There are many issues facing online comic artists, above and beyond the artistic issues such as refining style, working that punch line, meeting deadlines, and where to find the time. Most of these problems resolve around where and how to host a comic.
For some, it’s a matter of where to find a web host. Some hosts provide hosting at a price, which goes up if your comic becomes popular as your transfer amount increases. Some hosts will let you host for free, provided your site feature banner and/or pop-up advertisements.
There are some groups that specialize in web comics, such as the venerable comic publishing site Keenspot. You can host your comic with them for free, at the cost in flexibility and you have to host ads or users have to pay Keenspot to see your content.
While these solutions work for a variety of comic artists, I think there is room for another solution, one that offers a wide variety of resources to a comic artists at a very minimal cost, maximizes shared resources with other comic artists, develops a communal spirit between artists and contributors, and doesn’t involve deceitful banner advertisements (such as “You have one message waiting!” or “You’re today’s winner!”).
What I propose is an Internet Comic Cooperative.
A coop is an organization owned by and operated for the benefit of those using its services (according to Webster). What I propose is creating a coop where by comic artists can host their comics for a nominal fee (on the order of $10 a month), and get a greater flexibility of services than they would normally see for that price without having to host banner or pop-up advertisements.
The basis for this cooperative is running and maintaining a dedicated server to host comics leased from one of a number of dedicated server vendors, and using this system to provide a shared resource with a variety of features useful to web comic artists.
These services would include:
At a price of $10 a month, that's not bad.A standard PHP/MySQL-based content management system. What does this mean? Well, if you don’t want to do one yourself, there’ll be a way to just upload a comic via a web page, put in any annotation you’d like, and no coding required. You can add, delete, and edit comic via a web-based interface. No HTML or other programming required. If you do have knowledge of HTML and/or PHP/MySQL, you can set up your comic how you want to with your own system or method. A message board that you moderate. You don’t have to set anything up. One will be there for you. Most importantly: Bandwidth. By consolidating even a dozen comic strips on a site, most people will only have to pay $10, and get over 70 GB of transfer or more a month, which is more than enough. Storage. These servers include 40, 60, and 80 GB hard drives. Divided by a few artists, that’s plenty of storage space. Something you don’t get with a commercial company: A community environment. An fully functional blog. Web-based email system and accounts to talk with your fans (and detractors).
Bandwidth, in GB per month, used to be one of the costliest parts of running a comic strip, especially if it was popular. However, prices for bandwidth are dropping faster than emo girls at a Bright Eyes concert. There are a number of companies that now offer dedicated Linux servers anywhere from $89 to $150 a month, and include 500-700 GB of transfer per month. These dedicated servers have anywhere from 40 to 60 GB of storage and processors plenty fast enough to push that bandwidth. At those prices, paying $10 a month for shared and restricted hosting on 5 GB of transfer and no fringe benefits is ridiculous, but that’s assuming you buy in bulk. Also, where once you had to sign a one-year contract, places will now happily let you lease month-to-month, which further removes a barrier to easy server ownership.
If 10 or so comics were to put $10 a month in a pile, the hosting costs for an impressive system with a huge amount of bandwidth would be completely paid for. Add to that the benefit of shared resources, such as message board, comic strip management system (should you decline to write your own), web-based email, personal blog, and gigs of storage, and that's quite a deal.
All the artists would of course own their own content, and any marketing or money making would be completely up to you. The only obligation you have towards the co-op financially would be paying your fair share.
The co-op would be run in a not-for-profit manner. I’m not doing this to make money, and I don’t see this as a money-making enterprise. If I did, the small amount of money this would make would not make the extra hassle of tax preparation worth it. If there’s any money left over after a month’s been paid, it will go to a collective pot. Every month perhaps quarter, rebates or discounts will be made to coop members so that no extra money is on hand.
I’m willing to be the governor of the co-op. I’m willing to take the financial risk, put the server in my name, pay the bills and collect the money. I’m willing to put a limit on cost to each member, even if the collected income doesn’t add up to the monthly bill. To get this started, I’m willing to cover that extra cost.
I’ll ask for everyone’s help in various manners, such as HTML here or some administrative stuff there. Cooperatives can be a great way to pull resources together to accomplish what would otherwise require greater expenditure. Artists are particularly suited for this. As an artist, I’ve been fortunate that my profession has provided me with free hosting, so I’ve never had to deal with pop-ups, shitty hosting providers, paying lots of money, and the like. I think that’s something I’d like every artist to have a chance at.
Of course, there’d have to be some guidelines and rules. Sexual explicit material would be welcome (and even encouraged), although the coop may request a front “you must be 18 or older page” in order to cover our legal asses. Hate speech, bigotry, and the like would be banned of course.
There are already a few choices for web comic artists, and while they work great for some, I think this would be a great way to make use of the artist community spirit, and benefit all involved.