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What is the Eyeskream Webcomic Creators Group?
Basically, it is a group of new webcomic authors
and artists. This is a place where they are free to interact with fellow
creators and at the same time gather their resources and use it to promote their
webcomics under a unique banner. This banner is Eyeskream. There are no
restrictions. Everybody is free to leave as he or she wishes and all artists retain the rights of their works.
Overall this
group is a community where the members share their opinions
and interests about webcomics. Under the Eyeskream banner, the webcomic
creators give constructive advice to each other to get better at their
craft. They join their talents in common projects and work together to
make the community special and enjoyable.
Under our
collective, many contributing artists have successfully established an online
presence for their webcomic or taken a project they’d done on their own to
greater heights, reaching a wider audience.
Okay, but what exactly is a Webcomic?
In simple words, webcomics are comics published on the
web. Webcomics are different from comic strips published on paper because of
the fact that anyone can easily start his or her own comic strip and publish it on the Web.
In doing so, there is no longer any need for a creator to meet the approval of a publisher
or syndicate. The world of webcomics is a rapidly growing subculture of writers and artists,
with an ever-growing dedicated audience. Cool, isn't it?
How was Eyeskream born?
The name Eyeskream originated with Ross Curtis, the writer-artist creator behind
the "Rabid Rabbit."
His brother Douglas kept the name and decided to use it as a publishing
imprint for one of his creations, "The
Flying Ferret." Erik Bouchard, the manager of Eyeskream, met Douglas
through email after having displayed one of Douglas' fan art on his website
dedicated to a popular gaming comic magazine named "Knights
of the Dinner Table," published by Kenzer & Company. Soon they became
friends and started collaborating on a strip called "Spacehack"
that was printed in the "Knights of the Dinner Table" magazine. After a while they decided to start a project of their own and thus created the
Eyeskream Webcomic Creators Group, with The Flying Ferret and the Rabid Rabbit as its first members.
What are Eyeskream goals?
Our primary goal is to help
creators display their comics on the net. We really want to promote new webcomic
artists and writers. But that doesn't mean we don't want to help creators that
already have an established webcomic elsewhere. We offer them all the same
benefits and advantages of a new webcomic creator.
We also want to create a friendly community of webcomic creators that like to
gather virtually and talk about their projects while giving feedback,
constructive criticism, and tips to others.
All Eyeskream members are
important and thus have a say on every aspect of Eyeskream, be it aboet the Website, new members,
new rules, etc. Every member's opinion counts and will be listened to.
Who is behind Eyeskream?
Douglas Curtis and Erik Bouchard.
Doug has worked for numerous
projects for Kenzer & Company, primarily writing and drawing the SpaceHack strip
in Knights of the Dinner Table magazine. He has also created a three-issue
mini-series, also for Kenzer & Company. In addition to those projects, Doug has
drawn numerous monsters and magic items for the HackMaster role-playing game,
and for HackMaster articles published in KODT. You can found Doug's bio on his
Flying Ferret website.
Erik is the Manager of Eyeskream. He is a self-described comic book geek. He is very energetic and always nibbling on
something. A long-time gamer and martial arts aficionado, Erik is a huge fan of
anything drawn on paper and always has been. A dream of his has been to work in the
comic book industry. However, due to what can only be described as a lack of
suitable talent to do work as a creator, he decided to work as an organizer. Why
not work with the people whose work he admired? He doesn’t draw (much) and
doesn’t write (much) but he does organize the Eyeskream Webcomic Creators Group, and is very happy
to contribute to the success of everyone involved. It is his genuine desire to
help them establish themselves, with the long-term hope of becoming one of the most
prominent and widely recognized webcomic collectives on the net. You can find many cameo appearances
of Erik in comics and webcomics like "Knights of the Dinner Table", "FANS",
"Casual Gamers", "Hellbound" and many others on the net.
Can I submit a comic to Eyeskream?
Yes! We'd love to see what you've got. We take 4 new members per year,
one each in March, June, September and December. You can submit
your webcomic at any time except on those fours months since we use that time to review all the
submissions we have received. At the end of the year, we completely empty the submissions list to start the new year fresh.
At the beginning of the year, you are free to submit your comic again.
Do I get to keep the rights to my work?
Of course! Once you became a member of Eyeskream,
anything you submit and upload on our server remains your property
and your property alone, though you will of course be granting EWCG the rights
to display the work and publish it online.
Are you looking for something in particular from a submission?
Yes and no. We don't ask our future
members to have degrees in art or to come up with new material every day.
However, we do wish to maintain a certain level of quality so there are standards
that must be met. We are looking for good, well-organized website design. This
is really important because your website reflects the identity of your webcomic.
Your website is your business card, and if you have a good presentation you can
bet that the reader will want to go further. We also want people who will take
the concept of a webcomic seriously. We're looking for professional, dedicated,
passionate people to help develop the Eyeskream Webcomic
Creators Group.
Can I be HOSTED by Eyeskream?
YES! But hosting is only offered to Eyeskream
Members. To help webcomic creators, we offer all the things that a webcomic needs in order to function properly;
Free Web Hosting with no ads, Subdomain name, Domain name
redirection, FTP account, Email account , Personal
Webcomic Forum and Website support are all included. We will
create you an account where you will be able to set all your options via your
own personal Control Panel.
Is it free?
Of course! There is nothing to pay. But at your liesure, any
financial help that you can provide is welcome. When your comic has grown, you can pay for
Eyeskream Hosting Packages that feature greater server space and bandwidth.. Only the "Starting Pack 1"
will always remain FREE, but if you need more server space or Bandwidth you
will need to pay to upgrate to a new pack.
What do you offer in your Eyeskream Hosting Packages?
We have four hosting plans. You can check
them here.
Bandwidth? What is that?
Bandwidth is often considered to be the
single most expensive aspect of website hosting, since it is what requires the
most resources. For example, if you have a comic strip image file that is 100KB (100 Kilobytes), then every time someone
goes see your strip the server has to transfer 100KB to that visitor's
computer to display the image. So, if there have been 10 visitors, 1MB (1 Megabyte) of bandwidth has been used.
Basically, the more visitors you have, and the more popular the site, the more
bandwidth you will need.
But what if I am already hosted somewhere else?
You are always allowed to use your own hosting. If you are comfortable where you
are, you can stay there. However, if you ever prefer to be hosted by us, you’re more than welcome to transfer
your webcomic site over to Eyeskream. Choose the Eyeskream hosting plan you want and email
me and I'll arrange for your new hosting on the Eyeskream server.
I have a domain name, can I link it to my eyeskream sub-domain?
Of course! If you purchased a domain name simply set the nameservers to "NS.IRDHOST.COM"
and "NS2.IRDHOST.COM" (without the quotes) then email me. It can
take up to 48 hours for the changes to take effect. Once set, going to your
domain will be just the same as using your Eyeskream sub-domain url.
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