Kid tested, mustache approved! The UHF art and movie screening Kickstarter!

Should I keep my different projects separate?  Should I keep the Franks and Beans blog un-despoiled by non F&B items?  Here’s an idea, faithful reader: why don’t you watch your stinkin’ mouth?

Ugh, that was harsh.  I’m sorry, guys.  This is an especially egregious error as I am trying to raise a little bit of money to show “Weird Al” Yankovic’s 1989 cult classic film “UHF” at a local theater on May 31st of the year.  What was I thinking?  Please, forgive me.

Here’s the details: I recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to help offset the licensing and rental fees associated with the screening.  The film will screen at Latrobe 30 Theatre & Cafe, and it will take place the same day as Al’s Greensburg, PA “Mandatory Fun” tour date.  The theater is fewer than 10 miles from the concert venue, so I’m hoping that fans and those attending the concert will want to see the movie earlier in the day.

I’ve got a whole lot of rewards to offer up to anyone who pledges, from 11×17 prints, to pins, to shirts, to a gigantic, movie poster-sized print that is the official image of the campaign and screening:

You can even get tickets to the show if you live in the area (or feel like a road trip), though you don’t have to attend the movie to get the other items!

I just announced that anyone who pledges at the $10 level or higher will get a Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies inspired sticker at no extra charge!

So if you enjoy Franks and Beans, you’re a fan of Weird Al, or if you’re just a nice person who would feel bad if this dang thing doesn’t succeed, I hope you’ll click the following link to read more about this UHF movie screening Kickstarter project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jeffmcclelland/uhf-movie-screening/

Even if you can’t pledge anything, I hope you’ll decide to share this project with people that you know.

Franks and Beans ad in Magic Bullet #8

The Magic Bullet is a free, Washington, DC-based comic newspaper that publishes on a semi-annual basis.  Why, then, am I posting this to the Franks and Beans website?  That’s a great question.  Here are some answers:

1) Because I do what I want.
2) See #1.

Ha HAAA!!  Wow, what witty banter you can expect from the Franks and Beans website.  We’re basically out of control over here.  Seriously, you can ask anyone.

The eighth installment of the Magic Bullet came out a few months ago, and inside was a one-page comic that I wrote titled “I Hate the Moon”, for obvious reasons.  Also included is this Franks and Beans print ad:

Hey, look!  It’s the “Double Delivery” ad that we made a couple years ago for Comic-Con!  I think we’ll be submitting another episode to the Comic-Con Film Festival in 2015, if for no other reason than to create another print ad.

One of the things I enjoy the most about advertising in the Magic Bullet is getting a thank you card in the mail addressed to Franks and Beans, like those are our names.  According to the printed names on the inside of the card, I am one of the creators thanking Franks and Beans.  Well, you’re welcome, Jeff McClelland.  I guess.

Someone bought FranksandBeans.com. It wasn’t us.

A few years ago, before we bought the domain franksandbeansonline.com, Larry and I looked into buying the more obvious name of franksandbeans.com.  It probably doesn’t take too much thought to figure out why we didn’t buy that particular name: it was expensive.  REALLY expensive.  Like $18,000 a year expensive.  And so franksandbeansonline.com was brought into existence, and franksandbeans.com sat unused for years and years.

But then someone bought it and turned it into a site with pictures of girls on it.  That’s fine, of course, but I have to at least say that it’s a strange use of the domain.  Is it a desirable domain name?  Do people wander over there and click on the ads?  I have no idea.

Interestingly enough, franksandbeans.com isn’t even porn.  It’s good looking girls, often in skimpy outfits, but that’s about it.  Porn, I could get.  Heck, that goes without saying (…ladies).  I suppose we’ll see if this experiment lasts, as that 18 grand (if that’s indeed what the name went for) is real money.  But hey, maybe we’ll have some cross promotions in our future.  Reach out, franksandbeans.com, and send us a line.  Heck, look at all of this free promotion that you’re already getting!

My favorite part of the website is the page dedicated to the privacy policy:

 

Nice.

Episode 42 – Beans and Franks

Satisfaction guaranteed!

The (comic) media push

The Franks and Beans media push is go!  We’ve got an ad in the recently printed, recently released and recently mailed-to-me sixth issue of The Magic Bullet, a Washington, DC-based large format comic newspaper.  The Magic Bullet is a semi-annual publication that is given away absolutely free to thousands of eager readers, and also perhaps to crazy people who want to make hats out of it.  Here’s the cover!

You may, of course, be wondering just what demographic Franks and Beans was trying to reach by advertising in a DC metro-area free comic newspaper, but this is the result of some pretty heavy market research.  And also I published a one-page comic in it, titled “The Naked Man at the Edge of Time”:

And then, you know, things just kind of came together.

You also might be asking if this ad buy has had any effect on the site’s traffic.  Well, not that it’s any of your business, and it’s kind of rude for you to inquire into such structurally sensitive matters, but as a matter of fact, there has been a slight bump in the numbers in the last few weeks.  This might be a result of the ad, or it might just means that Franks and Beans is slowly working its way into the zeitgeist and the ad was completely unnecessary.  But there it is, for all to see.  It’s not the only mention that F&B is getting in a publication, as it turns out.  I’d tell you about that now, but I can totally just make a brand new post about that in a couple days and feel good about updating the site more than once a damn month.  And what fun that will be!

Visit the Magic Bullet online here: http://magicbulletcomics.blogspot.com

Buy a copy (hang it up on your fridge!) of The Magic Bullet #6 here, for only 99 cents: http://dcconspiracy.storenvy.com/products/1352276-magic-bullet-6

Oh, and the Magic Bullet website has a nice outgoing link to this very page.  Hooray!

…yes, I clicked my own link.  But I can confirm that the link does work!  Take that for what it’s worth.

Franks and Beans comic book ads

Have I ever mentioned that I sometimes write comic books?  Even in passing?  Ever?  Probably not, as I rarely self aggrandize or post meaningless links to other projects that aren’t innately tied to Franks and Beans.  I’m much too classy for that.

In any case, I do write Teddy and the Yeti, a comic with great intrinsic value that will perhaps one day spawn a cartoon series and various merchandizing opportunities, and I take every chance I get to advertise for my other great love (besides Funyuns), Franks and Beans, and I thought that it would be at least a little bit interesting if I posted the various F&B ads that have taken up residence in Teddy and the Yeti comics throughout its publication history.

At the top of the post, you’ll see the very first Franks and Beans ad, appearing in the pages of Teddy and the Yeti #1, and perhaps you’ll notice how quaint and simple it is.  This is because everything must start somewhere, and also because I was still learning how to use Illustrator at this point (not that I’ve mastered it in the time that followed).  Still, we did get the slogan that adorns this website, a bastardization of the Kix cereal slogan.  It replaced our previous slogan, “Better than anything YOU could come up with”, which I’m sure will one day make a comeback, as all things trite and spiteful do.

Next up is a familiar image, as a colorized version of it serves as the background of the official Franks and Beans YouTube page.  The ad showed up in a black and white version of Teddy and the Yeti #2.  This photoshoot was a fruitful one, as we got two ads and a background for our business cards this day.  Born from this ad was probably our best slogan ever, “comedy worth fighting for”, which also finds itself on the YouTube page.  I should/will put this day’s photoshoot online at some point.  There were some good shots taken this day by friend of the show Mitch Mitchell, who just so happens to have a really nice DSLR camera.  And we take advantage of that whenever we can.

I’m fairly sure we stole the background image from this ad from Google (take that, Internet!), before we realized that we could just take our own damn picture of baked beans.  The ad itself refers to the “Franks and Beans Beans and Franks” episode at the end of season two, and we keep the label facade up with our own mock nutrition facts.  This ad appeared in Teddy and the Yeti #3.

Space was tight in the tiny Teddy and the Yeti’s Back! promo issue, so the Franks and Beans ad had a minimum of space to work with.  The end result, though, might just be our best ad yet, in which both Larry and I are perhaps about to have the life crushed out of us, which is always good for a laugh (a literal side-splitter).  This was from the same photoshoot that begat the “comedy worth fighting for” ad.  I particularly enjoy seeing the very top of my Thing shirt as well as my apparently stroked-out face.

Lastly, we have the newest Franks and Beans ad, straight from the inside back cover of Teddy and the Yeti #4.  This image comes from the still promotional photo for the “Double Delivery” episode and features obvious worldplay and also mustaches.  When people see these ads placed in my comics, I’ll bet that they nearly kill themselves in a desperate attempt to locate a computer and access this very website.  Who knows, maybe putting these ads online for all to see will draw the masses to this site, where they will laugh and laugh their lives away.  I’m about 85% sure that this will happen.

So there we have it – Franks and Beans comic book ads.  So why don’t I just use the same one all the time?  Why make new ones for each appearance?  I do it for you, loyal readers.  I do it for you.  And also me.  Perhaps the next one will feature one of my cats.  Only time will tell.