Keenspace, Sherpa, Drunk Duck vs. independent website

[McDuffies]

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.

Also, though I'm not entirely sure of DD, Keenspace offers free, unlimited bandwidth with its service.

Yeah, if I'm correctly informed, Keenspace hosts domains with no trouble (I'm not sure about the others). However, if you have your own webspace, the worst thing you have to worry about is lack of automatic updating - so you have to either upload your comic every time manually, or to instal some php or java script.

[Arvo]

The characters in my comic strip have or will:

Rape horses
Rape tentacle demons
Commit murder
Commit deicide
Incite mass riots
Plot the overthrow of the US government
Plot to nuke New York City

And those are the *heroes*.

I'm sure there are limits, but in general, if it's within 'free speech' limitations I think it's okay for Keenspace. (I'm a little worried about that 'overthrow' thing, myself.)

Ghastly's comic is an extreme case. But it's so extreme that he has a special exception from Keen, so I don't think you can safely take him as an example of where the limits are.

Remus,

I think your strip might be slightly nastier than mine. Thanks for putting things in perspective.

Arvo

[Arvo]

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.

Thanks Leko. I went to gear and didn't see any templates. Do you know exactly where they are ?

Arvo

[Mercury Hat]

There has been one instance of content problem with a Keenspace comic that I can remember. Ghastly ran a comic which caused someone to complain to the people who provide the ads for Keenspace and the ads were pulled from his site. Not being able to run the ads would have gotten him kicked off Keenspace, but he worked out a deal with the powers that be and sells his own adspace to other comics to pay for the cost of his hosting.

Keenspace itself will not pull a comic for content unless the comic is breaking copyright laws and a cease and desist has been received. This is mostly in the case of sprite comics and, as far as I know, hasn't actually happened.

Templates are available under the Cadet's section of Gear.

[Arvo]

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.

Thanks Steverules. So has anyone who was on Keenspace gotten a syndicate contract? Jen Babcock was on Sherpa when she got picked up, I take it, not Keenspace?

[Jen_Babcock]

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.

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.


Also, though I'm not entirely sure of DD, Keenspace offers free, unlimited bandwidth with its service.

My bad, it was around 3 am my time when I made that post so I wasn't thinking straight.

Oh and Avro- right, I was on sherpa and not on keenspace at the time. I'm not sure many editors go to keenspace pages (there are just too many) unless maybe they've heard about it word of mouth.

[Arvo]

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]

Thanks Jen. I wonder if you have the option to have your own domain name pointed at Sherpa. Someone else said that you had been picked up by the syndicate while at Sherpa, is that correct? Not while you were at Keenspace?

What line did they use to pick you up? Well, seriously, which is your choice, considering all the pros and cons?

Arvo

[Arvo]

But what if you want to sell books, t-shirts and coffee mugs on your site? Is that allowed at Keenspace?

Do any cartoonists really make money from that sort of thing?

Arvo

[Arvo]

Templates are available under the Cadet's section of Gear.

Thanks, Mercury Hat.

[McDuffies]

Well, lots of Keenspacers went indepedent once they gained enough readership to make their own payed site worthwhile.
There's a lot of popular keenspace comics who manage to sell merchandise. Of course, for that, you have to get popular first.
Occasionally, keenspacers are picked by professional sites like Keenspot or Modern Tales where they get to be payed.
Webartists manage to sell prints of their comics in their own arangements (keenspacers too).

But I don't think print sindicates check any other webhost. All in all, I've heard of a very fer web - to - print transfers.

[RPin]

Keenspace itself will not pull a comic for content unless the comic is breaking copyright laws and a cease and desist has been received. This is mostly in the case of sprite comics and, as far as I know, hasn't actually happened.

I remember two times it occured. And with the same person.

He used to draw this comic about a man with stubs instead of feet who lived in a box of feces and no, it wasn't what got him into trouble.

He once got a Cease & Desist letter because of the Sesame Street parodies he did. The other time which prompted Kisai to pull off his entire site was because he had a tutorial on making crystal meth.

[EDIT] So the moral of the story is that you have to be really fucked up if anything like this happens to you. Even more fucked up than some guy drawing Aryan Jesus having sex in missionary position.

[McDuffies]

Yeah. Spoofing Disney characters in various highly sexual situations is very harmless. Or so I've heard.

[Sam_Charette]

toon 2 Audio pronunciation of "toon" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (tn)
n. Informal

1. A cartoon, especially an animated cartoon.
2. A character in an animated cartoon.

Yes, but in #1 it says a cartoon, especially an animated cartoon.

But it doesn't say ONLY an animated cartoon, so it's any cartoon, and as per the definition of cartoon, it fits.

[Mercury Hat]

Keenspace itself will not pull a comic for content unless the comic is breaking copyright laws and a cease and desist has been received. This is mostly in the case of sprite comics and, as far as I know, hasn't actually happened.

I remember two times it occured. And with the same person.

He used to draw this comic about a man with stubs instead of feet who lived in a box of feces and no, it wasn't what got him into trouble.

He once got a Cease & Desist letter because of the Sesame Street parodies he did. The other time which prompted Kisai to pull off his entire site was because he had a tutorial on making crystal meth.

[EDIT] So the moral of the story is that you have to be really fucked up if anything like this happens to you. Even more fucked up than some guy drawing Aryan Jesus having sex in missionary position.

Ah, I guess I'm still just a dumb newb when it comes to certain things.

But my original point is that if Keenspace gets a Cease and Desist, there will be erring on the side of caution and the site would most likely be pulled right away.

[RPin]

Ah, I guess I'm still just a dumb newb when it comes to certain things.

Or maybe it's just because it happened before your time!

[Wp]

Keenspace itself will not pull a comic for content unless the comic is breaking copyright laws and a cease and desist has been received. This is mostly in the case of sprite comics and, as far as I know, hasn't actually happened.

I remember two times it occured. And with the same person.

He used to draw this comic about a man with stubs instead of feet who lived in a box of feces and no, it wasn't what got him into trouble.

He once got a Cease & Desist letter because of the Sesame Street parodies he did. The other time which prompted Kisai to pull off his entire site was because he had a tutorial on making crystal meth.

[EDIT] So the moral of the story is that you have to be really fucked up if anything like this happens to you. Even more fucked up than some guy drawing Aryan Jesus having sex in missionary position.

Ah, I guess I'm still just a dumb newb when it comes to certain things.

But my original point is that if Keenspace gets a Cease and Desist, there will be erring on the side of caution and the site would most likely be pulled right away.

As I understand from Ghastly's advice, the company is most likely to send a Cease and Desist to the comic creator and not Keenspace. In which case you can safely ignore it.

[RPin]

If you read the Keenspace TOS, wp, you'll learn that Keenspace reserves the right to refuse providing you service if your material is likely to increase the risk of liability. That means they can put off your stuff if you veer to copyright infringement so much and in the process of taking you down it ends up taking down all of keenspace.

It was one of Kisai's concern if I recall it well. She was against sprite comics because if someday Nintendo and Capcom decide to C&D all of them, she would have to shut down Keenspace to search for those sprite comics and delete them one by one.

[Wp]

If you read the Keenspace TOS, wp, you'll learn that Keenspace reserves the right to refuse providing you service if your material is likely to increase the risk of liability. That means they can put off your stuff if you veer to copyright infringement so much and in the process of taking you down it ends up taking down all of keenspace.

It was one of Kisai's concern if I recall it well. She was against sprite comics because if someday Nintendo and Capcom decide to C&D all of them, she would have to shut down Keenspace to search for those sprite comics and delete them one by one.

Not exactly my point. If they send the C&D to the comic creator and not to Keenspace, then the higher-ups will never know. Unless, of course, you tell them.

Apparently Ghastly's received several C&Ds, which he ignored safely to my knowledge.

[Leko]

If they aren't making any money off of the copyright infringement, can legal action be taken against them?

I was under the impression that it couldn't, and that this was why the autor of Bob and George doesn't sell merchandise directly featuring the Megaman characters.

[Jen_Babcock]

Thanks Jen. I wonder if you have the option to have your own domain name pointed at Sherpa. Someone else said that you had been picked up by the syndicate while at Sherpa, is that correct? Not while you were at Keenspace?

What line did they use to pick you up? Well, seriously, which is your choice, considering all the pros and cons?

Arvo

I'm not sure if you're allowed to have your domain name point to sherpa... that's something that you might want to talk to ask the people in charge of sherpa (David Stanford). My guess would be "non" though. And, yes, the syndicate nabbed me via sherpa. I had had contact w/ Universal Press Syndicate before I was on sherpa though, and it was one of the editors there that asked if I would be interested in putting my work up to see how it was received by everyone. He and I kinda stopped talking to each other last October though (long story), and Uclick, a division of UPS, asked if I was interested in signing a contract. Other comics w/o previous contacts w/ UPS have made the jump from sherpa to uclick though- Lost Sheep, Idiot Box, Bob the Squirrel, and Hubert and Abby come to mind. If you feel like your work is strong enough and has a very good chance of being picked up (and you are interested in syndication), I would recommend Sherpa. I think many cartoonists on sherpa are inspired more to update on a regular schedule b/c they know editors are snooping around and keeping their eyes on features they like. You're also paying for the service, so you want to get the most out of it.

However, if you're tight on cash, then I'd say try keenspace. It's reliable, free, you can give your readers an easy url to remember, and if you REALLY want to get syndicated, you could always submit your work the old fashioned way- via snail mail. There aren't really too many cons I can think of when it comes to going w/ keenspace- except for maybe the ad that you're required to have on your page... but that's not really a big deal.

Or you could also mix it up- use sherpa or your keenspace/drunk duck site as mirrors.