News Archives

Memorabilia at the NEC

Posted on 28/11/2004 at 21:39:57 by MakTheYak
 
Well, the Memorabilia event is over, the stalls are packed up and everyone has gone home. I have to say I enjoyed myself a lot. We went with the aim of promoting the Forum as a great place to chat about cards and also to try and get my cartoons "out there" a bit. Many thanks must go out to Chris for making such amazing badges and the fantastic banner! But of course where would they have gone if it wasn't for Olly who played the perfect host and let us sit at his stall and stick business cards in all his carrier bags he handed out full of merch :)

I drew a few sketches (mostly for people I knew) and everyone seemed to like them! I guess my drawings aren't too bad even pre-computer stage (or they were just being really nice). I did manage to have a nose around the show a bit as well and managed to finish off my Red Dwarf crew photo as Craig Charles was there and I went and met him and got his sig. Quite chuffed about that! I also went to meet top Sketch Artist "Warren Martineck" who was taking requests and so I got him to draw me a spidey! How cool is that?


Finally, for the cherry on the cake, I managed to pick myself up a really nice condition boxed NES with light gun, duck hunt etc! I'm a happy bunny :D
 

Trading cards website is GO!

Posted on 15/11/2004 at 10:25:29 by MakTheYak
 
Gosh, just looking at the miserable news section I have been a bit lax updating it haven't I? Well I've been hard at work building a new website for Roz who seems to have taken over the forum in the past few months with her hordes of card collecting buddies. Not that I mind, it livens the place up! Anyway, I have created a website to track the prices that popular trading cards go for on EBay to provide a rough estimate of their value. It seems to be pretty popular! If trading cards is your bag then have a look and then pop on over to the forum to discuss :) And don't forget, the forum isn't just for the cards - it's also to discuss the comics if you have anything you'd like to say about them...
 
My goodness it's games playing heaven right now. What with the release of the Nintendo DS rumoured to be TODAY, Half Life 2 being given a worldwide release tommorrow (don't worry I WILL be playing that one as soon as it's out) and games like The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Metroid Prime 2 and that's not even mentioning the massive games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2 that I'm not going to be playing due to lack of time or hardware...
 
Still, it's good to have something to do, right? Don't worry, I always have plenty to do, never a dull moment. In just under 2 weeks time The Yak Shack will receive it's first ever publicity drive... well it's really for the forum / card thing as it's being pushed at the Memorabilia event at the NEC, Birmingham. Our good friend Olly has been kind enough to share his table with us to help the cause. We have had banners made, and badges and everything! Business cards - yep! If you can make it down there it would be great to see you, whether you're there for the cards or there for the toons. If you're there for the toons and ask nicely enough I might even draw you a quick sketch of one of the guys ;)
 
By the way, if you like the way this site or the Trading card site looks and you'd like me to build you a website (and you haven't already asked!), don't even hesitate to contact me and we can talk about it.
 

Kites, Bongos and Muffins

Posted on 26/10/2004 at 09:18:07 by MakTheYak
 
Hey folks... been a while hasn't it? Well I have taken this week off and so far I have been bashing bongos and flying kites. Bongos you say? Well yes! I'm talking about Donkey Konga for the Gamecube, of course! You get a pair of (plastic) bongos and then it's just like a dance mat game except you play the bongos instead. Which is good because you get to sit down. And it's especially good if you can't dance to save your own life. It's actually a lot of fun and I have been spending far too much time playing it while I should have been drawing cartoons and other such important things.

Yesterday we went down to the marshes, although this time we weren't expecting to get as muddy as usual. We took with us a chap called Peter who flew all the way from the Netherlands to help us out and he in turn brought some kites along. The general idea was to fly the kite and then strap a camera onto the string and have it hoist it up so we can take arial photographs of the area. In actual fact what happened was we ended up breaking the strut of one kite and the other one (which didn't have any struts) broke the string and floated off a couple of hundred meters across the mud flats. And so we ended up getting very muddy after all. *Sigh*. But we got it back and then decided to come back to Cambridge to try it out in the park instead. The wind was a lot more manageable there ;)

Muffins you say? Yes! Any fans of Making Fiends, which I have mentioned a few times previously, will be glad to know that there is a fun, halloweeny game available on the site which Amy Winfrey has been working hard on. Go check it out. It has instructions as per Charlotte AND Vendetta! And Charlotte will make you muffins at the end of the game so it's all worthwhile.

OK! Well I have some websites to work on and so I'll leave you poor, harassed people alone and let you get on with your lives. Don't forget to check back next Sunday for the Halloween strip and remember to keep checking the Cool Links box to the right - I'll keep adding fun things to look at and if you find anything you can too!
 
Edit: Well we tried again today with the kites and it went much more according to plan! The wind wasn't quite so 'gale force' and no kite catastrophies happened so with any luck we should have some photos to develop tomorrow! An all round success!
 

Guest Strips At The Ready...

Posted on 13/10/2004 at 15:13:39 by MakTheYak
 
Right folks, as you may or may not know Derrick Fish of Dandy & Company is running Total Chaos III: Conquest of the Guest Artists - his guest-two-weeks! I have given him a small run of strips as my contribution which debuts today and will run until (does the maths) Friday I guess! Anyway, so if you are feeling deprived of cartoonage head on over there. And as if you needed any more reasons to go, Derrick is an amazing artist who pumps his fantastically hilarious strip out daily to the slobbering masses. He's currently accepting donations of any size and in return he'll give you a fantastic wallpaper in full colour featuring all his main characters and some of the less main ones too!). Also as part of guest week the incredibly talented Chris Hendricks has made a 3D animated short featuring Dandy... trust me it's well worth seeing! Man, I think I've just convinced my entire readership to go to Dandy & Company and never even bother coming back here!
 
Don't forget folks - the Nintendo DS is coming out soon. I for one am pretty excited about this piece of kit... apart from the "better-than-N64" graphics, the wireless gameplay, and in built microphone there's the screens... it has two of them! and one is touch sensitive... imagine the possibilities! you can pre-order the DS at Lik-Sang for nothing, and then you decide whether to buy it or not when they get the order in and have decided on the pricing for sure. It's a no-loose situation! Go for it... then we can hook up online and I'll pound your virtual ass into the ground :D
 

The Winds of Change...

Posted on 03/10/2004 at 17:51:37 by MakTheYak
 
Well folks, it took me too long to do this Pirates! strip and I think the thing is I am just trying to do too much. As well as my regular job, I have various freelance jobs that are all looming over me and just basically stressing me out to the point where I don't get anything done because I'm spending too much time stressing over if it's going to get done or not.
 
That's why I've come to the dificult descision that I'm going to have to drop the rate I draw comics. I know it's not that fast as it is and that some other artists manage daily updates as well as a regular day job. I honestly don't know how they do it. They must spend every waking hour working on it. Until I figure out their secret I'm going to have to sit back and marvel at their power. Anyway I have decided that I will be dropping Bob's Your Uncle for a little while. I'm not ending it because we're partway through an increasingly long story and it's not cool not to finish off stories. So at some point, maybe after I've finished some of these extra jobs, I will resume Bob long enough to at least finish off the current story. But for now it will just be the Pirates! once a week every Sunday.
 
The reason I chose Pirates! over Bob was because I got the general idea that it was more popular. I know there are a few people who prefered Bob and I'm sorry to you guys. It was a tough descision but I think it had to be made (for my sanity, if not for anything else!).