Yeah. cel’s back.
I recently did some design work for an app called Rehearsal, a cool tool that helps actors memorize lines, prepare for auditions, make notes and more – all from an iPhone or iPod Touch! If you’re an actor with one of these devices, I highly recommend you give this app a try (I believe you get a week for free), and I’m not just saying that because I worked on it – it’s actually extremely useful, easy to use and really helps! Now I just need more auditions so I can use it more often. Is there an app for that? 
If you’d like to know more, check out these sites:
• Rehearsal Official Site
• Appolicious review
• 148Apps review
• 
Judging from the responses I’ve gotten about the app, it sounds like a lot of you would like to know how I got involved, overwhelmingly because many of you are fans of David H. Lawrence XVII, who plays Eric Doyle aka “The Puppet Master” on NBC’s Heroes. Basically, I’ve been following David’s Twitter feed for a while now, and he contacted me through our interaction on that to see if I’d be interested in doing some art for an app he was developing for actors. That was pretty much all he needed to say to get me on board. After that, we started trading emails, with him telling me what he was looking for: a colorful, comic book-themed look for Rehearsal, that would be fun and pleasing for users. I worked up some graphics for the logo, menu and icon, and we iterated from there, trading emails and phone calls while i progressed, and getting the input of the lead app developer, Brian Robbins of Riptide Games, as well. It was a fun, quick process - and pretty amazing just how fast the app would be updated once I sent over a new batch of graphics, so I could see exactly how they’d look on my iPhone. During my contribution to the app, the three of us kept in touch almost exclusively via e-mail and phone – I don’t think any of us ever actually met in person until the launch party earlier this week.
I had a great time contributing in my own small way to this project, and it was a blast working with David and Brian. As you might imagine, David’s an awesome guy, really knowlegable about tech stuff, and didn’t force me to play Russian Roulette even once*. Subscribe to his Twitter feed and join Team XVII to keep up-to-date on what he’s up to.
So that’s how I became involved with this awesome app: Twitter -> Email -> Phone -> Face-to-Face. Increasingly, this is the way business and connections seem to happen these days. Exciting!
Elle Dee has a cool article on her Storming the Tower website entitled, “How Cartoonists See Themselves,” which takes a look at how several cartoonists on the web, including Meredith Gran, Danielle Corsetto, James Kochalka, Jeph Jacques and myself (among others), represent themselves as drawings. Completely flattered Elle included me among such luminaries. Check it out:
• Storming the Tower – How Cartoonists See Themselves
While you’re there, peruse the rest of the Storming the Tower site, which has many insightful articles focusing on “news and reviews of small press, self-published, and online comics.”
The Chubman and Scrawn wallpaper’s up! It took a bit longer than expected to get this posted, especially when readers on the JEFbot Mailing List got this weeks ago, but it’s up now and just as with the previous wallpapers, it’s free! So I’ll quit with the gabbing, so you can get to downloading.
Enjoy!
Thanks to everybody who requested this wallpaper. I was thrilled with how you guys embraced the “Power of” storyline (which began with JEFBOT.204_Unhappy Meal and ended with the strip that inspired this wallpaper, JEFBOT.211_The Legend Begins). Can’t wait to start working on the further adventures of this super duo! And anytime you see something in the strip that you’d like put on a wallpaper, BOTton or tee, let me know.
JEFBOT.The Chubman and Scrawn Wallpaper
Instructions
For computer monitors, select your monitor resolution by left-clicking on the corresponding link above, then right-clicking on the wallpaper that pops up, and save it to a folder. After that, right click on the wallpaper image in the folder and select “Set as Background” if you have a PC, or right click on your desktop and select “Change Desktop Background,” then navigate to the image and select it, if you’re running a Mac.
For iPhones, just navigate to this page using Safari on your phone, click the iPhone (320×480) link above, then hold your finger down on the image and select “Save Image” when that option comes up. Go back to the main menu and select “Settings,” then “Wallpaper” and finally select it from your Camera Roll. Voila! Now you can hang out on the beach with jefbot any time you feel like it.
For PSPs, the easiest way is to surf to this page on your PSP Browser, click the PSP (480×272) link, click “File” then “Save Image” to your /PSP/Photo folder. Name it whatever you want. “JEFBOT_thechubmanandscrawn_wallpaper.jpg” will do. Next, from the XMB, go to “Photo,” select your Memory Stick, and find the JEFBOT_thechubmanandscrawn_wallpaper.jpg you just downloaded. Now, hit the triangle button, and click on “Set as Wallpaper.” Click “Yes” when it asks if you want to overwrite the current wallpaper with the new one. When you go back to the Main Menu, the wallpaper should be set. The other way to do it would be to download the PSP version of the wallpaper to your computer, copy the image onto the Memory Stick from your PSP, and then follow the above steps, starting with “Next, from the XMB, go to ‘Photo.’” That’s it! A lot of steps, but the image looks pretty cool on the PSP’s beautiful screen.
I was recently on the 86th episode of the Two Guys Talking Webcomics podcast with Kurt Sasso and Special Guest co-host Byron Wilkins of 1977 the Comic. Topics covered include: the Schuetze family, where ideas for JEFbot strips came from, Wil Wheaton, Grey Skies, ferrets, Danielle Corsetto, The Christmas Bat, Michael Cornacchia, The Power of Scrawn, and riding ostriches, among other things.
Was a fun interview, check it out:
• TGT Webcomics Episode 086 – Jeff Schuetze from JEFbot
• TGT Webcomics on iTunes
Just in time for Super Bowl XLIV, it’s Man’s Game!
I’ve been a huge fan of Liam K. Sullivan (of Kelly, Bob Tulap and Susan Walker fame) so jumped at the chance to be in one of his vids. Check out his awesome, awesome work (here) on YouTube if you haven’t already.
Had a blast shooting this in the Valley early last week. I’m the one with the glasses, cane and JEFbot shirt. Check it out:
Now that we’re well into 2010 (is it really almost the end of January?), I thought I’d take a look back on some of the cool happenings that, in many ways, made 2009 JEFbot’s biggest year since its debut in late 2007.
The first and most important reason is, of course, you readers. Although I love writing and drawing this strip, if its readership hadn’t expanded beyond the handful of friends and family members it started with, I don’t think I would’ve made it this far. You folks, coming back to check out this site week after week, spreading the strip through word-of-mouth, linking it to your own websites, tweeting about it, emailing it around, and making the comment section more alive than webcomics with audiences twice that of JEFbot’s, have truly made this webcomic as successful as it is. With your help and enthusiasm, JEFbot’s pageviews have gone from thousands, to hundreds of thousands, to literally millions of pageviews in 2007, 2008 and 2009, respectively. So a huge thank you to all of you awesome readers!
And just for fun I thought I’d list the top 10 commenters of 2009, who’ll be familiar to any of you who have read or posted a comment over the past year or so. A big thanks to these 10 and everybody who has ever left a comment on a JEFbot strip or blog post. I’m asked all the time by other webcomic creators how I have such a big, active community of commenters and while I do reply with a couple of theories on the matter, I mostly think it’s due to some sort of magic. Here’s your top 10 commenters of 2009, in order of quantity of posts:
Spanky McBubbles
Michael Cornacchia
JefbotFan#300
Stan Yan
DaughterJudy
funnyshaffer
Maryz
reynard61
Sonitan
FoxmouseIt was fun to see this list for me. If you guys dig it, let me know and maybe I’ll put out another one mid-2010. Or maybe quarterly?
Looking back on 2009, I’m also proud of the progress of my art and writing. While I still have so much to learn, when I look back at jefbot and the Cornfather’s character designs in 2007 compared to 2009, I can see I’ve come a long way, even if it didn’t feel like it at the time. And while I’m extremely happy with many of the strips in 2007 and 2008, I think pushing myself with longer story arcs in 2009 certainly helped my storytelling abilities. Some of my favorite strips and storylines in 2009 include:
• JEFBOT.111_Bushidō
• JEFBOT.131_Bot Be Buggin’
• The Introduction of Abraxas (JEFBOT.134_Abraxas)
• First appearance (kind of) of cel and The Last Arcade Storyline (JEFBOT.137_Seeing Red)
• The Beach storyline (cel and bot on a date!) (JEFBOT.157_Social Distortion)
• Musashi’s abduction (JEFBOT.190_Epilogue: Good Night, Mu)
• Mini Popbot storyline (JEFBOT.194_Popbot Knows Best)
• The biggest Christmas Bat strip ever! (JEFBOT.201_The Christmas Bat III_part 1 of 2)
I’m sure I’m missing a few but these are my favs off the top of my head for what I feel are the strips that pushed me and the strip forward last year.
One of the things I love about having a webcomic is that it’s truly International; for the most part, anyone can get this strip anywhere in the world. I correspond with many readers in the remotest of places on the globe which sometimes just boggles my mind. Unfortunately, many of those places aren’t represented here, the Top 10 Countries/Territories that read JEFbot:
1.) United States 2.) Canada 3.) UK 4.) Germany 5.) Australia 6.) Netherlands 7.) Sweden 8.) France 9.) Denmark 10.) Poland
While I’m happy to see part of my heritage represented here with Germany, I was extremely disappointed to find that Japan is only #22 on this list! Being half-Japanese, I’m going to have to get that number up in 2010. Translating the comic might help. Any of you readers know Japanese well enough to help me convert these strips to Japanese from English?
Anyway, wrapping this up before I have to split this post in two, thank you, thank you, thank you, to all you readers. If you’re reading this right now that means you’re one of the people that have made this webcomic so much fun for me to do. 2009’s going to be a hard year to beat, but at the rate JEFbot is growing, I think we have an amazing shot!
JEFBOT : The semi-autobiographical webcomic and blog of actor, Jeff Schuetze is powered by WordPress with ComicPress. Subscribe RSS: Entries | Comments
