Scrapings of Peel

Just a quick reminder that Twisted Peel will be taking part in Thought Bubble (Leeds Comic Convention) this Saturday 20th November as part of the 24th Leeds International Film Festival and the Leeds Sequential Art Festival 2010.

I’ll be there from 10am-5pm selling signed copies of my latest anthology, Twisted Peel Volume I, so please do pop along and see me if you get the chance. It promises to be a great day!

The venue is located just opposite the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds at Clarence Dock. The Royal Armouries is well signposted throughout Leeds if you’re driving. The address is: Saviles Hall, Armouries Square, Armouries Drive, Leeds, LS10 1LT. Maps and drections, including details on bus services for those arriving by train, are available from the Thought Bubble website on the venue page. The venue is also walking distance from the train station, it’s about 10-15 minutes from the station if you’re on foot.

Parking is available at the NCP car park by the venue for £12 per day and is valid from 7am to 11.59pm.

I have a tasty little insect-shaped treat for you this week in the shape of Bug by Adam Huber. Bug has only been running since late 2009 but it has already started to build up a dedicated and enthusiastic fan base, and for good reason. It’s cute, quirky, and funny in equal measure; and the website has a very soothing colour scheme (although, admittedly, if you frequent the Twisted Peel website, a soothing colour scheme is probably not a prerequisite for you…).

I had the pleasure of chatting to Adam Huber this week about his charming insect creation…

Scrapings of Peel: Where do you get your inspiration?

Adam: Most of the time it’s from daydreaming. Letting my mind wander and do a little free-association works like a charm. I usually start with one idea leads to a slightly different idea and so on, until the joke I settle on has nothing to do with the original idea. I usually like to start my mornings by listening to a little NPR and reading some news. That usually gives me ample fodder for jokes. Also, one cannot discount the importance of going for walks. I don’t know what it is but I can’t write while sitting still. Most of my best jokes came from long walks.

Scrapings of Peel: How have you built up such a loyal following in such a short space of time?

Adam: I think it all started with a friend of my roommates. She (my roommate) told a friend of hers and he posted a link to my comic on twitter. The next day I noticed my numbers took a nice jump and they’ve been climbing ever since. I know sites like StumbleUpon and Reddit have really helped get the site out to the masses. When I started Bug, my initial plan was to do no advertising for the first year. I figured it would take me a year to figure out the strip and I didn’t want folks to visit the site and judge it based on the early work – which I knew would be pretty bad. But the site has taken on a life of it’s own and I finally feel like I’ve got a handle on the strip.

You can visit Bug by Adam Huber at http://www.bugcomic.com/

Profile at-a-glance

• Artist(s):  Adam Huber
• When did it start? October 19th, 2009
• How often is it published? Daily
• Bug in 5 words? Bug, quirky, zombies, insecty, cute.

Twisted Peel for iPhone was released this month to coincide with the unofficial 3rd anniversary of Twisted Peel and the official release of the 250th Twisted Peel cartoon strip (entitled Man Flu Revisited) which was covered by the popular web comic forums Comix Talk, Top Web Comics, and The Web Comic List.

This week, Scrapings of Peel interviews the brains behind Twisted Peel for iPhone, Romain Criton, from iPhone development house Mobiware.

Mobiware was founded in 2010 by Romain Criton, a Telecoms engineer with 10 years of experience in software development, project management and team management, in particular on mobile devices. Mobiware specialise in software development outsourcing and consulting on mobile platforms: iPhone and Android, of course, but also Blackberry, Symbian, Bada, Windows Phone or J2ME. Mobiware also develop mobile-optimised websites adapted to mobile devices, from high-end smartphones, like the iPhone, to mass-market dumbphones.

I originally contacted Romain back in January 2010 after I saw the iLbert app by Mobiware Casa (a Dilbert comic reader, no longer on the App Store but still available in the Android Market) and realised the potential for releasing Twisted Peel for iPhone using a similar format. Romain and I corresponded back and forth while I was travelling with my wife Amy in Thailand at the start of this year and, within a couple of months of my return to the UK, we signed a development contract for Romain to start work in the summer. Following several rounds of testing and enhancements, Twisted Peel for iPhone was released on Saturday, 16th October 2010 and has so far seen very healthy download figures from almost every corner of the globe and received very positive feedback.

Twisted Peel for iPhone is currently one of only 58 apps competing in the webcomics category in the iTunes Store (compared to the 20,000+ webcomics competing across the Internet), and is now sitting side by side with the big names in the webcomic market such as XKCD and Cyanide & Happiness. If you are an “Apple fiend”, then get yourself over to the iPhone app store and download a copy of Twisted Peel for iPhone. It’s FREE, and it’s AWESOME. You can trust me, I’m not biased.

Romain commented, “It was a pleasure to work with Peter and help him bring his hilarious Twisted Peel comics to the iPhone. An iPhone app was the ideal way to let his readers enjoy Peel’s adventures on the move…” Ah, you’re too kind, Romain, too kind… but I couldn’t agree more!

I asked Romain for some final thoughts about the current state of play with the mobile application market and the Mobiware philosophy. “It is very important for us to be “platform-agnostic” and cover all the major mobile platforms because that’s the best way for us to help our clients reach their targeted population. Put another way, we are advocating peace and harmony in the middle of the raging “mobile platforms war” (or should we say “wars” since there’s a “web vs. apps” war, an “Apple vs. Google” war, a “Google vs. Microsoft” war, etc.).”

A special favourite of mine this week, White Ninja by Kent Earle and Scott Bevan.

White Ninja is an endearing black and white webcomic about, you’ve guessed it, a White Ninja. Scott Bevan, in an interview with Randomville, describes the webcomic as, “…so dumb it will make you want to stop doing anything smart for a while, ‘cause it’s such a good feeling.” I couldn’t agree more… it’s everything you need to disengage your mind and relax for a few minutes on your coffee break.

Highly recommended for stressed out office bunnies everywhere!

The White Ninja archive contains over a 1,000 cartoons to keep you entertained for a long, long time, and Scott Bevan and Kent Earle have also recently release a new White Ninja book called White Ninja Lives His Life Like a Candle in the Wind which is the third book in the series, following on from White Ninja Has a Serious Kiwi Problem, and I am White Ninja.

Profile at-a-glance

• Artist(s):  Kent Earle and Scott Bevan
• When did it start? 2002
• How often is it published? Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
• White Ninja in 5 words? Inane, non-sequitur, endearing, random, chuckle.

Well, I’ve been beavering away at the Twisted Peel You Tube Channel this week and, after a great deal of feverish clicking, I’ve managed to create a playlist of the complete set of clips from Limelight (and, in the process, identified a lot of material that has been removed from You Tube due to copyright infringement). So, if you have a You Tube account, you now have the option to follow Limelight through the Twisted Peel You Tube Channel, as well.

Don’t forget to give the Twisted Peel clip, Phonetic Alphabet, a thumbs up while you’re there, too - only if you like it, of course!

And, if you have any suggestions for Limelight comedy clips that would appeal to Twisted Peel, then let me know.

This week, I’d like to share little gem of a webcomic, Fredo and Pid’jin. The creation of Eugen Erhan and Tudor Muscalu, Fredo and Pid’jin are essentially, “…two white pigeons who want to kill you and everyone else on Earth.” Happily, the apocalyptic slant of the cartoons is balanced by a cutesy cartoon style of the main characters Fredo (“the larger, more rotund of the pigeons”) and Pid’Jin (“so slender, he’s actually pointy”) and an irreverant sense of wit.

Fredo and Pid’jin are currently on sabatical (returning this autumn) but anybody that has not yet experienced the delight of these huggable fiends there is a huge archive to plough through until their return.

Profile at-a-glance

• Artist(s):  Eugen Erhan and Tudor Muscalu
• When did it start? 2006
• How often is it published? Intermittently
• Fredo and Pid’jin in 5 words? Apocolpytic, acerbic, rude, cute, pidgeons.

This week, I’m interviewing voice artist Gabriel Wolf about his background in the industry and his inspiration for the voice of Peel in the recently released Twisted Peel demo animated short, “Phonetic Alphabet“.

Since venturing into the universe of voice overs, Gabriel has always kept his eyes and ears open for opportunities to test his vocal versatility.  Nurturing his desire to work in animation and the gaming industry he follows almost every animated movie, series, channel, video/web-based and online computer game, or merely socialises to find personalities he can find ‘treasure’ in to add to the stockpile of characters and vocal styles he currently has.  Highly creative and imaginative, Gabriel works with enthusiasm and charm, knows his way around the microphone, and is a true professional when it comes to interpreting a script. When called for, improvisation is brought into the mix to bring a quality which only he can produce.

I talked to Gabriel about his experience creating the voice of Peel.

“Refining the direction and essence of Peel was made quite easy once initial contact had been made with Peter and we had a introductory natter on the phone about my original audition piece and meshing together the personality of Peel. Reading through his work, I took to envisioning a good friend of mine being in many of Peels’ situations and placing some of his attitude into the foundations of the final product. Once the voice was softened, given a slight uncertainty and lack of confidence that Peel required plus… the squawk-talk from the telephone operator lending to the atmosphere the cartoon strip had, Peel really came to life. Tim Hull, I’m sure won’t mind being my inspiration here, has quite the twin in Peel and it made it an easy glide through the script and I’ve been delighted to be invited to work on this project with Peter and the others involved.”

You can listen to Gabriel’s full range of vocal talents at iCan Talk

Gabriel is represented by voice agent Katie Matthews-Lee (http://www.icantalk.co.uk/)

It is with great excitment that I introduce the Twisted Peel Animated Short (Demo) which is available to view on the brand new Twisted Peel Channel on You Tube. The 47 second demo, entitled Phonetic Alphabet (based on the cartoon of the same name) has been put together as a “proof of concept” for a possible series of future animated shorts.

I have been working closely with voice artist Gabriel Wolf and animation studio Arkady Animation over the last month to bring together the finished demo; the music is written by Alex Khaskin. I will aim to bring you some interviews with the people involved over the next few weeks.

In the mean time, enjoy Phonetic Alphabet starring Twisted Peel.

This week, I’m introducing one of the biggest and best webcomics around, Cyanide & Happiness. The brainchild of four pals who met over the Internet, united by their “love for putting cute characters into awful, awful situations”, Cyanide & Happiness has a huge archive of cartoons, and a burgeoning collection of lovingly crafted animations.

I’ve been following Cyanide & Happiness on and off for the last 4 years or so but with the introduction of the Cyanide & Happiness iPhone app, I’ve found myself reading it religiously every day. (I won’t tell you where I read it… but you can probably guess!)

Profile at-a-glance

• Artist(s): Kris Wilson, Rob DenBleyker, Matt Melvin, and Dave McElfatrick
• When did it start? 2004
• How often is it published? Daily
• Cyanide & Happiness in 5 words? Rude, crude, and definitely lewd

If you’ve got a sick sense of humour, you’ll love Cyanide & Happiness. And, to illustrate that very point, here is one of my favourite earlier animations.

I’ve had the strange pleasure this last week of listening to a variety of voice over demos for the “voice of Peel”. I am currently  in the process of putting together a series of  Twisted Peel “animated shorts” (which will hopefully be ready at some point during the Autumn) and, after I had found somebody to do the animation, I suddenly realised that I needed to provide the final sound files very early on in the project so that the animator can complete a “lip sync”.

I found a fascinating website called Voice123 which is an online agency for voice over talent and I started trawling through hundreds of different voice demos and listening out for a voice that matched the voice of Twisted Peel that I had in my head. The good news is that I found a voice artist who I think will be able to produce not only the voice of Twisted Peel but hopefully also the voice of Twisted Pixie, and possibly Stud Buddy, as well, and we are currently in the process of refining the final voice through a process of “trial and error”.

I am hopeful that I will be able to run an interview with the voice artist in question once I have a contract in place, so that I can whet your collective appetites!

I have also short listed some possible theme tunes!