartoons

    This article is permanently posted here but wanted to highlight it.

    My primary goal in the revamped launch of beartoons.com is to attracted more regular readers and commenters.  One of the ways I am doing this is by offering up free ad space using two different criteria.

    You will notice that the current blog design has six 125×125 ads prominently in the upper sidebar.  The top two are for top commenters, the middle for other Bearmania activities described below and the final two are reserved for my own ads.

    Top Commenters:

    My favorite part of posting is getting all the great comments and interaction from regular readers.  To reward this group, the top two commenters each week will have this coveted ad space for until the following weeks results are in.  HOWEVER, spam commenters and those who move beyond interaction and try to artificially bump up their comments will be disqualified.

    Bonus points:  Ties will be broken by giving bonus points to those with a Bearman Cartoons banner ad.  The bigger the ad the more points you get.  Have the ad on your homepage and I double the points.

    Bearmania:

    The second set of ads are reserved for Bearmania activities.  These will not have set time limits.  Instead as new ad program participants perform one of the following activities, their ad will take the place of the former one.  Each ad will be in place for at least 20 hours.  Bearmania activities include:

    • Purchasing a product from WackSack.com, our sister company store.  Contact me to let me know what name you used to purchase so I can verify before setting up your ad.
    • Sending a picture of yourself wearing your WackSack designed shirt.  Also contact me to let me know what name you used to purchase so I can verify before setting up your ad.
    • Designing a web banner for Bearman Cartoons.  I hate my banners, so designers get out your photoshop/illustrator tools and do me one better. Feel free to use the Bearman Cartoons logo.  Approved banners will be posted in the Beartoons banner section along with a permalink to your site.  Example tag lines that may be useful include:
    • A Hack Cartoonist’s View of the World
    • Editorial Cartoons, Pop-Culture Cartoons, Other BS
    • A Moderate’s View of the Crazies all Around Me
    • Blog Blog Blog – Blog about Beartoons. Overall promotion, promoting contests, free ad program etc etc.
    • Socialize me – Follow BearmanCartoons on StumbleUpon, become a Beartoons fan on Facebook, Follow Bearmancartoons on Twitter AND follow via Technorati.  All links are available at the top of the screen.  Once you have done all four, contact me for verification and ad set up.  First 10 people to do this are eligible.
    • Guest Cartoons – Either editorial cartoons, answer a specific call for guest cartoons OR send a picture of your webcomic character(s) with our URL and the words “I’m a Bearmaniac”
    • Other ideas – Contact me if you have other ideas that may be worthy of including in this list.

    How to join the Ad Program

    2 steps –

    1. Put a link to Bearman Cartoons (http://beartoons.com) or a Bearman Cartoons Banner on your website
    2. Contact me with a link to your 125×125 banner ad.  I will include your ad in my links page.  Then whenever you are an ad winner, I can automatically post your ad in the appropriate spot.

    I reserve the right to cancel/modify the program at any time. But I probably won’t for a long while.

  • Beartoons New Look

    What I thought would take me a couple days turned into weeks but I am now for the most part finished with my refresh and moving my wordpress.com site to my own site. I apologize for my lack of posting and visiting your blogs but I have been pushing to get this done this weekend.

    Take a look around and see what’s new. I’ll do a more in depth post later but wanted to get this up now. Let me know if any links don’t work.

    Also for all my BEARMANiacs and new friends start sending me a link to your 125×125 banner ad so I can put them in my new links page.

  • Vote for Monsterplex on Zuda

    As many of my loyal readers will attest, I am a fulfiller of dreams.   Brock Heasley has such a dream.  His dream is to get a contract with DC Comics.  Brock is the mind behind Superfogeys, the webcomic about old superheroes in a nursing home (that yours truly provided a guest cartoon for just last month).  As good as Superfogeys is, Brock and his team have submitted MONSTERPLEX to Zuda.  Zuda is a site owned by DC and each month they pit 10 different webcomics against each other.  If he wins, he gets a one year contract to keep making it.

    From Brocks site on how you can help:

    1. First of all, go to http://www.zuda.com  Pretty cool, right?

    2. Hit the “Sign Up!” link in the upper right hand corner. You can’t vote or interact with the site in any meaningful way without registering first (don’t worry, it’s painless and DC Comics won’t spam you afterwards).

    3. Follow the instructions to create your Zuda account.

    4. Click on the Zuda logo in the upper left corner of the screen to go back to the homepage.

    5. Click on “VOTE” to go to the current competition.

    6. Scroll down until you see MONSTERPLEX and then click on that!

    7. Now, this is the good part. There’s a whole bunch of things you can do to support MONSTERPLEX and they’re all right here:

    a. Click the VOTE button!

    b. Give MONSTERPLEX a star rating under “Rate This Comic:” (5 is great, but follow your conscience.)

    c. Click the red “+” sign to “Add to Your Favorites”

    d. Scroll way down on the page and leave a comment!

    So go off and do your good deed for the day.  Brock promises that if he wins, he will add a real Bear-Man to the monster mix who wears a beartoons.com t-shirt all the time.  OK, I totally made that up.  But I have dreams too you know.

  • Help the Hodges Charity Auction

    Thanks to Tom Richmond for the heads up on this.  The National Cartoonists Society has banded together to support one of its own – Tim Hodge.  Tim’s son Matthew was in an auto accident five months ago and has since been in a coma.  As with most of us, we can handle short term illness but the financial toll of long term care is very harsh. 

    So they set up a website HELP THE HODGES and have gathered some great things to auction off on ebay to support the Hodges.  The auction includes some great looking items including:

    • All the pencil drawings for an entire Cinderella children’s book story (70 pieces of art)
    • Space Ace poster signed by Don Bluth
    • Dragon’s Lair poster signed by Don Bluth
    • Princess & the Frog poster signed by animators, directors, producer and John Lasseter
    • Charles Schulz drawing
    • Original Mutts comic strip art
    • Original Zits comic strip art
    • Original Nancy comic strip art
    • Original Baby Blues comic strip art
    • Dumbo comic strip art
    • Paul Coker, Jr. Frosty the Snowman
    • Ren & Stimpy painting signed by Rosie O’Donnell
    • Group drawing by 21 famous cartoonists
    • Rocketeer artist proof sculpture

    Check out auction and bid if you can.

  • Top Posts of the Year

    There are plenty of top lists going around this time of year. Too many are subjective. I give you the most objective one yet because it is based on data. Plus I top it off with interesting facts like there with only one exception, there were no commenters in 2008 who stuck around in 2009. That sole exception was Michael who does the Unemployed Dad webcomic who pays a vist every so often. 

    The top 10 based on views of 2009

    1. Bearman Cartoon: Swine Flu
    2. Marge Simpson Playboy Centerfold Pictorial
    3. Bearman Cartoon: Obama bows to Emperor
    4. Bearman Cartoon: Swine Flu 2
    5. Help make Marie Flanders the Newest Character on the Simpsons
    6. Bearman Cartoon: 2012 and the End of Day
    7. Create Cartoon Characters of Yourself
    8. Oktoberfest T-shirt
    9. Bearman Cartoon: Obama wins Peace Prize?
    10. Bearman Cartoon: Bengals Beat Steelers

    Now most of you didn’t find me until later in the year so not surprising the most commented posts came from the second half.

    1. Celebrity Death Panel Part 6
    2. Editorial Cartoon Caption Contest
    3. Vanity License Plate
    4. Marge Simpson Playboy Centerfold
    5. Bearman Cartoon: Kanye West

    And Finally the Top Five Commenters of 2009. 

    1. The Friggin Loon
    2. George Ford
    3. Jammer
    4. Robert Mateicek
    5. Lynn

    Thanks to all of you for your support in 2009.  Hope I don’t scare you off in 2010.  And feel free to fight for the top five commenters spot for next year.

  • Bear Webcomics

    Given that many a folk will shorten my name, Bearman, to just the friendly “Bear”, I thought I would honor all those that I know of with webcomics that include the word “bear” or have main characters that have a bear.  Anyone have or know of any missing, let me know.

    First I want to highlight two frequent commenters here:

    Unbearable Bears Presents by David LaMason – Oskar the Bear stars along with his bird friend Bainbridge and their musings on life in the woods.

    Arctic Blast by Alfred Laird – comic based on the friendship of a Polar Bear, Seal, Inuit and a lost Flamingo and the adventures they find themselves involved in

    Others I follow:

    Ice Cubes Comics  by Leroy Brown with Pekinpaw the Polar Bear
    Imagine This by Lucas Turnbloom with the “cute” Teddy Bear Clovis
    Bear Nuts by Alison Acton

    And others I found.
    Bear and Tiger
    Wally and Osborne
    Bear vs Zombies
    Bennie and Boone
    The Devil Bear

  • Webcomics Selling Stuff

    Thought it would be nice with the holidays approaching to allow webcomic authors to plug any thing they are selling to make a living.  Shirts, Collections, Calendars, whatever.   I know Nate and Byron both are selling collections this year.

    Who else?

    Comment in the comments section and tell us about it.  If you can hyperlink an image even better.  And if any of my regular commenters who aren’t illustrators and have something to hock this year…feel free.  (Don we don’t want your old undershirts)