Bearman Charity Challenge 2013

I was reading an awesome interview over at Don’t Pick the Flowers about my pal, Bearman, and about his annual Charity Challenge.

So, there will be several mentions in this blog about things and obviously about the Charity Challenge.  I could go on and on about the details about it (we’ll let Bearman do that), but it’s best if you check it out HERE.  It won’t cost you a dime, but the goal of it is to….

Above source:  From Bearman Cartoons

Please go check it out.  And while you’re there, stay awhile and read some of his fun and amusing cartoons.  You won’t get bored.  Promise.

Again though, this post is about more.  While reading through my friend David Hurley’s Don’t Pick the Flowers (another great place to go spend some time reading the blogs and hilarious cartoons) I was reminded about how long I’ve been online and where it all started (with my online version of stuff).

Bearman mentions how it was our mutual friend George Ford of Addanac City (and yet ANOTHER great place to go read some sweet comics!) and I were some of the first people he met while launching his website.

Well, same here.

It was strange, but back in late 2007 – early 2008 – there seemed to be an influx of new and emerging web cartoonist (me included).  The newspapers were tanking, print was supposedly dying and the web seemed to be the way to go.  So, the strange part is it seems like we all kind of arrived at the same time.  And when I say ‘we’ I’m talking about people that I still keep in contact with today and that I’m familiar with.

Yes, there were several web comics before this time, but I never noticed them.  I’m not sure if a lot of the public did.  Who knows.  This seemed – at least in my opinion – to be the real dawn of online cartoons.  Again though, that’s just through my perspective.

When I first started off taking my stab at the online market, I began with a series called The Frustrated Cartoonist.  I’m talked about it several times here at Nate’s Ramblings and have put up several examples.  Basically though, my cartoon wasn’t really going anywhere and so I scratched it after about a year-and-a-half run.  It was fun and exhausting at the same time.  I set it up to become a ‘Choose your own adventure’ sorta theme where readers would take a poll on what happened to the characters, plot, etc.  Everyone had fun voting and I had fun watching.  The tricky part came AFTER the voting when I actually had to draw the thing.  I had, like –  a day to fill-in-the-blanks, if you know what I mean.  So, that along with trying to get more material “out there” was nearly impossible.  If there were two of me, I’d have The Frustrated Cartoonist still being produced today just for the fun of it.

After the end of that, I focused on working with comedian Tommy Blaze on our series, Knocking on Heaven’s Door.  I saw the big potential in that, and to this day, we’re moving along with some exciting things with the series.  More on that soon….

And with that, I then started really honing in on newspapers, MAD Magazine, clients, etc.  Basically all the work I’m doing today.

But with the web, I’ve learned a lot through the years and things have changed.  One thing is that I’m not too good at making webcomics all my own.  I had a very hard time with the website designs, layouts, promoting it, etc.  Everything was a challenge.  So, I opted for the more traditional route for the most part.  Still, to this day, I have a lot of web features from clients and other sources.  Heck, you could almost consider Break of Day a web cartoon (well, it kind of is).  It’s featured elsewhere beyond online though, so it’s not just that.  Luckily though, with Break of Day, I don’t have to do all the intricate web design and things because it’s done for me.  Whew!

That time though (back in 07 – 08) was really fun to watch all the new material arise.  I used to visit dozens of sites on a daily basis.  I actually considered myself quite involved with everyones (well, sites I was aware of) work and commented consistently and everything.  However, as time went on, I found that even that was something I just couldn’t fit the time in for.

A lot of cartoons survived since then – many have failed (including mine).  Two that were there right along with me online though were George Ford’s Addanac City and (I won’t use his real name) Beartoons.  I think we all supported each other on getting started in this new, technology driven world.  Amazing it’s been five years now.

As we all keep on trucking’ along, it’s great to meet new people as well like Don’t Pick the Flowers, David Hurley.  There are definitely more names out there as well of people that I know, but  – c’mon – I can’t mention EVERYONE (sorry, everyone).

So, back to the BIG point of a lot of this – go check out Bearman’s Charity Challenge and help empty his wallet!  It’s a simple way to help and have fun at the same time.  CLICK HERE.