Introducing Crumb...

ROK Comics has announced its latest addition: a great new humour strip from New Zealand-based creator David Fletcher.

Crumb is the tale of the eternal struggle for survival right under our noses - at the bird table - featuring a cast that includes a very fat bird whose motto is survival of the fattest, a rat and a hungry cat.

David Fletcher was bom in England in 1952 and excelled at drawing cartoons in the margins of his maths book at school (and falling asleep).

On leaving school he studied production engineering for five years then jumped on a aircraft bound for New Zealand, where he's lived ever since.

He was employed as an illustrator and cartoonist by New Zealand's largest daily newspaper the New Zealand Herald for three years. But for the last twenty years he's been pretending to work from home as a comic strip artist. He draws a daily strip called The Politician and several weekly strips including The TV Kids which appears in the TV Guide there. His cartoons are syndicated to Europe, Britain, Africa, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand (you can see more of them on www.nzcartoons.co.nz).

David lives in Auckland with his wife and two children. "People still keep asking me when I'm going to get a proper job," he says.

A big warm welcome to David and enjoy Crumb - we think it's great!

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Comic comment on biofuels debate

With Friends of the Earth pitching in with more concerns about biofuels this week, one of the creators using the ROK Comics platform came up with this strip on the topic:

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ROK Acquires Fun Little Movies

The ROK Entertainment Group, owners of ROK Comics, has announced it has acquired a 51 per cent controlling interest in Los Angeles-based Fun Little Movies.

(FLM) for a combination of cash to be paid in monthly installments through September 2009 and shares in the company.

Under the terms of the agreement, ROK and FLM will jointly offer made-for-mobile content, such as comedy short films, to network operators worldwide.

FLM specialises in the development, production and distribution of original mobile-oriented comedy for global distribution such as Love Bytes, featuring Babylon 5 star Claudia Christian and Star Trek: The Next Generation's Wil Wheaton. In its nomination for Best Video Producer at the 2007 ME Awards, Mobile Entertainment Magazine said FLM “pioneered the advertiser-funded concept” for mobile video.

The first US company to produce comedic films for mobile phones worldwide, FLM’s “Fun Funny Phone Films” have won 20 awards including finalists' places at the Cannes Film Festival for Best Short and the 2006 and 2007 Mobile Entertainment Magazine Awards for Best Video, as well as CTIA's "World Smallest Film Festival." They've also been played on numerous TV networks worldwide including HBO, Showtime, CBS, Playboy, MTV and Comedy Central.

“ROK’s management team gets it. They see the same potential for the mobile space that we do,” said Frank Chindamo, FLM’s President and Chief Creative Officer. "We're excited about the new synergies created by joining with a company that understands ‘synergy’ the way we do.”

Mr. Chindamo founded FLM in 2004 and is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California (USC), teaching “Mobile and Internet Viral Screenwriting and Producing.”

“We love what Frank Chindamo and his team at FLM have been doing in the mobile entertainment space. They really understand the medium and what people want from mobile movies,” said Laurence Alexander, President and Chief Executive Officer of ROK. “We look forward to expanding the footprint of FLM content worldwide and going forward to develop a whole new portfolio.”

FLM distribution deals include Sprint, Verizon and ATT, as well as several handset makers and overseas partners, from China and Japan to Europe, Africa and South America. ROK will be its primary distributor worldwide.

In addition to marketing ROK TV through Mobile Operators such as Vodacom South Africa, Avea Turkey, Telenor Pakistan and AIS in Thailand, ROK’s service is also available direct-to-consumers via Nokia Downloads on the Nokia E series handsets across Europe.

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ROK completes share exchange, goes public

The ROK Entertainment Group Ltd. which owns ROK Comics and many other mobile services built up over several years, has announced the completion of its share exchange transaction with Cyberfund, Inc., a US public company.

The combined company will operate initially under the name of Cyberfund and will continue to be listed on the NASD’s Over-the-Counter (OTC) Bulletin Board under the trading symbol, CYFD.

The full press release about the listing appears on the ROK Corporation web site.

Following the share exchange that is part of the copany's transformation, ROK’s existing management assumed their same positions with the publicly-traded company.

Commenting on the transaction, Laurence Alexander, Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are delighted to complete this transaction which creates a dynamic new force in the global mobile entertainment industry. We believe the demand for mobile content is set to grow exponentially over the next decade. As an enlarged Group with access to public markets and a proven management team, ROK is well placed to exploit these trends for delivering shareholder value.”

“I am hugely proud of our achievements to date,” added Jonathan Kendrick, Chairman of ROK, “as it’s taken a massive amount of effort, initiative and perseverance by all our staff to have reached where we are today.”

As well as creating ROK Comics, ROK currently has three registered patents and 42 additional patent applications pending for new technologies which it has developed for the delivery of video entertainment to mobile phones. The technologies facilitate delivery of services, including, on-demand mobile TV streamed over mass-market 2.5G via GPRS, the storage of copy-protected movies stored on memory cards for play on mobile phones, Java, SMS and P2P games, place-shifting to mobile devices and VoIP mobile calling.

It is the Company’s plan to continue the roll-out of its products worldwide and maintain its investment in research and development to improve current products, and increase compatibility and user features, as well as work on new technologies and products.

A focus on technology exposes the business to risks of technological change and the Company is now actively acquiring, creating and aggregating content and services to deliver across the rapidly expanding network of content distribution.

The Company has a number of operational deployments as of the end of October 2007, including ROK TV with AIS (Thailand), Telenor (Pakistan), BSNL (India), Avea (Turkey) and Vodacom (South Africa), as well as ROK’s mobile TV service marketed direct-to-consumers. ROK Media has deployed a variety of innovative mobile entertainment applications to include ANSA, ROK Comics and Fonepark in the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Pakistan and Russia.

ROK New Net in China is providing lottery services and selling lottery tickets for the Beijing Welfare Lottery, as well as a number of other mobile value-added telecommunications service operators (VAS).

ROK also has a phone hardware division, supplying handets to several operators globally. (You never know you, may have one of our phones yourself). It has also launched a mobile conferencing system, RokTalk, which aims to make organising conference calls a doddle, and costs less for everyone involved.

Before the end of the second quarter of 2008, ROK aims to achieve a significant global reach in mobile television (FreeBe TV and ROK TV), as well as expand the Company’s product portfolio and breadth of commercial deployment of these services (through cross-sales of products and services), through ROK’s existing and growing partner distribution network which includes Mobile Operating companies and handset manufacturers.

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ROK Comics Creates I'm A Comics Celebrity!

ROK Comics has teamed up with UK TV company ITV to enable I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here fans to create comics based on the stuck-in-a-jungle reality entertainment show, which has just begun its seventh season.

The first of its kind for a broadcaster, this truly interactive services is a simple point and click solution letting any web or WAP user create a comic based around the current celebrities and the best of previous shows.

Users can make up their own quips using speech bubbles and insert themselves into comic strip. Once completed users can then choose to buy their masterpiece or send it onto a friend for £1.50.

UK residents can check out the special IACGMOOH Comic Creator over on ITV Mobile. (There's also a WAP version of the Creator that enables yout to create comics on your mobile).

Comics cost £1.50 each and you can also send them to friends (if you know their network). All comics are moderated prior to publication.

Also as part of the offering from ROK, a daily professional comic strip based around the exploits of the celebrities is being created by ROK Comics and published on both web and WAP.

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2000AD artist Ian Gibson on ROK Comics

ROK Comics has announced the addition of Ian Gibson's comic strip Annie Droid to its comics-to-mobile service.

Working in partnership with Ian, ROK Comics will be bringing mobile users worldwide this funny strip written and drawn by Ian Gibson, which was first published in Britain's The Saturday Times.

Annie Droid is just one of many characters inhabiting the mysterious Den City 4, battling Millennium Bugs, Program Errors and many other miscreants.

The strip joins a host of classic British strips and new creator-owned material on the ROK Comics mobile platform, including Garth, Jeff Hawke, Andy Capp and many others.

In addition to the ROK Comics web and wap sites (www.rokcomics.com, wap.rokcomics.com) Annie Droid will also be offered to ROK telecom partner sites worldwide, reaching new readers of comics in countries such as China, Pakistan, India and more in coming months.

Comics fans will need no introduction to the work of Ian Gibson (www.ian-gibson.com), whose many credits include 2000AD's Judge Dredd, The Ballad of Halo Jones and Robo-Hunter, DC Comics Mister Miracle and creator-owned classics such as The Chronicles of Genghis Grimtoad.

Ian is currently developing several creator-owned projects that will employ his unique and much-praised art style at its best.

"Believe it or not, the humble mobile phone may be coming to the rescue of comics," feels Ian. "Comics are now being made available to view as downloads to your multifunction pocket wonder. Now you can catch up with vintage comics strips and some new freebies done by aspiring amateurs.

"Thus, if your pocket starts to throb, glow, play a cutesy jingle or even the soundtrack from Psycho... I may be there - in the shape of some of my creations. So, maybe I'll do some drawing today. Tomorrow it may be on your mobile phone. There is no escape…"

"We're obviously delighted Ian has agreed to try ROK Comics," says ROK Comics Managing Editor John Freeman. "I've been a fan of Ian's work since my time at Marvel UK, when he was drawing Genghis Grimtoad, and Halo Jones is simply an unforgettable comic."

• You can view Annie Droid on ROK Comics at www.rokcomics.com/anniedroid.php

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The Sound of Drowning

Comic creator Paul O'Connell, creator of cult comic book The Sound of Drowning, has a brand new issue (#10! double figures! ) out now.

"It's a non-linear comic book inspired by those kids 'Choose Your Own Adventure' stories," he says, "co-written with Laura O'Callaghan-White and just a dash of Harry sauce."

Paul, whose "Air Diana" strip was one of 30 shortlisted in the 2007 ROK Comics Humour Competition, also has some new strips on the soundofdrowning web site.

Paul will be selling the new comic and other bits and pieces in the small presss market at the London ICA Comica event, curated by Paul Gravett.

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