Tag: Google Plus

  • Bearman Cartoons Charity Challenge 2012

    Bearman Cartoons Charity Challenge 2012

    Yes it is that time of year once again.  The Bearman Cartoons Charity Challenge, where you do stuff and I donate money to worthy charities.  I have been extremely fortunate that both my wife and I are gainfully employed during this tough economic times so I am upping the ante this year.

    This is the Fourth Year I have done this so far donating $1656 ($336 in 2009, $630 in 2010, $690 in 2011) and it will run until the end of May.

    Many of you know that I do this challenge each year to raise awareness of my blog while giving money to charities who need it.  Historically, this has been the majority of my advertising budget for the year so if you enjoy Bearman Cartoons, please help by spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc and/or thumbing up on StumbleUpon or Reddit.

    As in previous years, the first $500 raised will once again go to the Cincinnati FreeStore Foodbank. This charity does great things not only to feed those in need but also to help families get back on their feet in other ways.   Anything donated above $500 to the max $1000 will go to support the Down Syndrome Association of Greater Cincinnati.  I have a relative with Down Syndrome and this organization does an incredible job working with the families of those afflicted.

    But that is not all.  Some of you know I donate 100% of my commissions directly to Crayons to Computers.  It is a free store for teachers allowing them to stock up on school and art supplies for their students/classrooms.  So I am going to match dollar for dollar anything you donate to Crayons to Computers up to a max $500.  When donating just make it in Honor of Bearman Cartoons and they will know how to notify me.

    I will donate the indicated amount for each thing that you do in the month of May:

    • $10 – For any cartoonists who uses ME in a cartoon in their strip.  Use “BEARMAN” somewhere in the toon.  Maybe it’s a character’s name, a name on a bar sign in the background, integrating my green haired gravatar into a background character or even loosely as “Check out that Bear, man!”  Be sure to link back to this post so I know to include you in my tally.   I know some of you work with a buffer so if you plan to post after May just contact me and let me know and I will add it to the list.
    • $5 – Add http://beartoons.com to your blog roll (for those who don’t already have it)
    • $5 – Add a Bearman Cartoons Banner Ad (found here) on your site or if you already have one upgrade to a larger size.  Link it to http://beartoons.com
    • $10 – Blog about my challenge to your readers and link back to this entry in your post – http://beartoons.com/2012/04/29/bearman-cartoons-charity-challenge-2012
    • $5 – Send a picture of yourself wearing a t-shirt from our shop OR send a picture that showcases that you are a BEARMANiac. Photos will be showcased in weekly updates and also appear ongoing in the BEARMANia section.    See below for my favorite fan pic from Lynn.
    • $1 – Circle/Follow me on Google Plus – http://googleplus.beartoons.com.   Currently I have 13,218 followers.

    If you add me to your blog roll, add/upgrade your banner, include this challenge in a post, please indicate in the comments. I’ll post a weekly update of the money raised and who did what to raise the money with links back to your site if applicable.

    Thanks for your continued support.

    Ladies love BEARMAN

  • Social Media and Cats

    Editorial Cartoon: Social Media and Cats

    And the Caption Contest Winner is – ME!! And all of you who agreed with me that cats getting attention on social media is the bane of existence for someone posting something they actually spent time on.

    And the inspiration was this picture of our cats, playing on the ipad with their favorite app Games for Cats.

     

  • I Hate Social Media Cartoon (Caption Contest)

    I Hate Social Media Cartoon

    Cartoon Caption Contest time.  You need to help me complete the words that best go into the third panel.  While I posed this as a cartoonist I think we can all relate to posting things online only for them to get ignored while other crap gets a bunch of attention.   Here are some options I came up with:

    • Oh look (fill in name of any Celebrity on the same social media site) found my cartoon and uploaded it to his stream.
    • I am just going to post how much I hate social media
    • Wow look at that cartoon.  Looks like he spent about 5 seconds on it.
    • Before I go, I’ll post this picture of my cat licking himself.

    All of my choices have actually happened to me.  Like one of these or got something better.  Post it in the comments.  I’ll put the finished one up either Wed or next Sunday.

  • Sara Mena draws Bearman Cartoons

    One of my new friends I found on Google Plus is Illustrator Sara Mena.  She is one of those artists whose work I am constantly in awe of.  Her line work and coloring is just amazing.

    The other day she posted that she was heading to CARNAVAL (for the uninformed it is like Mardi Gras but in Brazil and way more out there).  Joking as if I read it as if she were going to the “carnival”, I asked her to bring me back some Cotton Candy.  So a few days later to my amazement this image popped up in my stream.

    You can follow Sara on Google Plus or Twitter.

    Also this week I did a guest cartoon for QuarterBar where I did a mash up of one of his photos and added my cartoon touch to it.  Check it out here.

  • Social Media Love

    How Google Plus Followers compare to Twitter and Facebook.

    I am sure my regulars are tired of my love fest with Google Plus, but here is the proof in my eyes. As a brand, Facebook is so hard to drive new followers. I even paid money one month to advertise my page and got clicks but they didn’t convert. And honestly besides my regular readers who will post comments here, the only others who are following are friends and family who don’t comment. So I post on Facebook and get little traffic from it and fewer comments.

    On twitter I have had greater success as you can follow and engage with people whether they care to follow you back so you have a more robust conversation, sharing and I get more traffic from twitter than I do facebook.

    As of today, I am at 3750 people and it has grown organically. I know some people who will put as many people in their twitter/google plus circles hoping to get 10% to follow them back and thus have a bunch of followers. I don’t engage in that practice. I prefer to have a nice balance between who is in my circles and who has me in theirs.

    When I started, I circled about 200 people (mostly bloggers I already knew, cartoonists or training professionals). From there I engaged in what they were saying, others found it and started following me and it has grown. For any given cartoon I post, I get more traffic here and more interaction than either of the other two.

    If people are interested, I can post some other time on some of the things I did that built it but if you don’t see me much anymore on FB and Twitter, you know why.

  • Joel Poirier takes on Bearman

    Joel Poirier does a caricature of Bearman Cartoons

    This incredible version of the BEARMAN is compliments of Joel Poirier, cartoonist extraordinairre, and creator of Stripped Comics (don’t get any ideas, it is not porn – it’s about Superheroes.)

    I have been doing some caricatures on Google Plus that I call “muggings”.  You can check out some I have done here.  Joel thought I should get a taste of my own medicine and drew this up for me.  Love it!!

    Make sure to check out Joel and follow him on Google Plus or Facebook

     

    UPDATE

    Ryan Klassen of City Folk the Webcomic wanted to join the party too so he did a mash up of Steve Buscemi and Bearman.

    Find him on Google Plus too.

    Ryan Klassen Caricature of Steve Buscemi and Bearman Cartoons

     

     

     

     

     

  • Why Google Plus is better than….

    Why Google Plus is better than Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Digg

    So it is no secret that I have been somewhat neglecting my friends on facebook, twitter, etc because my time on social media has been taken up by Google Plus.  While it of course has some limitations I wish they would work out sooner rather than later, the above cartoon pretty much sums up why it is better IMO than other social media.

    As always let me know if you need an invite.  And for people who have recently joined who are lost, ahem Bo Lumpkin, a fellow cartoonist Debbie Ohi has created a nice page with links to help get you started.  You can find it here.

  • Editorial Cartoon: Google Plus Gifs

    Editorial Cartoon poking from of oversharing of animated gifs on Google Plus from Beartoons.com

    This editorial cartoon about animated gifs on Google Plus came from my time on there over the past two weeks.  For those of you who engage with me on Twitter or Facebook, I apologize as I have been sucked into the world of Google + and though it has it’s limitations, I prefer it over both platforms.

    The Good

    • Take the best of twitter in that you can follow the message streams of anyone you want with the best of facebook that allows you to see pictures, links and more than 140 characters and that is the promise of Google Plus.
    • Being able to engage with people you admire and feel like your message isn’t lost.
    • The ability to put the people you follow into different circles that you create.  For example, I have a circle for people I folow that don’t follow me, webcomic people, art people, learning people, etc.  At any point I can only look at the postings from any individual group AND I can have a posting only show up to specific individuals or circles.

    The Not So Good

    • Unless you link your photo albums to Googles photo sharing site Picasa, the way it manages your pictures is horrible.   I would love to see a feature that allows you to choose “insert picture” and have you be able to choose a specific picture from a specific album.  I am hoping there is a fix for that soon or I am doing something wrong and someone will correct me.

    One complaint I hear from others that I am not so sure I mind YET is that some circles are so incestuous with the same people that 5 people can share someone else’s post and it shows up every time in your stream if you have all five people in your circle.  The one complaint you hear most about is oversharing of animated gifs.  Again, so far I don’t mind them but I love when someone says “I know people don’t like animated gifs but I HAD to share this one because it is so cool.”

    So is it ironic that I had to make this cartoon an animated gif in order to make a point of animated gifs?  Is it even irony?  I don’t know since all the “experts” said none of Alanis Morrisette’s examples in Ironic weren’t ironic.