I know jack-crap about html and I managed to make a fairly decent and unique enough looking website.
As for people looking down on Keenspace comics...well, people are going to look down on new comics in general. If you're concerned about being branded a "Keenspace comic" (not that you really should be), then buy yourself a domain name for a few bucks so people won't have to type Keenspace to get to your comic.
Keenspace, Sherpa, Drunk Duck vs. independent website
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LibertyCabbage
- Cartoon Hero
- Posts: 4665
- Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 4:08 pm
- Location: bat country
- Contact:
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Leko
- Cartoon Hero
- Posts: 2263
- Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2004 9:42 pm
- Location: Wandering my psyche in search of my mind
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If you're still worried about your layout, there are a bunch of website templates that you can use in the gear. Alternatively, I'd suggest learning about tables. In my opinion, tables are the most useful tags in the history of html. My entire website design is based around tables.
In terms of the level of offensiveness in your comic, keenspace employs a ratings system (G, PG, MA, R, etc.) that readers will see on your comic in the guide if they're finding your comic through that. You choose the rating and keenspace displays it. The rating of your comic is also used to determine which pages the newsbox shows up on, so that an R-rated comic isn't advertised on a G-rated site. You can also put the rating on your front page if you're concerned, but the general rule is that if the readers are offended, they don't have to read it--it's not like you'll blow up the ice caps or something if you don't get enough readers, right?
If they're really offended, that's almost a good thing, because then they complain about you on their websites and if they give you a link people come and read your comic. Woohoo!
Lastly, the reason some people might be sensitive about the word "toon" around here is that we recently were debating a name change (it looks like Keenspace will soon be ComicGenesis) and Toonspace was one of the options, nixed by most forumites as being too childish. The debate lasted ages and ages and ages until everyone was quite sick of it, and I think the next person to suggest an alternate name for Keenspace will get lynched.
In terms of the level of offensiveness in your comic, keenspace employs a ratings system (G, PG, MA, R, etc.) that readers will see on your comic in the guide if they're finding your comic through that. You choose the rating and keenspace displays it. The rating of your comic is also used to determine which pages the newsbox shows up on, so that an R-rated comic isn't advertised on a G-rated site. You can also put the rating on your front page if you're concerned, but the general rule is that if the readers are offended, they don't have to read it--it's not like you'll blow up the ice caps or something if you don't get enough readers, right?
If they're really offended, that's almost a good thing, because then they complain about you on their websites and if they give you a link people come and read your comic. Woohoo!
Lastly, the reason some people might be sensitive about the word "toon" around here is that we recently were debating a name change (it looks like Keenspace will soon be ComicGenesis) and Toonspace was one of the options, nixed by most forumites as being too childish. The debate lasted ages and ages and ages until everyone was quite sick of it, and I think the next person to suggest an alternate name for Keenspace will get lynched.
Thespiphobia: (n) An irrational fear of actors.
From Greek: thespian (actor), phobos (fear).
ANARCHY! ANARCHY! ANARCHY!
From Greek: thespian (actor), phobos (fear).
ANARCHY! ANARCHY! ANARCHY!
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Keffria
- The Wimpy Teaching Assistant (Mod)
- Posts: 3748
- Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2003 12:07 pm
- Location: not-France
About the lack of respect for the Keenspace (or whatever it is we ended up changing it to... :p) name: After talking to many people who aren't webcomic artists, I've come to the conclusion that nobody outside our communities gives a damn where your comic is hosted, because they don't know anything about the politics.
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Steverules
- Cartoon Hero
- Posts: 1710
- Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:26 pm
- Contact:
Comic Sherpa offers hosting but you have to pay for it. It's tied to a major syndicate so if your product is good enough and hits the mark with many readers you have a chance of being picked up by the syndicate as an online strip and actually get paid for it. Jen Babcock did it with C'est la Vie. If you don't mind paying a monthly fee that might be a good option.
The problem with Keenspace and Drunk Duck is the perception given (fair or unfair). The perception is how serious are you if you aren't willing to sacrafice anything. Having your own domain will cost you a small register fee plus a monthly fee. You will have better luck at link exchange with non keenspace comics if you don't have .keenspace in the url.
The benefit of keenspace is the community. They are very supportive and there are definately many artists that take their craft seriously. And if your strip is good the audience won't care what the URL is. Also, with it being free it gives you a chance to get your feet wet without dipping in your pocketbook.
As far as not knowing HTML you can spend a couple hundred bucks and buy Frontpage or Dreamweaver and build a very nice website. If you've used Microsoft Word then you won't have any problems with Frontpage.
All in all I'd suggest going with keenspace or drunk duck and see what kind of feedback you get. Beaver and Steve started on Drunk Duck and it got such positive feedback he got his own domain and is doing very well.
Good luck to you.
The problem with Keenspace and Drunk Duck is the perception given (fair or unfair). The perception is how serious are you if you aren't willing to sacrafice anything. Having your own domain will cost you a small register fee plus a monthly fee. You will have better luck at link exchange with non keenspace comics if you don't have .keenspace in the url.
The benefit of keenspace is the community. They are very supportive and there are definately many artists that take their craft seriously. And if your strip is good the audience won't care what the URL is. Also, with it being free it gives you a chance to get your feet wet without dipping in your pocketbook.
As far as not knowing HTML you can spend a couple hundred bucks and buy Frontpage or Dreamweaver and build a very nice website. If you've used Microsoft Word then you won't have any problems with Frontpage.
All in all I'd suggest going with keenspace or drunk duck and see what kind of feedback you get. Beaver and Steve started on Drunk Duck and it got such positive feedback he got his own domain and is doing very well.
Good luck to you.
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Dutch!
- Red galah
- Posts: 4644
- Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 4:39 am
- Location: The best place on this little blue rock
- Contact:
I knew nothing about the game at all before I signed up for keenspace and moved my small collection here a year ago. 150 comics later I'm still here and don't give two hoots for any politics between the other providers, most of which I am blissfully unaware of.
Just jump in and join us, it's an easy transition for most of us.
Put it this way...I did, and reckon I struck it lucky with the group I got involved in.
Just jump in and join us, it's an easy transition for most of us.
Put it this way...I did, and reckon I struck it lucky with the group I got involved in.
Remember when your imagination was real? When the day seemed
longer than it was, and tomorrow was always another game away?
longer than it was, and tomorrow was always another game away?
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Plothole
- Cartoon Hero
- Posts: 1056
- Joined: Sun Nov 23, 2003 10:23 pm
- Location: In the Kitchen.
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Or you can pay zip and download an editor like <a href="http://selida.camelon.nl/">Selida</a>, or use the one built into <a href="http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/">Netscape</a>/Mozilla Suite. They don't have nearly the number of features that programs like Frontpage or Dreamweaver have, but hey, they're free.steverules wrote:As far as not knowing HTML you can spend a couple hundred bucks and buy Frontpage or Dreamweaver and build a very nice website. If you've used Microsoft Word then you won't have any problems with Frontpage.
EDIT: *reads rest of thread* Or the one you're using right now! You can find <a href="http://www.nvu.com/demo.html">a demo page</a> as well as their <a href="http://forum.nvudev.org/">support forum</a> at <a href="http://www.nvu.com/">Nvu's site</a>.
Last edited by Plothole on Wed Jun 15, 2005 11:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
<i title="My Comic">Nyuterran Chronicles!</i> / <i title="My Art">Warped Deviations</i>
*promises to update within the next millenium*
*promises to update within the next millenium*
The one built into netscape is a pain, although I was trying to do fairly complex stuff with it, so that might have been why I ditested it so. It does (or it did when I used it) have a habit of putting an awful lot of spaces between lines of html, but then if you dont want to be looking at the html that much then its not really a problem.Higamigokoro wrote:Or you can pay zip and download an editor like <a href="http://selida.camelon.nl/">Selida</a>, or use the one built into <a href="http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/">Netscape</a>/Mozilla Suite. They don't have nearly the number of features that programs like Frontpage or Dreamweaver have, but hey, they're free.steverules wrote:As far as not knowing HTML you can spend a couple hundred bucks and buy Frontpage or Dreamweaver and build a very nice website. If you've used Microsoft Word then you won't have any problems with Frontpage.
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Jen_Babcock
- Regular Poster
- Posts: 649
- Joined: Fri Dec 03, 2004 9:02 pm
- Location: Los Angeles/ New York City
I've had experience with sherpa, drunkduck, keenspace, and my own url.
Sherpa:
Sherpa is good b/c you get a lot of exposure from it, and if you're lucky/good enough you'll catch the eye of an editor from Universal Press Syndicate or Uclick. If you're even luckier, you'll get a contract from them. Moreover, you get unlimited bandwidth for a decent price, and if you're fortunate and an editor likes your work, you'll have that fee waivered for you.
The bad thing about sherpa is that you can't custom design your site, and you get a really messy url. Not a good thing if you want to easily point others to your work. It can also get really slow b/c of the pop up ads. There's also a jerk that likes to send cartoonists on sherpa terrible hate- filled feedback, which is hurtful at first, but then quickly becomes annoying. Another disadvantage to sherpa is that your work can become quickly buried in its long list of features. [url]
Drunk Duck
Drunk Duck has a very close knit community, but people tend to scratch each other's backs a lot over there. Their ranking system is very flawed. Also, drunk duck goes down a LOT. Sometimes I wasn't able to upload a new comic for days.
However, the service is free (for basic membership), you don't have to wait to start uploading comics, and you can custom design your page. If you do the basic service you can only upload one comic a day.
Keenspace
I only have one comic uploaded on keenspace (I didn't even know it had uploaded till one month later, at what point I decided just to concentrate on my own site), but from what I can see it has a good system. I like that there's no "ranking" system and that you can treat your keenspace site much like your own website. The url for a keenspace site is also very easy to remember.
Your own domain
I have my own domain through Speakeasy.net. I really like speakeasy- it's very reliable and they have good customer service. If you're just starting out you only need their basic service, which I think is only something like 10 bucks a month. If you have a readership of over 700 you'll probably need to upgrade to their unlimited bandwidth package, which is 30 bucks a month.
The nice thing about having your own url is that you don't have to abide by anyone's rule except your own, and it's just nice to have your own url.
Just a comparison of the different urls that clv has (excluding my ucomics one) or had:
http://cestlavie.keenspace.com/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Cest_la_Vie_/
http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csxck
http://www.clv-comic.com
The sherpa one is the worst of all of these urls in the sense that it's unecessarily long. Having your own domain is ideal for obvious reasons though- it depends on how much you want to invest in your comic, I guess.
Sherpa:
Sherpa is good b/c you get a lot of exposure from it, and if you're lucky/good enough you'll catch the eye of an editor from Universal Press Syndicate or Uclick. If you're even luckier, you'll get a contract from them. Moreover, you get unlimited bandwidth for a decent price, and if you're fortunate and an editor likes your work, you'll have that fee waivered for you.
The bad thing about sherpa is that you can't custom design your site, and you get a really messy url. Not a good thing if you want to easily point others to your work. It can also get really slow b/c of the pop up ads. There's also a jerk that likes to send cartoonists on sherpa terrible hate- filled feedback, which is hurtful at first, but then quickly becomes annoying. Another disadvantage to sherpa is that your work can become quickly buried in its long list of features. [url]
Drunk Duck
Drunk Duck has a very close knit community, but people tend to scratch each other's backs a lot over there. Their ranking system is very flawed. Also, drunk duck goes down a LOT. Sometimes I wasn't able to upload a new comic for days.
However, the service is free (for basic membership), you don't have to wait to start uploading comics, and you can custom design your page. If you do the basic service you can only upload one comic a day.
Keenspace
I only have one comic uploaded on keenspace (I didn't even know it had uploaded till one month later, at what point I decided just to concentrate on my own site), but from what I can see it has a good system. I like that there's no "ranking" system and that you can treat your keenspace site much like your own website. The url for a keenspace site is also very easy to remember.
Your own domain
I have my own domain through Speakeasy.net. I really like speakeasy- it's very reliable and they have good customer service. If you're just starting out you only need their basic service, which I think is only something like 10 bucks a month. If you have a readership of over 700 you'll probably need to upgrade to their unlimited bandwidth package, which is 30 bucks a month.
The nice thing about having your own url is that you don't have to abide by anyone's rule except your own, and it's just nice to have your own url.
Just a comparison of the different urls that clv has (excluding my ucomics one) or had:
http://cestlavie.keenspace.com/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Cest_la_Vie_/
http://www.comicssherpa.com/site/feature?uc_comic=csxck
http://www.clv-comic.com
The sherpa one is the worst of all of these urls in the sense that it's unecessarily long. Having your own domain is ideal for obvious reasons though- it depends on how much you want to invest in your comic, I guess.
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Plothole
- Cartoon Hero
- Posts: 1056
- Joined: Sun Nov 23, 2003 10:23 pm
- Location: In the Kitchen.
- Contact:
Not to be a stickler... but think you mean Your own webspace.? The domain is simply the address, and Keenspace can park domains no prob.Jen_Babcock wrote:Your own domain
I have my own domain through Speakeasy.net. I really like speakeasy- it's very reliable and they have good customer service. If you're just starting out you only need their basic service, which I think is only something like 10 bucks a month. If you have a readership of over 700 you'll probably need to upgrade to their unlimited bandwidth package, which is 30 bucks a month.
The nice thing about having your own url is that you don't have to abide by anyone's rule except your own, and it's just nice to have your own url.
Also, though I'm not entirely sure of DD, Keenspace offers free, unlimited bandwidth with its service.
<i title="My Comic">Nyuterran Chronicles!</i> / <i title="My Art">Warped Deviations</i>
*promises to update within the next millenium*
*promises to update within the next millenium*
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Sam_Charette
- Regular Poster
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- Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:58 pm
- Location: Northern Ontario, Canada
- Contact:
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Pillywiggin
- The Establishment (Moderator)
- Posts: 1369
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