The tides of Keenspot

[Omeg@]

Have you seen this?

I've noticed that many of regular comics hosted by Keenspot have been vanished without any note or message within a week. This is just guessing, but this? might be the reason. What I dread is that is this going to change anything regarding Joe's plans for Zebra Girl. Keenspot is clrealy becoming a more hostile place regarding it's loyal users.

[Briareos]

Ouch.

[JoeEngland]

That's definitely disturbing. But, you know, times do change. If it comes to that, leaving Keenspot wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
There are other popular webcomics collectives out there, or I could go independent again like in the old days. I'd miss the sense of community, but I never did much with it anyhow. And it's not like I'm earning much money here... who knows, maybe I'd make a more credible income if I handled my own advertising.
Furthermore, it might be a good time to make a fresh start somewhere. Zebra Girl's not the most popular comic around, and this could be an incentive to introduce myself to a fresh audience. Not that there's anything wrong with the one I've got! Hopefully I wouldn't lose readers.
Of course, it would be a pain having to re-code all the HTML, though really that's just a matter of patience. The biggest real drawback I can think of would be losing this forum, which I've grown fairly fond of... still. New forums aren't hard to set up.
What do you all think? I'm fairly certain most of you are smarter than me anyway.

[stardrive]

NOT THE MOST POPULAR STRIP?! Say it ain't so, Joe! You just need to show it around to more people. This thing would make a terrific movie. You've seen where your fans turned it into a live youtube flick. (that music on there works great with it!) Brain droppings...nobody knows you exist till you tell them. Hey, I'm hanging on every strip, uh, update. And I just got here by accident. And I'm staying plugged in to ZEBRA GIRL. Segue..Ben Grimm got his power mostly by accident...and he decided to keep it! Sandra will find she enjoys her power, and she'll want to keep it. This beats Yogi Bear, Mark Trail, (minimal drawing effort involved there) and hundreds of other animated characters hands down. Doyenne is amazing, also. But I never would have seen her without Sandra. Angels with dirty fur...GREAT! If you ever do decide to move her location, you need to leave roadsigns so we can follow. Smarter? Whose name is on each update? Not mine! YOU DA MAN!

(maybe.. I need to get the word out in my location about this great strip..hhmmmm)

[Omeg@]

While I do have to painstakingly admit that Zebra Girl isn't the most popular comic in keenspot, I'd like to point out that it is the best drawn and written comic. They'll be sorry to lose this jewel. You know what would help gaining more popularity? Some regular updates. Many average webcomic readers are used to see a new page every week. Many people probably would be willing to trade some of the style for faster story pace, but those people are fools (in my humble opinion). I'd rather spend ten minutes reading a masterpiece rather than wasting my time reading a medicore scheiße for two hours. I can wait.


If it comes to that and Zebra Girl is to leave the bosom of Keenspot, there will be few things that I'm going to worry about: A)What will happen to the archives? B) What will happen to the fanwork archives? C) Will it be really worth it? I mean, there's no use to trade a week old sandwich to a two week old sandwhich. D) Will we be getting the "page visited ##times"-counter back again?

and E) the forum...
Like Joe said, it wouldn't bee too difficult to put together a new forum. Although I have spend over six years in here and managed to collect a hefty postcount, I'd be willing to throw it all away if we could get rid of those bloody Dominic Deegan junkies. In fact, it might be quite refreshing to start from the bottom again and to start collecting new pile of threads and see how the whole place would be rebuild from scratch. Oh, I'm getting excited already!

[Briareos]

A)What will happen to the archives? B) What will happen to the fanwork archives?

I take it you haven't met everyone's good friend, "wget --mirror <url of the Zebra Girl website>" or a near relative thereof?

Since it's all hand-written HTML it shouldn't be a problem just uploading it at some other, less wonky-compared-to-keenspot hoster...

But if Joe decides to move to another, probably more generic hoster why not move to ComicPress in stead of handwritten HTML for managing the comic pages? It does wonders for several other web comics I'm reading (Wapsi Square, Bear Nuts, Sandra and Woo, Edmund Finney's Quest to Find the Meaning of Life, Kukuburi)...

Oh, and thank Keenspot and it's f-ed up forum software for not linking to the comic I mentioned...

[MrBigMr]

Times they are a-changin', as Bob Dylan put it.

Internets, the last bastion of freedom, the final frontier, is being taken up by the caddle ranchers and bankers. Google is bying 4chan (good riddance, I say), etc. etc. Now we have only 2 ways to go: Into the seas or into space. There man can live free without The Man breathing down his neck. Oh, wait, who's gonna provide the subs/ships, stations and oxygen? Damn. You lied to me, Star Trek/Seaquest/Firefly/etc., there's nothing in space/sea but the endless toil of making enough money to keep alive while The Man makes all the profit.


Anyway, setting up a site shouldn't be that hard this day and age. Cheap web space is everywhere for low low prices. I don't think ZG takes up that much space as a whole. Bandwidth might be a problem, but only if you're gonna get few billion hits a day.

[BrianJ]

Well, isn't THAT just something?! Everyone take notice: policies like THIS is what causes a company to implode in on itself, fold up, crumple into a little ball, and wither away, sobbing bitterly into the cold, quiet night, desperately alone. After July 1, I don't think KeenSpot will be much longer for this world.

As far as leaving roadsigns to follow him when Joe leaves this sinking ship, well, Joe still owns the URL ZebraGirl.net (at least I am ASSUMING you're still the owner of this address, Joe?), which currently reroutes to the keenspot site. 'Twould be no problem to have it point to whatever new location he puts down stakes in. The main question is, where?

I think we should follow Briareos's example and come up with alternative locations that would be more than happy to host such a WHOLLY AWESOME webcomic as Zebra Girl, and list any pros or cons that you can think of for comparison. What's their price? How does advertising work? Do they have a good comic update process? Automated archiving/indexing? Update notification system to readers that ACTUALLY DOES WHAT IT FRKN' SUPPOSED TO?! Do they have a good forum that works without bugs? Do they have fan submission system? etc.?

(Myself, I've got no suggestions for new sites. I don't frequent many webcomic sites. *ashamed*)

As far as losing archives or anything like that, I'm sure Joe (and probably several of us avid readers) has a back-up of all the comic pages, journal entries, and fan media/pics/fictions already. When we start to think about new sites, it should be noted that over 500 pages of comic images, several hundread fan images, and the Fan Media (midi, mp3s, avis, etc) do take up a bit of room, so price for storage can be a factor.

As far as losing most of the posts from the forum... meh. We already lost a lot of the OLD-old content when Keenspot changed its forum style a few years ago, and I for one am not too terribly attached to most of the content. We've got several pages of old, dead posts anyways. A little clean-up would probably be welcomed by most. A quick back-up of the more used/recent threads, and we're good to go.

[Jamster]

Locus recently also ditched keenspot and went to http://www.needcomics.com/. They allow hosting under your own domain from what I've seen. And given the comics there, I doubt there are big restrictions on content matters. Not that Zebragirl Isn't drawn in a family friendly way.

[MrBigMr]

Well, isn't THAT just something?! Everyone take notice: policies like THIS is what causes a company to implode in on itself, fold up, crumple into a little ball, and wither away, sobbing bitterly into the cold, quiet night, desperately alone. After July 1, I don't think KeenSpot will be much longer for this world.

No, of course not. Busines thrives from dictatorship. It's the perfect busines model.

For a really nerdy comparison, look at Games-Workshop:
-They keep pushing expensive stuff (I know inflation ups the prices, but there are companies out there that sell just as good stuff for way cheaper) with so and so rules. Rules that usually just pimp the sales of new stuff. The latest Tyranid codex makes all the old optios that people had way less usable, while making others much more appealing, so that everyone who already had a working army now has to either buy or convert their armies anew to have something usable. Or they make the rules for some new expensive model really tempting, so everyone will want at least 5 such things.

-They've deleted their own forum and pretty much all hobby related things from the website, like all the conversion guides and such, while pinping their products all the time in the manner of "Dude, look at this new set and all it can do, you'll want one of these no matter what. Now it's basically a really fancy store

-They've ignored all their smaller games (Blood Bowl, Necronumda, Mordheim, etc.) that ain't making them that much money (because they don't sell much miniatures). And all the while the loyal fans who've kept these games alive for a better part of a decade with updates and tweaks, are thanked with a Cease and Desist letters from the legal department. I know it's in their rights to do so, since those people are basically distributing GW property (which they let people download for free from their website), but they could have been more diplomatic about it.

Even better, they've even said that if other companies don't stop making fantasy football miniatures (especially when GW doesn't even have models for all the players) and let people believe they can use them in games like Blood Bowl, they're not gonna bother updating the rules.

-They do "limited releases" on some old things (such as the recent Space Hulk), and after people have flocked to get them, they suddenly make them normal items and everyone who hoarded 5 in the hopes of "few years from now they'll sell on eBay like hot cakes" are left out to dry.

-They constantly are "inspired" by others, but dear God if you dare to make anything remotely referring to their products, C&D letter will be on their way.

-The "how to use GW IP" guide on their website is not at all legal (they can't make their own rules, they follow the same ones as everyone else) and serves mostly as a deterrent for anyone who does think about doing it.

-Screwing people over financially, like one company that made a deal with GW to make large resin models for their own game that had a little reference to GW titans (basically gothic robots with castles on their backs and big guns). At first GW was all "sure, we don't see anything wrong with that", but after they had everything set up for mass production, GW pulled the plug and now they don't have money to fight in court. Or the Germans who made the 40K movie, but once it was done and GW realized German IP laws were different from UK ones, they pulled the plug and the movie got busted (but nothing stays hidden in the internets).


You'd think GW would be on their way to Hell by now, right? Wrong. They're making more money than ever.

Mark my words, Keenspot will become like a webcomic starbucks. And they'll make more money than God with mediocre products. Nothing for the creative person, for he is the scorn in The Man's wallet. Creativity costs money, products make it.


Oh right, we're suppose to be making Joe feel better. Um... Cheer up, bunny boy.

As far as losing archives or anything like that, I'm sure Joe (and probably several of us avid readers) has a back-up of all the comic pages, journal entries, and fan media/pics/fictions already. When we start to think about new sites, it should be noted that over 500 pages of comic images, several hundread fan images, and the Fan Media (midi, mp3s, avis, etc) do take up a bit of room, so price for storage can be a factor.

Storage space is cheap, it's the bandwith that's the problem. A few years ago 500Mb web space was like 34€ a year, and that wasn't even the cheapest I could find. But it only came with 3Gb bandwith. Extra bandwith could be purchased, though.

As far as losing most of the posts from the forum... meh.

I agree, meh. It's like getting kick-banned and returning with a new account. Only to be kick-banned again for some other reason.

[Volkai]

So, Joe... where will we find Zebra Girl post-Keenspot?

[Stingra]

Although I am loathe to support the idiots that banned me for no reason http://community.910cmx.com/ is a smaller webcomic collective spawned from The Wotch forums and currently hosting another Keenspot bailfish, El Goonish Shive. Since I know you've got some readers there (or did, it's been awhile) I would ask to consider moving there. They'll even make a private forum for all you guys and give you sole control over it, Joe. Or that's what they did with Dan Shive anyway.

The only downside is that I'd no longer be able to comment when the mood strikes me.

Oh, and thanks for those links, Omega, this whole situation has held my interest for awhile and it's good to finally know whats going on. Then again, my own speculation wasn't too far off the mark.

[Gazing Rabbit]

Mr. England, the *only* thing standing between Zebragirl and widespread recognition on the internets is the rather erratic update schedule.

The writing is good, the art is unique (in a good way) and the characters are interesting.
The only problem is that, well, it isn't going anywhere due to lack of updates. If you're doing this as nothing more than a hobby, than it doesn't really matter, but if you want Zebragirl to be 'SERIOUS BUSYNESS', it will require the appropriate dedication from you.

My 0.02 US$

[MrBigMr]

Or the simple reason and my 0.02 € ($0.0287 US): People are idiots.

Lets face it, they're the ones who make Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer household names while many authors with actual skill and vision are left to rot. I'm not saying we shouldn't read them, but seriously, they're not worth all the mania.

[BrianJ]

Few updates. Many updates. There'll be NO updates unless it's hosted somewhere where people will SEE it.

[BrianJ]

Oh, and on a side note... Gazing Rabbit: YOU! FIRE!!

Welcome.

[Omeg@]

Few updates. Many updates. There'll be NO updates unless it's hosted somewhere where people will SEE it.

I might believe that Joe has enough talent to work with "real" publishers. To get pages printed and sold IRL is the dream of many web comic artists, but quite few have enough skillz to pull it through. I'm not saying that I want Joe to do it. I enjoy the current status quo and going to the old skool bussiness would probably diminish my chances of getting a more or less weekly update for very modest donation every now and then.

The only problem is that, well, it isn't going anywhere due to lack of updates. If you're doing this as nothing more than a hobby, than it doesn't really matter, but if you want Zebragirl to be 'SERIOUS BUSYNESS', it will require the appropriate dedication from you.

see:

Many average webcomic readers are used to see a new page every week. Many people probably would be willing to trade some of the style for faster story pace, but those people are fools (in my humble opinion). I'd rather spend ten minutes reading a masterpiece rather than wasting my time reading a medicore scheiße for two hours. I can wait.

Although I am loathe to support the idiots that banned me for no reason http://community.910cmx.com/ is a smaller webcomic collective spawned from The Wotch forums and currently hosting another Keenspot bailfish, El Goonish Shive. Since I know you've got some readers there (or did, it's been awhile) I would ask to consider moving there. They'll even make a private forum for all you guys and give you sole control over it, Joe. Or that's what they did with Dan Shive anyway.

This is just my honest opinnion, but...
Shive... Wotch. Comapring them to the belowed Zebra Girl is like comapring a half eaten french fry to a Lobster meal, or comparing an ice pick to a steampowered industry drill, or like comparing a salt shaker to all the salt in the Dead sea! *spit* Wotch is a perfect example of what happens when below average art meets average storytelling and backs it up en masse. It does not require talent, only a will to draw without standards. I admit that joining to this other place, Zebra girl would definetly get many more readers, since Wotch and Shive seem to be more popular than GOD all mighty. The problem is that after a while, a huge horde of people would be mailing to Joe and whining into the forums how they want more updates. *another spit* Ofcourse the people would be taken in by A class art and plot, but they would expect a new page three times a week. They'd take it granted, I'm afraid. After noticing that there isn't a new page everytime they'd check the site, most would get bored of waiting and give up.

I'd spit once more, but it seems that I've run out of saliva for some reason.

Oh, and thanks for those links, Omega, this whole situation has held my interest for awhile and it's good to finally know whats going on. Then again, my own speculation wasn't too far off the mark.

Just spreading chaos, my friend.

[Stingra]

Well, I didn't say I thought those comics were the best...I just know/knew he had fans there and suggested heading for grounds more familiar. Yay for trying to help, I suppose.

I've stopped reading many webcomics over the years, but is Blank Label comics still going?

[Briareos]

I've stopped reading many webcomics over the years, but is Blank Label comics still going?

Signs point to yes.

[Omeg@]

Well, I didn't say I thought those comics were the best...I just know/knew he had fans there and suggested heading for grounds more familiar. Yay for trying to help, I suppose.

Hey now, I didn't say that it was a bad idea. In fact it sounds like a good plan, as long as we can tolerate the natives. *twitch*

[BrianJ]

Thing is, if Joe just wants to capture new interest in the comic on a brand new site, He could start from the top. Almost nothing is actually date-specific in the comic (except for the May 5th reference very early on, and the tie-in with Halloween happening in the comic the same time as RL a year or so ago), so nothing would stop Joe from going to the new site by publishing the starting "No. 1" 05/06/2000 strip entry. Or, start with publishing the first couple of years of archive, then trickle the rest out weekly.

That way, he'd have several years worth of buffer to allow weekly updates again while he furiously works on the latest plot thread. Brand new readers wouldn't know the difference, and current/old readers would have another opportunity at nostalgia.

Now, that may drive some (or several... perhaps ALL) of his CURRENT readers right up the belfrey wall, going "WHAT HAPPENED!? IS THIS ANOTHER FRSKING HIATUS?!?" but it would definitely get the interest of new readers and give them plenty of "timely" updates to get completely hooked before we're all caught up again.

*NOTE: THIS SHOULD NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM BE TAKEN AS A SUGGESTION OR ENDORSEMENT!! IT IS JUST A POSSIBILITY!! PLEASE DON'T KILL THE MESSENGER!!!


You read nothing here.

I did not say this.

I was never here.

[Stingra]

Too late

*kills BrianJ*

There is no way in hell I would sit through having only old updates updating (again).

[Omeg@]

so nothing would stop Joe from going to the new site by publishing the starting "No. 1" 05/06/2000 strip entry. Or, start with publishing the first couple of years of archive, then trickle the rest out weekly.

That way, he'd have several years worth of buffer to allow weekly updates again while he furiously works on the latest plot thread. Brand new readers wouldn't know the difference, and current/old readers would have another opportunity at nostalgia.

Heh, not a bad idea actually. Sure it would be something to endure if you'd happen to have read through the whole archives about six or eight times, but I'd still welcome the chance. It wouldn't have to be a weekly update though. Semi weekly would be optimal in my mind. We could even start pulling up some update threads and let the hindsight get the best of us.

Though this would only be a temporal solution. The buffer would ran out sooner or later and then we'd be where we started from.

[MrBigMr]

There is no way in hell I would sit through having only old updates updating (again).

Oh yes you would, because that would mean you could come to the new forum and be all "Wow, I wonder what'll happen next." and then give your "theory", which turns to be true and you get legions of minions drooling at your feet for more prophesies of the future.

[Shortyland05]

I cant remember the last time I actually read the archives... this idea might be a good idea