Comic Genesis Forums

[quote=name list] InkBlot[/quote]

Hey, I like that one...how the heck did I miss it.

It sorta-kinda keeps to the Keen. I mean, KeenSPOT and InkBLOT...a rhyme might work better than trying to marry to Space as a name.

CW

You know, all this talk about changing space's name has brought up a VERY important issue that nobody seems to have latched onto yet. Any number of us could at any time buy doombees.com and become our own Keenspot.

Done properly, we could offer our own printing and distribution services. (I happen to know a place where you can rent storage space for ~$40 a month.) We wouldn't even need hosting since the comics could be hosted anywhere on an server (including Keenspace or the newly renamed version thereof) and still be linked as "faub.doombees.com" or "thejaded.doombees.com" etc. The Keenspace ad would still be present and the link to Keenspace.com would still be there but you would be a member of the invite only Doombees Entertainment, a potentially non-profit organization meant to provide merchandising services and promotional services to disenfranchised and/or underappreciated webcomics.

Each comic would post the Doombees logo at the top of their main page and link back to a "www.doombees.com" that included the organization's charter and other information. A vertical ad banner could be posted on each member's site (as opposed to the horizontal Keenspace banner). If enough 50k+ pageview comics got together we could guarentee advertisers a reasonably large number of page views. We could host all our comics on a board like Charming Eclipse (conveniently renamed to forums.doombees.com of course).

Who would either know the difference or care? If Doombees could provide quality comics at no cost to this non-existent company and the people behind "hosted" on Doombees were good enough to plug however and whereever they could (with member sponsered sampler distributions and flyers and so on) who would care that the comics were actually hosted on Keenspace or Keenspot? Keenspot Entertainment could not prevent Doombees members from plugging "Doombees.com" in a way that said "My comic is part of a larger organization that I care about and want to support in any way I can. If you like my comic you should read these others because I think they are important enough to plug. I can even sell you a Digital War t-shirt. I also have ......" Instead of Keenswag you have the Honey Pot. Instead of Gear you have the Hive.

Keenspot was started by 4 people.

What if suddenly there were 10, 20, 100 Keenspots? Who would even notice the original? Would it make the purpose of having a Keenspot irrelevant? If a dozen competing Keenspots suddenly popped into existence claiming "guaranteed quality webcomics in a particular genre" would the ad revenues from places like Burst suddenly be stretched so far that it made Keenspot collapse?

Once again this talk of breaking up Keenspace into its component parts. I don't mind the name change, but if everyone goes their own way the community will crumble.

faub wrote:You know, all this talk about changing space's name has brought up a VERY important issue that nobody seems to have latched onto yet. Any number of us could at any time buy doombees.com and become our own Keenspot.

I suggested what could be basically seen as a first step towards something like that. Better yet, it'd be a first step which would look identical to what you suggest to the outside viewer but be risk free since Space would still foot the hosting bill. If it doesn't work, then little would be lost.

I was going to leave it up for another 24 hours before I surrendered to cynicism about it but certainly no one seems terribly interested. Given the feeling about Spot (negative) and being Spotted (positive) here, I'm actually quite surprised about the reaction.

Or maybe it was just a really bad idea and I can't see it.

Ah well. It's not like I have a comic.

Edit:

JexKerome wrote:Once again this talk of breaking up Keenspace into its component parts. I don't mind the name change, but if everyone goes their own way the community will crumble.

Well, you can't have it both ways. Space is too big and unwieldy to be promoted effectively and the nature of Space does no favours to the comics within it. This forum is the only advantage, and although it's a big advantage, it's one we've made ourselves.

- Joel Fagin

faub wrote:Lots o'stuff

I already said I intend to do this someday, Faub (when WCN launches, to be more specific). I want to invite other four, five people and share one of the publisher accounts. We can have a community of our own while still being independent of each other in the way that we would share profit with no one.

I still have trouble finding takers for my project, tho.

RPin wrote:I already said I intend to do this someday, Faub (when WCN launches, to be more specific).

With the minor revelations about domain names herein,* why wait? You could set it up on Space and just shift the domain name later. 'Course you wouldn't get any income from it yet but you wouldn't be paying any hosting fees either. You could just concentrate on piling on the readers.

- Joel Fagin

* Or was it one of the other threads? I'm 'fuzzled.

I dunno. The community thingy sounds really cool, Joel. Problem is, I think I'm more interested in building my own community. Being on Keenspace would still mean no share of profits and what have you.

As I said, Keenspace is not just the hosting service. More important, it's the community, and it's the community I care about. I'll always love Keenspace and be proud of the fact that I started here. I don't need to have my comic hosted here in order to prove that.

RPin wrote:I dunno. The community thingy sounds really cool, Joel. Problem is, I think I'm more interested in building my own community. Being on Keenspace would still mean no share of profits and what have you.

No, I mean just while you're waiting for WCN to get up and running. It'd mean you can make a start and the domain name can easily be transferred later (I assume).

- Joel Fagin

Yeah that sounds nice. Though I'm still having problems with registering my OWN domain *kicks brazilian domain registration laws*

RPin wrote:

faub wrote:Lots o'stuff

I already said I intend to do this someday, Faub (when WCN launches, to be more specific). I want to invite other four, five people and share one of the publisher accounts. We can have a community of our own while still being independent of each other in the way that we would share profit with no one.

I still have trouble finding takers for my project, tho.

That's tempting Pin. Very Tempting.

Phalanx wrote:That's tempting Pin. Very Tempting.

What are you talking about? You have your own free WCN account...

You people are fools!

DAMNED FOOLS!

Christwriter's mentioning "Inkblots.com" and FAUB's plan go together like your chocolate into my peanutbutter!

Or your peanutbutter onto my chocolate!

Open your eyes people! Taste the opportunities.

RPin wrote:

Phalanx wrote:That's tempting Pin. Very Tempting.

What are you talking about? You have your own free WCN account...

RPin wrote: I still have trouble finding takers for my project, tho.

Only because it's not started yet.
EDIT: WCN, I mean.

I don't really think its about keenspace so much. the community was founded by keenspace's existance... but were more than a name or a host. least i like to think that a community is about people working together.. no matter if there's a host present or not.. take awat keenspace.. and were still webcomic artists who enjoy to talk about webcomics and other stuff.

least thats my thought on the subject.

Guys, there are many little collectives and groups out there already, some enjoying more success than others.

There IS nothing stopping any of you from creating your own little group. You can be as professional/business-y or as hobbyistic as you like.

The Pants Press created a little group, and they're getting good lipservice from a lot of people right now. The Protean Void people (PV Comics) are doing the exact same thing. Modern Tales did it, too, way back when. And there'll be tons more as the days months and years go by...

So if you really want to do it, then do it. There IS strength in numbers, if the numbers work well together.

The only thing, of course, is that if you try to create your own group, it will be in your own best interests to step away from using KSpace/spot stuff (e.g., hosting), otherwise, you will still be seen as KSpacers (and perhaps as moochers, too!).

That said, though... there is a LOT of politics involved in creating and maintaining a group, and its not something for everyone. It may sound easy to sit there and say "okay, us five or so people will get together and we'll soon be rich!", but you have to realize the work and discipline involved.

Even more importantly: when you are on your own, you have FULL control over your work and over how you want to market/promote/produce. As soon as you form a collective, you have to do things by consensus, or the collective crashes and burns hard.

So yeah -- serious stuff to think about, boys and girls. Make sure you are totally thinking this through before jumping any ships or burning any bridges...

I'm all for a collective to start becoming the next name in comic hosting, but let's think for a minute.

1. Don't do it because you're angry of some perceived slight on the part of KeenInc. Even if there are some here who would like to make a career out of art, webcomics will probably at most be a springboard for you. You will still earn more at a day job in one week than your comic will bring you in a year. KeenInc works because of the hundreds of comics here.

2. It will be hard work. You're not going to get away with slapping up a cheap website and expecting everything to work, right? Even AutoKeen sometimes flakes out, and look at how bent everyone gets about it.

3. Name recognition is hit or miss. Sometimes I really wish I'd chosen a shorter domain name. Really. But it's mine now. A good snappy name can help people remember you. Or it can be just too damn long to type in.

4. It won't be free. Keen is free. I've seen more than a few people whine on these boards they can't even afford $9 for a domain name. Do you want to go into business with someone like that? Because this could cost hundreds of dollars a month with little return. Of course, I've got some ideas for merchandising that might work. And they might not. But either way, it will take at least a small investment from all parties.

Yes, even i've thought of starting my own comic host in the past. (WarrenSpace? Only if I like getting sued.) But right now I'm happy to leave the headaches to someone else.

I've got enough people that hate me without soliciting more.

You'll notice that most of the groups that do not have a BOSS were built up over time and based on friendships. And they do take a lot of work. The 4TT had considered breaking off and doing our own hosting, selling our own ads, and producing our own swag and extra for-pay comics. But it was a lot of work and we were worried we couldn't handle it.. and then we all got spotted (Yes, I've been sitting on my invitation for a year, shutup).

So instead of spending time handling customers, dealing with ads and code, I can just sit down and draw and work on comics.

And all my lovely comrades here - this community will still draw me back no matter where I'm hosted. And damonk here can't ever let go. Seriously, you don't have to be hosted somewhere to hang out with people or do projects with them. This is not the keenspace clique or gang. We're a knitting circle, not a biker gang!

The PEOPLE and COMICS mean so much more to me than a hosting service or whatever name it goes by. Those who say the keenspace wil not be the same with a new name seem to have more attachement to the name than the people.

-Meaghan

Ah, reality check.

I really was more thrilled with other Joel's idea, the one about rotating comics on keenspace's main page.
If someone were making a new community, that would most possibly be because of promotion. This way, frenkly, popularity succes of a comic relies probably 75% on promotional skills of artist. I somehow felt that this should be oposite, maybe because my pR0m0 zkillz SUXXOR, or maybe because it's true. Either way, to me the greatest difference between space and spot is that on spot, it really depends on a quality of your comic, whether you're gonna be popular or not.
Of course, this wouldn't change with making subcommunities, again, as much you're able to promote a community, that much the whole project would be succesfull. Except, there would always be leeching of other people's popularity to some extent. For instance, if Charming Eclipse was to tighten it's structure, instead of just forum, I would probably be leeching on popularity of Alex and Ilia, Digital War, Star Bored... which are comics far more popular than mine.

Anyway, why I wasn't interested in this idea from the start? I'm already active member of two communities: this one, and CE. Both, I attend because of people, because of nice things that happen in there. Because, well, I don't think of it as community at first. It's like going to a drink with good friends of mine, nothing more, and by god, nothing less.
But anyway, my point was, I don't feel like dropping into yet another community, that would take far too much time, and I don't feel like quitting either one of these two.
The only thing in direction of JF's idea would be tightening Charming Eclipse as a community, with dropdown, gathering site, and whatnot. But, as I said, I would constantly be feeling as if I was leeching on popularity of more popular comics there, so I don't want to have iniciative.