Today I'm going to talk about another site I've known about for years and years, which also happens to be another site with funny cartoons.
I wonder if there's anybody on the net these days who hasn't heard of Homestar Runner. Mike and Matt Chapman have been making cartoons starring their continually-growing cast of original characters for over a decade now. A friend first showed me the site back in 2001, and I've been hooked since then. I'm also one of the many, many people who have contributed to making it possible for the Chapman brothers to support themselves selling Homestar Runner merchandise.
It's hard to pin down what it is that makes Homestar Runner work. They started out trying to write stories for kids, and I think they quickly decided to open it up to something anyone of any age could enjoy. Although I think there are a lot of references that are specifically geared to people who grew up in the 80s and 90s, who probably make up a large portion of web-surfers anyway.
The big thing Homestar Runner and Angry Alien have in common is that both sites' content consists mainly of Flash animations. Cartoons created with Adobe Flash have been a big thing on the web, and even on TV, for the last ten years, and those two sites have both capitalized on the popularity of the medium.
I'm not sure how Homestar Runner got to be as popular as it has. I think word of mouth is a big part of it. Like I said, I first heard about it from a friend, and I'd bet a lot of other people did. And on the web, word of mouth is a much stronger force. People can e-mail something they like to everyone they know. Search engines will pick something up and tons of people will stumble across it that way. Blogs, like this one, will link to something, and then more people will discover it.
Homestar Runner is probably one of the best sites out there in terms of creative presentation and representing the creators' work. It's a lot of fun to play around on the site because all the links are part of the interactive Flash animations. The links to the store are obvious but unobtrusive. They do a really good job, and I encourage anyone who hasn't seen it before (if there is anyone like that) to check it out.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Angry Alien
Welcome to my Electronic Publishing blog! This here's the place where I talk about Electronic Publishing thingies! And complete assignments for my Electronic Publishing class! It's fun! This I command!
This week, I will be writing three entries about web sites that do a particularly good job of presenting a creative narrative and representing a writer and his or her work. Today's entry is about an old web site that I first discovered years ago, but it was the first thing I thought of when I read the assignment.
Angry Alien Productions gives us 30-second reenactments of movies performed by cartoon bunnies. I don't know where that idea came from, but it works really well. 30 seconds is a great length for these. It's fun to see how they cram all the major plot points and classic lines from the movies into that small a time frame, and because it takes so little time to watch one, you feel compelled to watch another one, and pretty soon you've spent quite a while on the site watching a whole bunch of them. Also, the bunnies are cute and have cute little bunny voices.
There are also a few other features at the bottom of the site, my favorite of which is Amy's Diary, which features animated readings of third-grade diary entries. I think the voice work is what I like best about it. There's something really funny about adults doing dramatic readings of a third-grade diary and keeping spelling errors like "dear dairy" and "ect, ect, ect" intact. Actually it sounds kind of mean when I put it that way, but of course the diary belongs to one of the people involved in making the site, so it's okay.
The creator of the site, Jennifer Shiman, is primarily a cartoonist rather than a writer, but she certainly did a fair amount of writing to script those 30-second reenactments, so hopefully this counts as a writer featuring her work on the web. It's obviously been a successful piece of promotion for her. Her work is featured on Starz, and the site has gotten tons of hits and press. There are also merchandise links at the top and bottom of the page, which seem like pretty good places to put them to me. They're not annoyingly in your face, but you definitely notice them. I don't know for sure, but I feel confident in estimating that lots and lots of people have bought shirts with the cute little bunnies on them. All in all, I think this site is an excellent example of both a creative product and good self-promotion.
This week, I will be writing three entries about web sites that do a particularly good job of presenting a creative narrative and representing a writer and his or her work. Today's entry is about an old web site that I first discovered years ago, but it was the first thing I thought of when I read the assignment.
Angry Alien Productions gives us 30-second reenactments of movies performed by cartoon bunnies. I don't know where that idea came from, but it works really well. 30 seconds is a great length for these. It's fun to see how they cram all the major plot points and classic lines from the movies into that small a time frame, and because it takes so little time to watch one, you feel compelled to watch another one, and pretty soon you've spent quite a while on the site watching a whole bunch of them. Also, the bunnies are cute and have cute little bunny voices.
There are also a few other features at the bottom of the site, my favorite of which is Amy's Diary, which features animated readings of third-grade diary entries. I think the voice work is what I like best about it. There's something really funny about adults doing dramatic readings of a third-grade diary and keeping spelling errors like "dear dairy" and "ect, ect, ect" intact. Actually it sounds kind of mean when I put it that way, but of course the diary belongs to one of the people involved in making the site, so it's okay.
The creator of the site, Jennifer Shiman, is primarily a cartoonist rather than a writer, but she certainly did a fair amount of writing to script those 30-second reenactments, so hopefully this counts as a writer featuring her work on the web. It's obviously been a successful piece of promotion for her. Her work is featured on Starz, and the site has gotten tons of hits and press. There are also merchandise links at the top and bottom of the page, which seem like pretty good places to put them to me. They're not annoyingly in your face, but you definitely notice them. I don't know for sure, but I feel confident in estimating that lots and lots of people have bought shirts with the cute little bunnies on them. All in all, I think this site is an excellent example of both a creative product and good self-promotion.
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