The Webcomic Manifesto: Conceiving

Sortelli · Post by **Sortelli** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 8:56 am

There's a guy in the Midwest who legally changed his name to Captain Ass Clown and he wants to sue you and Viacom for defamation.

:Razi Oak: · Post by **:Razi Oak:** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 8:58 am

I work at Viacom?

Cool!

Randomaxe · Post by **Randomaxe** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 9:05 am

Sortelli wrote:There's a guy in the Midwest who legally changed his name to Captain Ass Clown and he wants to sue you and Viacom for defamation.

That's okay, because I'm going to sue that guy for defacation, expectoration, mastication, conflagration, bifurcation, and abomination.

Then I'll have a celebration. With the United Nations. And that's no exaggeration.

Sortelli · Post by **Sortelli** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 10:17 am

:Razi Oak: wrote:I work at Viacom?

Cool!

Yeah, he was really steamed up about "Captain Ass Clown, the Movie"

Random, will there be defenestration at your party? I'd totally go, but I've got a problem with procrastination...

ZOMBIE USER 7782 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 7782** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 10:59 am

defacation, expectoration, mastication, conflagration, bifurcation, and abomination

Pooing, spitting, chewing, catching fire, splitting in two, and doing bad things?

ZOMBIE USER 12015 · Post by **ZOMBIE USER 12015** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 2:25 pm

Pooing, spitting, chewing, catching fire, splitting in two, and doing bad things?

This is starting to sound like the kind of party I like to get invited to. Should I wear my good rubber pants?

Saganaki · Post by **Saganaki** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 2:38 pm

*takes a step away from wrecked in the awkward silence following his post*

Friend · Post by **Friend** » Wed Jan 22, 2003 2:54 pm

Back on topic (and steering away from Wrecked's pants)...

MY main gripe is the claim that I have no social life. I have a kickass social life. I personally know EVERY SINGLE PERSON in Australia.

Jamie, heffa... you know me, right?

I rest my case.

Heffaloop · Post by **Heffaloop** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 1:13 am

Yes. And LunaSea and I are the entire population of here. "Welcome to Loserville. Population: us."

Megidoth · Post by **Megidoth** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 7:06 am

This manifesto hold some truth but it's too much generalised.

jueves wrote: ....The ultimate evidence? The cartoonist known as "Eight", who has been drawing "Road Waffles" for about over a year now. Keenspot founders claimed that one of a
Keenspot comic's main prerequisites is continuity - Road Waffles has been on hiatus for months. Afterwards, Eight started another comic that took RW's place, and again
began drawing a comic or two per month. Later, he replaced that comic with the current one, BloodLark, which after a couple months of regular run, vanished, as well. Do
note that Eight keeps his solid Keenspot position, keeps selling items, and keeps whining and complaining on his board...

I'm 100% with jueves on that one.

Eight could be compared to Joe Madureira,the BattleChasers artist.He IS talented,got a winning comic(in Eight case: Road Waffles,Bloodlark and Sephen)but like Joe,HE DOESN'T FINISH WHAT HE START!!BattleChasers is a winning bestsellers comic but the moron haven't done a comic in year.The biggest offence being that in the last one he told the reader that he would start to take a regular schedule!Eight started Bloodlark,which was pretty good and stopped doing it,whinning about his lack of job and stuff and left us with a /%/$?/?%&/%?* cliffhanger!

I like the works of these artist but i can't stand their damn way of treating their fans

*Aah,i feel better now

*

Randomaxe · Post by **Randomaxe** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 7:54 am

Megidoth wrote:Eight could be compared to Joe Madureira,the BattleChasers artist.He IS talented,got a winning comic(in Eight case: Road Waffles,Bloodlark and Sephen)but like Joe,HE DOESN'T FINISH WHAT HE START!!BattleChasers is a winning bestsellers comic but the moron haven't done a comic in year.The biggest offence being that in the last one he told the reader that he would start to take a regular schedule!Eight started Bloodlark,which was pretty good and stopped doing it,whinning about his lack of job and stuff and left us with a /%/$?/?%&/%?* cliffhanger!

Yeah, that is a crock of sh!t. I mean, personally, I always finish wh

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 2:29 pm

I checked out the discussion taking place on this topic on the original message forum and it was interesting to see Chris Crosby comment on some of the points brought up about keenspace.

As far as I see it Keenspot is some sort of exclusive club. Getting in to Keenspot has absolutely nothing to do with talent. It has absolutely nothing to do with marketability. It has absolutely nothing to do with popularity and readership numbers. It all comes down to "do the four people who run Keen Industries read and enjoy your comic". If the answer is yes, you get spotted, if the answer is no you don't.

The whole "you must publish at least 3 comics a week" thing is pure crap. There are a great many Keenspace comics that publish once a week that have not only more total readers than a number of Keenspot comics but also more daily readers than a number of Keenspot comics.

Sexy Losers, for example, has a total readership far in excess of what any of the Keenspot comics has. It also has more daily readers than many of the Keenspot comics and it only publishes once a week. In a formula of paveviews=adviews=money that's all that matters.

Yet the adview potential of a comic like Sexy Losers goes completely unexploited and this excellent comic is left to rot on the ghetto of webcomics that is Keenspace.

One of the reasons why many webcomic artists want to be spotted is the prestige factor. For some reason, Keenspot has come to mean "good" (even though there are crappy comics on Keenspot) and Keenspace has come to mean "sucks" (even though there are fantastic comics on Keenspace). For me the desire to be Spotted has nothing to do with the elevation of status in the community. Making it out of the ghetto means I finally get to be hosted on a server that isn't constantly being tinkered with and upgraded and replaced every couple of months. Keenspace doesn't work anymore. There is going to come a time, very soon, when Keen Industries simply isn't able to constantly tinker, upgrade, and replace the Keenspace servers and Keenspace will disappear. The entire mission of Keenspace needs to be retooled, not just the servers.

There are over 6000 accounts on Keenspace. There are over 5000 accounts in use. Still 99% of Keenspace's total traffic is generated by only 10% of the accounts. That 10% suffers because 90% of the dead-wood accounts burdon the system to the point where it slows everyone down and the servers constantly need to be tinkered with causing the entire system to be down for weeks at a time. This can't go on.

Now if Keenspace were a talent pool, where the popular comics became "Spotted" it wouldn't be such a problem. Those comics that make the pageview cut would be promoted to Keenspot and get to live out life on a more stable server which gets the priority service and they'd get to market print versions of the comics through the Keenswag devision. More pageviews, more adviews, more merchandise, more money flowing into Keen.

Unfortunately as Chris Crosby said in the source message forum for this manifesto, promoting comics to Keenspot isn't a priority for Keen Industries. They already have their exclusive little club and they don't want anymore members. So Keenspace suffers and is left to choke to death on its own crap.

Well why not turn Keenspace into a Keenspot-lite, but instead of being made a member of this club based on wether or not the Keen directors like your comic you get to be a member of this club based on wether or not the internet likes your comic.

Pick a number for the minimum membership number of pageviews. Say 10K pageviews per month. Everyone can sign up for a Keenspace account and if after six months they haven't reached the popularity to generate 10K pageviews per month then they're given a link to Geocities and told to try again in 6 months. This will fix the problem of Keenspace right away.

Finding hosting for a webcomic isn't a problem. Geocities, Tripod, Angelfire are all there, all free, all ready to accept your pencil sketches on lined notebook paper. If you're not breaking the 10K pageviews per month then you're not going to be exceeding your bandwidth limitations on one of those free accounts.

Finding hosting for a popular webcomic is a problem. The only solutions are to set up your own server (if you can). Buy webhosting space and try to make your comic pay for itself (good luck, webhosts charge through the freaking nose once you exceed 5 gig a month) or join up with Keenspace. If you join up with Keenspace you don't hve to pay for your hosting, but on the downside you're on a server that spends almost as much time down as it does up. You also get to be assosciated with over 5000 comics that are pure crap, which nobody reads but which still tax the Keenspace resources making it difficult for people to read the couple hundred Keenspace comics that are good.

If Keenspace would be just a bit more discriminate in what comics they host this wouldn't be a problem. They could still have their precious elite Keenspot club made up of a crew the directors feel are the only worthy webcomics. They'd also have a stable, less burdoned Keenspace with fewer comics of the pure-crap variety. The system would be up more, it would be read more, there would be more adviews both for outside pages and adviews for the precious elite on Keenspot to flog their exclusive Keenswag.

That's the only solution I can see that doesn't end with the complete destruction of Keenspace. How much longer can Keenspace last in its current form? One year? Two years? There's going to come a time, and sooner I think than later, when Keen Industries looks at the bloated corpse of Keenspace, full of so many thousands of comics that nobody reads and they're going to look at how much money it is costing them to keep that corpse animated, and how little revinue the corpse generates because it's never up long enough for them to generate any serious amount of adviews, and they're going to just pull the plug on Keenspace.

All those popular comic strips with large fanbases and great market potential that do exist on Keenspace are going to be gone. Perhaps a few will try to make a go of it as independents but most will just disappear simply because Keen Industries lacked the foresight to properly exploit them and because the directors of Keen didn't feel they wore the right coloured socks to join their elite fraternity on Keenspot.

This can't last forever. The money has to run out sometime and Keenspace is going to die. Will Keen Industries do something about this before hand to save the quality comics stuggling to get by on Keenspace or will they just watch from the ivory towers of Keenspot?

Now as for the other point brought up in the manifesto, that being the idiocyncratic quirks of various webcomics artists, how they run their comics and how they treat and interact with their readership. That was truly the most useless drivel ever.

What do I care if Gabe and Tycho want to goosestep all over their forums? What do I care if Scott Kurtz acts like a pompus ass? I don't know any of these people. Nothing they do can affect me in real life. Nothing I do can affect any of them in real life. It can be fun to play with and tease the other webcomics and their artists. I've gotten more than my fair share of jollies at the expense of other artists as have they at mine no doubt. At the end of the day it doesn't matter.

Internet celebrity is meaningless. It's easy enough to become an internet celebrity especially if you measure your celebrityship within the confines of your own peculiar internet community. It's not that hard to have people know your webcomic. It's not that hard to have people know your work. It's not that hard to get a few hundred readers. It's not that hard to get people e-mailing you to tell you they like your work. So if you do achieve internet celebrityhood then just accept it graciously. Sure, have fun teasing the other internet celebrities. Satire is always great. Writing an entire essay on how much they irk you is a waste of time. Let them do their thing, you concentrate on doing yours.

Always remember that internet celebrity is meaningless. Being known online doesn't increase your worth as a human being nor does it increase the value of your opinions. No matter how popular your webcomic is there are always more people on the internet who don't know about it than there are people who do. Just imagine how many people there are offline who don't even have a freaking clue that you exist!

That's about all I have to say.

Probably...

KedaDibandion · Post by **KedaDibandion** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 8:09 pm

Well said.

Krazy Krow · Post by **Krazy Krow** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 9:01 pm

The exact same post was cross-posted on several Keenspot boards as well. Maybe it's nothing but the most bastardly brilliant promotional scheme, ever.

Krazy Krow · Post by **Krazy Krow** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 9:11 pm

He's continuing the discussion on his own board:
http://escape.atp.cx/viewtopic.php?t=13 ... sc&start=0

I spammed it with plugs for Krakow 'cuz hey, turnabout is fair play.

Megidoth · Post by **Megidoth** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 10:01 pm

I spammed too,but with chance it will bring the big boss(s) sight here...

You can always hope,no?

btw:my net name is Seigneur Ruei everywhere except here in case you ever wondered,but i doub you do^^;

Saganaki · Post by **Saganaki** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 10:38 pm

I'm saganaki wherever I go, and the only time I've ever seen it taken was on eBay, which was an old account of mine that I had forgotten the login info for

-Yanagi-San- · Post by **-Yanagi-San-** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 10:46 pm

And I'm always Yanagi-San. However, Yanagi is a very popular anime character name, and lots of people have it or variations there of, so there's always the fallback variations like: Megami Yanagi, megami san, or in extreme cases, kimicha achine. (In case you were wondering, Megami Yanagi, or Yanagi-San has been my pen name on the net for a little over 7 years now. Megami Yanagi [read last name first name, Japanese-style] means "Goddess Willow".
However, I was just over there too, saying that no matter how much keenspace goes down, I love the free bandwidth. ^_^

Jaster! · Post by **Jaster!** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 10:54 pm

10k pageviews a month? I haven't been checking my stats much lately, and I think I may (barely) hit that quota, but that still seems pretty high to me, and a little bit harsh. The comics on keenspace with only one or two comics, on the other hand? The ones that haven't updated in 6 months? A year? Maybe even longer with some of them, give them a warning e-mail saying they need to do something with their site or forfeit, that's fine. Trash 'em, as they obviously don't care about their comic, and are just cluttering stuff up. I don't think anyone here could argue with a basic step like that, hard as it might be to send an e-mail to every stagnant comic on keenspace. Still, there are tons of other good comics on keenspace that are unpopular, and don't get many pageviews, and most of them don't care. They're just average folks who like to draw stuff, and put it on the internet so their friends, and maybe a few strangers, could occasionally check it out and be entertained for a bit. But I suppose that doesn't turn a profit, and if that constitutes exile from Keen, so be it, but geocities and angelfire don't have automatic archiving, and most of us don't have the programming expertise to set anything this sophisticated up, which could probably kill off quite a few comics out there. It just seems mean to me. But then I'm rambling...

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Thu Jan 23, 2003 11:05 pm

Who doesn't love the bandwidth especially if you're one of the popular comics.

If Keenspace does go down most of the comics will be able to evacuate to Geocities and not have to worry about exceeding their bandwidth. It's the popular comics that will be screwed.

I get over 250,000 pageviews each month. I wouldn't last a week on Geocities. Sure there are lots of servers that offer space for $5 to $10 per month but that's for 5 gigabytes. After you use that 5 gigabytes of bandwidth they charge you out the freaking ying-yang for your additional bandwidth.

You only real choice is to set up a server of your very own... Not too many people have the time, resources, and knowledge to do that.

My fate is liked to the survival of Keenspace. If Keenspace goes I go. Since the Keen executives don't seem to be that eager to Spot a hugely popular comic like Sexy Losers just because it's adult oriented and will offend the advertisers what chance does my comic have? Ironically I seem to recall reading once that one of the reasons Keenspot was created in the first place is because of the trend for comic syndicates to only sign bland and inoffencive strips so as not to offend advertisers. It seems Keen has ended up becoming the very thing they hated.

Perhaps somebody with vision will be able to pick up where Keenspace fails before it's too late. For now I can do nothing but hope that Keenspace survives.

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The Webcomic Manifesto: Conceiving

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