Around the Webcomic World in 80 Seconds

Save Ferris!ConnectiCon! Rob Balder tipped us off yesterday to the financial woes resulting from this year’s installment of the convention and the efforts to raise funds to pay off the organizer’s debts. Now Phil Kahn, who writes at the blog I’m Just Saying (which is a damn good Pepsi next to Eric Burns’ Coke) is auctioning off a commissioned essay on any topic or form to raise some money for this effort. If you want to bid on Kahn check out the details here.

Robert Howard also has a post on saving ConnectiCon this morning. And if you’re interested in donating money directly to ConnectiCon’s organizers, go here to do so.

In other necks of the webcomics woods, Sam Logan has lured infamous alternative cartoonist Rikk Estoban into doing a week of guest webcomics for Logan’s webcomic Sam and Fuzzy. Just checking out the wide range of this series of stylistically diverse comics you can see how the notorious and perpetually misunderstood creator of Skull Panda has really influenced today’s webcomics scene.

It’s clear people are still recovering from SDCC (I’m in WIGU-withdrawal!) – however, Scott McCloud points out a Flickr photo stream with lots of webcomic-familiar faces.

In Clickwheel news, William Simons has a blog where he’s writing about developments with Clickwheel. Clickwheel seems to be doing well – it’s a featured download at the Apple site, and is #2 on the Top Downloads list.

And Chris Crosby late yesterday posted at Keenspot (and sent to us – thanks!) a lengthy list of exciting new developments at Keenspot. The full list is after the read more jump, but beyond previously reported news of Two Lumps joing Keenspot and the namechange of Keenspace to COmic Genesis, webcomic creators will probably be interested in the further reduced price for advertising by webcomics on the Keenspot network.

KEENSPOT INCREASING PROMOTIONAL BUDGET TO $25,000 ANNUALLY
Keenspot plans to spend a minimum of $25,000 over the next year on paid promotion of our webcomics. An average of $500/month will be spent exclusively on web-based promotion outside the Keenspot network, while the rest will be spent on misc. promotion including convention appearances, print advertising, promotional giveaways, and more.

KEENSPOT TO HIRE FULL-TIME ADVERTISING SALESPERSON
In order to further grow our ad revenues, Keenspot plans to hire a full-time advertising salesperson with experience in the online ad sales arena. We will be accepting applications for this position shortly.

KEENSPOT LOWERING ADVERTISING RATES FOR WEBCARTOONISTS TO $0.50 CPM
Webcomic creators who choose to advertise their webcomic with a 728×90 banner on the Keenspot network will be charged only $0.50 CPM (50% off the $1 CPM minimum for non-webcomic advertisers), with a minimum purchase of 50,000 impressions ($25).

KEENSPOT ROLLS OUT GOOGLE ADSENSE, PAYS TO TRANSCRIBE EVERY ARCHIVED COMIC
The option to include Keenspot-supplied Google Adsense text advertisements on their site is now available to our creators. We work with creators to implement the text ads using the most effective methods available. Keenspot plans to join the Premium Adsense service, which supplies a variety of Adsense advantages not available to clients receiving less than 20 million pageviews monthly. Keenspot also plans to pay to have the archives of every Keenspot comic transcribed in text form. This will not only allow each comic to be fully searchable, it will also allow Google Adsense to deliver more effective and targeted advertising on every page they appear.

D.J. COFFMAN JOINING KEENSYNDICATE THIS FALL
Cartoonist D.J. Coffman, who successfully self-syndicated his comic strip GRAVITY to 50 newspapers in 2000, will be joining our print syndication service KeenSyndicate this fall in an executive capacity. He will head up the recruitment of new clients for the Keenspot Comics Page and other print syndication endeavors planned by Keenspot, contacting and meeting with editors across the country to spread the gospel of Keenspot to the print world.

KEENSPOT ACTIVELY DEVELOPING PROJECTS FOR TV AND FILM
Keenspot has teamed with experienced entertainment industry managers Manus Entertainment and The Gotham Group. We are now developing various projects for TV and film based on Keenspot webcomics.

KEENSPOT PREMIUM TO OFFER SUBSCRIBERS DOWNLOADABLE PSP COMICS AND KEENTOONS
Subscribers to the Keenspot PREMIUM service will soon be able to download Keenspot webcomics and KeenTOONS shorts for viewing on their PlayStation Portable (PSP).

IT’S OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL: KEENSPACE TO BECOME COMIC GENESIS
A long time ago, we chose to change the name of KeenSPACE (our free webhosting service for aspiring comic creators) in order to avoid the frequent brand confusion caused by the name’s similarity to KeenSPOT. Though “ToonSPACE” was originally chosen as the new name, it received a negative response from users of the service. We took their opinions heavily into account, and after a number of user polls made a new final decision: KeenSPACE is now Comic Genesis, or ComicGen for short. The dictionary defines “genesis” as “the coming into being of something; the origin.” We hope many wonderful new webcomics will come into being on Comic Genesis, as many did on KeenSPACE over the past five years.

TWO LUMPS JOINS KEENSPOT
TWO LUMPS, the popular and acclaimed webcomic by J. Grant and Mel Hynes, has joined Keenspot.

EVIL JOSH AND BILLY IS NEW KEENTOONS SERIES
John Berry’s critically-acclaimed Flash cartoon series EVIL JOSH & BILLY, about two aspiring super-villians trying to survive everyday teenage life, has joined the KeenTOONS network and will begin running soon.