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.

Franks and Beans: Media Moguls

If you watch Franks and Beans, you are distinguished by two factors: first, you are our best friends.  Second, you’re part of a rare group.  We’ve been doing a little bit to try and change that lately (the rarity part…not the other one.  You will always be our best friends.  FOREVER!) by trying to get the word out in places other than on our other blogs.  Perhaps you, crafty consumer, have seen some of these mentions in the wild over the past few weeks.

One of my greatest achievements in life (I’m serious) has been in writing the Tick comic book for New England Comics.  To date I have written…ONE ISSUE!  But oh, what an issue it was (and there are more on the way, by the by).  Who knows when the ride will end, but in the meantime, I might as well plug Franks and Beans if I can.  Proof of life:

Hooray!  Who would have thought it was possible?  But here we are.  This particular comic was the Free Comic Book Day issue, so there were literally tens of thousands of these out and about, to my delight.  Hopefully enough people read the text page to get a least a few new viewers.

Next up we have the latest issue of the Journal of Venture Studies, which was put out in conjunction with Adult Swim.  The new season of the Venture Bros., one of my favorite shows of all time, is on the air starting tonight, as it so happens, and I was lucky enough to get a chance to write an entry in this faux journal.  I got to write a mini-bio at the end of my article, and they let me sneak in a quick F&B reference:

Double hooray!  This reference requires just a bit more diligence on the part of the reader as someone would actually have to go to Google and painstakingly search for this website, but hey, there’s always hope.

You can find my entry and the entire journal by clicking on this link: http://venturestudies.com/volume2.html

And lastly, I showed off this new ad in the Magic Bullet paper a little while ago.  I might as well show it again, because it’s great.  But I also got a card in the mail the other day from the editorial staff:

This in itself is cool, but opening it up we find that someone actually had to write out the phrase “Dear Franks and Beans”.  Someone took the time to do this!  That’s funny.

As you can see, we’re on our way to being really super popular.  Once that happens, you can act all indignant and tell everyone that you knew us before we were a household name.  I’m pretty sure that this will happen.  Yes.

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.