Happy Valentine’s Day (sorta) from the Undies:
College Humor offers holiday cards.
Diesel Sweeties, too, has cards aplenty.
Despair has BitterSweets Candies and a heart-shaped card that you can personalize with one or three hearts.
JibJab has tons of themed Sendables waiting for you to make them your own.
Perhaps sensing all of the above, Indexed commented on the (possibly […]
Micropersuasion.com’s Steve Rubel recently described the revolution underway as (i.) content production and distribution explodes and (ii.) creators bypass intermediaries to go direct. Providing an apt metaphor, he called for Digital Curators to help audiences discover, experience, and understand the best “finds” within this ever-increasing flow of content.
Nice call, Steve. Thank you.
We help audiences (all of us) find, follow, and enjoy the best work from the emerging class of self-sustaining Internet-based artists, aka the Undependents or Undies, who are telling amazing stories within podcasts, video, webcomics, machinima, animation, etc.
As curators, we feature these programs:
- Undependent.com, which focuses on success stories, trends, insights, and practical advice.
- The Undependent Del.icio.us feed, compiling excellent reference material and news;
- The Undependent Twitter feed, a quick spotlight on great new content, merch, and news;
- The Undependent Universe, our living museum showcasing the best Undies. (Thanks, Netvibes).
The Undependent Universe’s Collection continues to grow. It currently includes the following, in no particular order (visit the site for links):
- Webcomics: The Perry Bible Fellowship; Girl Genius; PvP; Starslip Crisis; Sheldon; Evil, Inc.; Piled Higher and Deeper; Wondermark; Unshelved; Dinosaur Comics; xkcd; A Softer World; Cat and Girl; Dresden Codak; AppleGeeks; Ctrl+Alt+Del; User Friendly; White Ninja Comics; and Octopus Pie.
- The Drumbrella Exhibit: Boy on a Stick and Slither; explodingdog; The Creatures in My Head; Diesel Sweeties; Overcompensating; Scary Go Round; Goats; Wigu; as well as RSS feeds from the creators;
- The Achewood Exhibit: featuring all character blogs;
- Videos/shows: Funny or Die; College Humor; The Onion; Heavy.com.
- Others: Penny Arcade; Rooster Teeth Productions; Angry Alien Productions; JibJab; Despair, Inc.; Ask A Ninja; Smosh; Homestar Runner; Those Lil’ Rabbits; Tiki Bar TV; Engrish.com.
- How To’s and News: Fleen; Webcomics Weekly; Comixtalk; Cold Hard Flash; NewTeeVee; Halfpixel; Web TV Wire; Thinking Machinima; Digital Strips.
- Rotating special exhibits highlighting great stuff, and much more!
We hope our programs help you enjoy the Undies more easily and regularly.
We live in such an exciting time, eh?
Creative expression flourishes, and newly empowered creators keep inventing more ways to delight their fans.
Thanks again, Steve, for your great post and ongoing work. And thanks, too, to all the Undies and especially all the fans who support them. Without you, this revolution doesn’t happen.
I recently highlighted Despair’s BitterSweets relaunch. In their typically super-creative fashion, they have amplified this product and taken it to a completely new level. Fans can now share their own expressions of dejection, dysfunction, and Despair.
At iheart.despair.com, you can:
- make your own custom, candy-heart image with anything you would like to say (in two lines of six characters each);
- email that image to friends;
- buy a custom, heart-shaped greeting card with your image on the front and your own text on the inside; and
- even load your card into a BitterSweets candy tin, into which it fits just perfectly.
In addition, since this product is completely integrated with their store, you can purchase these items in the same order as a t-shirt, mug, and custom calendar.
This is some seriously cool stuff. Share the love.
Time Magazine’s Lev Grossman calls webcomic Achewood (which is, perhaps, the best comic strip in American history) the best graphic novel of the year, noting “(i)t’s not a graphic novel in every, or maybe any, traditional sense, since its primary venue is the Web, but Achewood is so profoundly genius it would be a crime to put it anywhere but on this list, and at the top of it.” (more…)
Previously in Undependent…
- We profiled Tiki Bar TV’s Lala Pinup Calendar and praised it for:
- Its direct function as a wall calendar
- Its value as a shibboleth for Tiki Bar TV fans…
- Its deepening of the Tiki Bar TV brand thanks in part to its perfectly executed Vargas-style retro aesthetic
So now we’re introducing to Undependent readers Tiki Bar TV’s new “Drinkbot Decanter.”
Again, Tiki Bar has produced a genuinely original product here. Like the Lala Calendar and the Charooba Mug before it, Drinkbot Decanter scores a direct hit for true fans. But we at Undependent, presuming as we do to be experts, also have to praise Tiki Bar TV particularly their manufacturer Tiki Farm for a tiny detail which serves as the crowning achievement of this product. As this will factor into future merchandise profiles, we’ll call it the “You’ve Got to be Kidding Me” factor.
Drinkbot Decanter’s capstone is the tiny, detailed lampshade included with the order. If you haven’t done so already, watch the classic Drinkbot episode for this perfect bit of prop comedy. Being confident comedians, they don’t stop everything to ensure viewers see the lampshade on Drinkbot’s head. It’s just another example of theinspired lunacy that is the signature of Tiki Bar TV.
So, if you were making an expensive, completely custom mug, would you go to the trouble and add more cost to it for this small joke? Of course you wouldn’t. That’s why we’re not writing about you, we’re writing about someone who really gets how tangible the little intangibles ARE. Cheers and mahalo to Tiki Bar and Tiki Farm for really going the extra mile for a joke.
Now that you think about it, you agree, right? Buy a Drinkbot Decanter to say so!
While there is no shortage of interest in the album cover medium, there’s no obvious web page out dedicated to the world’s first record cover. I’m apparently I’m not the only one looking for it (See: “Anyone have a scan?“) I’ve seen scattered images from articles about Steinweiss but I’ve not found anything resembling a Shrine.
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posted on January 11th, 2008 in News
Meet the new Undependent.com. Underneath the hood, it’s still Wordpress, but in the world of new blogs (as in life) we all know it’s really what’s outside that truly counts. We owe a great debt of gratitude to Nicolò Volpato and GNV Partners for their great work.
We chose the minimalist color scheme to emphasize that it’s not about us.
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Dysfunctional. Dumped. Dejected. Which are you? Or maybe all three?
Perry Bible Fellowship’s success continues, which is just as it should be. Check out these wonderful figures on your way to reading the whole profile:
Records Broken By the Perry Bible Fellowship? - 10 Zen Monkeys
25-year-old cartoonist Nicholas Gurewitch watched as the pre-order sales climbed past $300,000 for The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories. Close to 27,000 copies were sold even before the collection of comic strips had its official release in November and crashed into Amazon’s top 250. “It bounces off and on Amazon’s best-seller lists all the time,” Gurewitch told me, jokingly searching for an explanation. “Nifty cover? I’m not sure.”
posted on January 5th, 2008 in Angry Alien, Flash
If you haven’t visited Angry Alien, know that upon visiting, you’re likely to send it to dozens of others. It’s just one of those things. It’s a Flash-based series of parodies of popular and classic films enacted by cartoon bunnies in 30 seconds. Jennifer Shiman, the creative force behind 30 Second Bunnies theater, has announced some of her forthcoming titles. (Goodfellas!)
Angry Alien Productions: 30-Second Bunnies Theatre and other cartoons.
Happy New Year, Everyone! The new 2008 Bunny Titles are in!
For 2008, we present thus far:
Goodfellas
Jurassic Park
Sixteen Candles
SuperBad
GrindHouse
30 Days of Night
Meanwhile, the bunnies are finishing Pirates of the Bunibbean 3, which will premiere on the Starz online player.
Also, we missed this interview with Jennifer and Texas Public Radio the first time around. Get up in this.
