Comic Genesis

From Comixpedia

Comic Genesis—formerly KeenSpace—is a free hosting provider for webcomics. Comic Genesis is a service of KeenSpot, who cover hosting costs. As a whole, Comic Genesis and its subdomains rank as a top 10,000 website. [1]

[edit] Services

In exchange for the placement of advertisements, Comic Genesis provides automatic updating tools, a free .comicgenesis.com or .comicgen.com domain, free domain hosting after a third-party registration, a free message board for hosted comics, and community/support in the form of an active forum. It is also supported by a group of volunteer administrators (known as the "Space Wranglers").

Comic Genesis is widely regarded as an excellent starting ground for prospective webcomic artists, as there is no requirement to join other than having a comic to put up. This negates some of the risks of venturing into webcomics, such as hosting costs and domain registration. Many well-known webcomics started from it.

[edit] History

Comic Genesis was created as Keenspace in July 2000 as a free webhosting service for comics. Since its founding, it has undergone many technological and design upgrades. Comic Genesis supports the use of flash content and many image formats. Comic Genesis also provides nearly unlimited creative control to its users, allowing custom web templates and minimal restrictions on web content.

In 2003, Keenspace came under fire from its advertisement provider Burstnet, for allowing the popular Keenspace comic Ghastly's Ghastly Comic to display its advertisements while displaying a comic featuring Jesus having sexual intercourse with his wife. Currently, comics on Keenspace featuring sex or hentai themes do not display advertisements.

In March 2005, KeenSpot (KeenSpace's owner) announced a name change to Toonspace, but the users of KeenSpace vocally complained about the name change. On June 2, 2005, Chris Crosby opened a thread/poll "New Name Deathmatch". The winner from the poll is Comic Genesis, the url for which is comicgen.com and comicgenesis.com. The reason for the name change is because of brand confusion between Keenspot and Keenspace.

On July 19, 2005, the name change to Comic Genesis became official after the announcement was made at ComicCon.

[edit] Misconceptions

Comic Genesis, along with many free hosting providers, is subject to many misconceptions.

• Comic Genesis is not a breeding ground for next generation Keenspot comics. When Comic Genesis originally started, it partially existed for that reason. Keenspot openly denies that being hosted on Comic Genesis will enhance a comic's chances of being "spotted" (a term used for being invited to join Keenspot). While a large bulk of comics invited to join Keenspot do come from Comic Genesis, this is because a large majority of webcomics are hosted on Comic Genesis.
• Comic Genesis does not host comics that breach copyright laws. Comics that use unoriginal characters and sprites are in violation of copyright laws, and will likely have their hosting terminated. One exception are "parody" comics, which are permitted under American Fair Use laws and are therefore allowed on the Comic Genesis servers. However, credit to the original must be provided.
• Comic Genesis serves as a webcomic host, as does not provide services of other free web providers. Comic Genesis is not an image hosting hosting service for direct image linking, or a web FTP "dump site" used for storing and sharing online content.

[edit] Comics in Comic Genesis

See Category:Comic Genesis

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Comic Genesis - The Main Page
• Keenspace Gear - The official helpsite
• Keenspace Guide - The guide listing of all comics on Keenspace
• Comic Genesis Newsletter - The unofficial newsletter
• Comic Genesis Wiki - The built-in wiki
• Comic Genesis article at Wikipedia
• KeenSpot

[edit] Communities

• Keenspace Forums - Community Forums
• MySpace group
• Livejournal group

[edit] Credit