News Archives
And The Weather Today
Posted on 31/03/2004 at 23:41:55 by MakTheYakLight sneezes and very sunny throughout the region. Pollen count: high.
No Pirates strip this week, instead I have taken it upon myself to create a game all about hayfever, one of this week's challenges from the mighty B3ta. Go play it and tell me what you think! I'm always open to suggestions and ideas for improvements.
If you find yourself with a spare few minutes, please go and look at Making Fiends, a very cool and ever so slightly dark (and indeed very funny)Flash animation by Amy Winfrey.
Good news to all webcomic fans: Both Staccato and Bug & Slug are recently back in action with a new strip and are saying there will be more where they came from! Good news indeed...
And with that, I shall leave you to sneeze away to your hearts content!
Sneezin' Steven Picture
Ooarr me hearties
Posted on 25/03/2004 at 01:56:45 by MakTheYakAre you getting as tired of hearing these pirate headlines as I am of writing them? Here, have a strip.
OK well soon (not sure how soon, but soon), I shall create a whole new section for the pirates. That way the news will be back to normal and I'll be able to post those little pics in the corner. Remember them? No I didn't think so.
Exciting news (for me): I got TheYakShack business cards printed! Why? Well because it's cool, of course! Why else? Actually I occasionally find myself in situations where it would be useful to be able to hand over a business card rather than scribble a phone number down on a scrap bit of paper which will subsequently be lost in amongst a whole buch of other paperwork and then chucked out when it is re-found. That's why. And let's not forget they're damn cool!
Guess what? I entered (last minute) a competition put on by London Underground and the London Comedy Festival to win getting my toon up on posters all around London. And the chance to go to an awards ceremony. So no money then? No but I'd get a lot of exposure and that's what I need right now! You can see the toon I entered right here! The theme was "London Life". Thanks to my pal Lucian for telling me about it!! Think I'll win? Think it's rubbish? Tell me in the forums! Don't worry, it's free and I won't spam you if you sign up, promise!
Geez what else? I got my hair cut? It's nice and short now and to be honest it was so long since I last had it cut that I was very surprised how nice it felt/looked once it was finished! Anyway... enjoy the rest of the week folks and check back on Sunday for the next BYU!
It's the seventh "Three Sheets To The Wind" strip
Posted on 18/03/2004 at 02:12:35 by MakTheYakAnd you know what that means? Colour!
OK so even though I'm not actually doing it every day I want to maintain that illusion by every seventh strip (ie Sunday) I do it in full colour! Just like a Sunday strip. Clever, huh? I hope you like it.
A big shout goes out to Lucian and Baz who travelled many miles to see me over the weekend and a good time was had by all. Cheers guys!
I have recently been introduced to an arcade (one of the few remaining, I'm sad to say) which charges a mere pound but you get like 7 or 8 credits. What a bargain! So I'm honing my skills on Streetfighter and Tekken so I can take out my mates. Hmmm.... no probably not going to happen, in actual fact.
Not too much really been happening to tell you all about. As a consequence I have been spending a lot of time on B3ta, one of the most amusing and original message boards out there. For all who don't know, B3ta is a community of people who "love the web". They (we) find or create images and then do something very amusing to them in <your graphics program here> and stick them on the board to get other peoples opinion. Overall they're pretty funny and clever and so there's never a dull moment. There are many thousands of users (I'm not kidding) and so there is always a large number of people posting messages. Go once, come back 10 minutes later and eveything has completely changed. In short it's bloody great and should be avoided at all costs if you have important work to do!
Arrrr at long last me hearties
Posted on 12/03/2004 at 03:26:43 by MakTheYakA new comic!
Wow. What a week. Two weeks. However long it has been. I can't honestly remember. All I know is I've been slacking with the comics and I'm V-E-R-Y sorry. Don't worry, Bob will make a return this Sunday as well if all goes as planned. Right. Now to tell you what I've been up to!
Last weekend Roz and I went to London Film and Comicon. No not as guests. Hehe. I wish. As it turned out there were actually no comics there. So much for the misleading title then. Apparently they couldn't get any comic bods to come along. I'm wondering if they were actually looking in the right places. I tell you if this was the US there'd be artists clambering over themselves to go.
Anyway that's besides the point. We went along and met up with a whole bunch of stars from Lord of the Rings (Billy Boyd, Andy Serkis, John Rhys Davies, Sala Baker) and got their autographs and then there was pretty much the whole of the Red Dwarf crew there, with the exception of Craig Charles who actually ended up making a cameo appearance in one of the talks anyway.
The talks were in all honesty the best bit. Well then there's the whole meeting the stars thing and that's cool but you don't always know what to say etc etc. So go along to one of these question and answer sessions, it's always a good laugh. A bunch of the crew just sit up there with mikes and take questions. Then they answer them and chat about them amongst themselves. When you get strong personalities like Serkis and Rhys Davies together it can get very very funny with Serkis lapsing into Gollum every now and then. He even rounded the session off by auctioning off a bunch of collectables for charity, Gollum being the auctioneer!
Of course there was the Red Dwarf talk too which was great but it became that much better when Craig Charles pops out of the audience in disguise and asks in a gruff voice "Where's Dave Lister". The best part was that no one got that it was him until much later in the talk! Turns out he's currently filming for a show called Changing Faces where he puts on prosthetics to make him look like a major burns victim and then he goes around in public and judges peoples reactions and the way people treat him differently. It was really realistic! I'll be looking out for that show.
In between all that we met up with some old friends and had a nice curry for lunch. New place near Angel called Masala Zone, it's really nice and dosen't break the bank. Shame about the name though.... hehe.
Been spending a lot of time in London recently as on Monday I went down again to participate in an event called "Broadcast Assasins". What it was all about is essentially we (the assasins) go down to meet a bunch of BBC middle management bods and explain to them how we use all the new media available to us. Particularly focussing on P2P filesharing networks but also other technologies like Timeshift TV, Video on Demand, video game usage and various other things. Essentially I think the Beeb want to take hold of P2P systems and use the technology to distribute their own quality programming. And who can argue with that? For a much more in depth read on the subject, please go and check out my pal Chris' blog on his site www.qwghlm.co.uk.
Lastly, but by no means least I call on you as human being to sign this petition. As some will know, the mighty Lucasarts have been working on a sequal to the best game ever: Sam and Max Hit the Road. But guess what? In the most foolish move ever they have decided to cancel the game. Only a few months before it should have shipped! It's crazy! It could have been game of 2004. Weep for Sam and Max: Freelance Police. Mourn it's loss. Pray for Lucasarts to continue production on this fine title and vow never to buy another Lucasarts product until they change their minds. But then you'd only buy stuff from them if you like Star Wars anyway, wouldn't you? It's the only thing they know how to do these days......
Meaty
Posted on 03/03/2004 at 23:01:35 by MakTheYakSorry folks, no Pirate strip this week - I'm just too tired (and disorganised). How about this though? I did a guest strip for my pal Case over at Gluemeat! Go check it out here and whilst you're at it go and check out the rest of his strips cos they're all ace!
Well on Sunday, we went (inline) skating for the first time this year - cold but invigorating. But then again just about any outdoor activity is cold at this time of year. Case in point: Roz and I were stranded for 4 hours on a salt marsh getting muddy wiring in new bits of equipment for her PhD fieldwork project. Yes it's true, the real reason there's no comic this Wednesday is that frostbite claimed three of the fingers on my right hand. Don't worry they'll grow back ;)
One last thing - never drive in Swindon. I know I'm going to avoid it like the plague. I hate roundabouts with a passion. Imagine my reaction when I saw this. Nightmare! I think the most rational thing to do in a sitation like that would be to drive at full speed towards the exit you want, close your eyes, scream and hope for the best. Seriously. And with that thought I'll leave you with the hope of a BYU at the weekend!
