Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Wii Sports Comic Pt 1

I'm breaking with tradition here on the blog a bit by posting two scans in one post. This was a two-part comic story about playing Wii Boxing vs Wii Baseball.
Part One Page 1



Part One Page 2

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Webkinz Marketing

Webkinz was aggressive and relentless in their marketing. It's true that, up until relatively recently, they did not allow any other advertising on their site; however, when it came to advertising their own product, they did it overtly and covertly in as many ways as they could. The opening page was a "newspaper" but it only covered Webkinz-related news, like new toys available. We talked about this with our kids. I don't know how much they understood or retained. This drawing may suggest that those discussions on how Webkinz tries to get us to spend more money may have fallen on deaf ears.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

When the collection could fit on one page...

This is a drawing of our Webkinz collection a long time ago. When we first began playing Webkinz, we decided that all the "pets" would go on one account. The disadvantage was that my son and daughter couldn't play separately from each other, or together with two accounts. Of course, at that time we only had two computers in the house and my husband's was off-limits to them. Now we have four. However, an advantage to our policy is that all our Webkinz resources are compiled together, making us very rich in Webkinz World. I can't even recall how many pets we have logged on.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Webkinz Holidays

Today is a month away from Christmas, but this is a drawing of another holiday celebrated by Webkinz characters - Halloween. During these real-life holidays, the Webkinz website offers all sorts of items to "purchase" with your Webkinz cash that are holiday-themed. We bought many of the costumes, some of which are "collectors items" because they don't come out yearly.
Our home in Webkinz is much tidier and larger than our real house. I never garden in real life but I do it occasionally online. I'm better at it online too - no thorns and better results!

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Who are the people in your (Webkinz) neighbourhood?

Webkinz was an online community for my children to play in and their drawings were imaginary riffs on their game playing experiences. The houses and apartments are labeled with the user IDs of their Webkinz friends, some of which they knew in person and others they didn't. We tried to be a lot more cautious back then with adding people to our friends' list.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Fire Fawn

One of my daughter's favourite areas on the Webkinz website was the listing of all the various Webkinz you could buy. She's a collector at heart, albeit a choosy one. (For instance, her current obsession with obtaining Monster High dolls only applies to the main line, not the "same dolls in different scenarios" like the prom line or sleepover line.) She really liked the Fire Fawn. We refused to buy it because it was an online only item - we didn't mind buying the toys that came with the codes to activate online because even when she might eventually stop playing Webkinz, at least she'd have the toy. (This is what spurred my husband to commission a drawing done of his World of Warcraft character Jherith, at the height of his power, and paid for a physical copy of it, so he'd have some physical token to remind him of his time with the game.) She understood and agreed with our position but still drew this advertisement.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

A Webkinz Mystery

My kids used to be intrigued by an object in Webkinz that you received if you bought and logged on additional Webkinz toys. It was a pond with a creature that occasionally peeked out of the depths. I think it was called the Lurker Below - or at least that's what the kids called it. My daughter decided to draw a picture of some of her Webkinz pets investigating this mystery, with a Sherlock-Holmes-attired horse in the lead.