Websnark: The Impact of Patronage.

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Eric: The Impact of Patronage.

It's "get stuff from Comixpedia" day here on Websnark! Whoo hoo! This particular snark is in response to their news item on Gutterflycomix.com webhosting. The deal is pretty sweet for small webcomics -- up to 20 mb storage, up to 2 GB a month bandwidth, an SQL database for automation purposes... and no cost for it. Not even required advertising.

Of course, once you start to get some readership under your belt, you can break 2 GB a month and then it's five bucks for each additional GB, but like I said, smaller comics (or comics that are really good at file size management) can go quite a ways before it becomes an issue. And it's no strings attached. So what's the catch.

Interestingly, the catch is content related: your strip has to be PG. No nudity, no nasty language, nothing that would typically embarrass a parent who discovered his teenaged child was reading.

Note that Gossamer Commons wouldn't fit those strictures -- there's some swearing in it -- but I could probably change stuff so there wasn't. (I've considered doing that, in fact).

This intrigues me. This is a new collective -- a Keenspace alternative, for all intents and purposes -- designed to tailor a kind of content instead of a business model. The Gutterfly people want family friendly cartoons, and they're willing to extend free hosting to arrange it. I wouldn't be surprised if they ultimately developed a turnkey system not unlike Keenspace's autokeen or the proposed functionality of Webcomics Nation.

I also wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing more projects like this appearing. As bandwidth and storage becomes less expensive, it becomes possible to extend very attractive hosting terms for reasons other than economic ones. Somewhere down the line, it's possible that Friends of the Family might start offering unlimited bandwidth and hosting and the chance for cross-promotion and the like to strips that produce a positive Christian point of view. And who's to say someone would be wrong to take that deal? Or what about a gay positive collective, offering convenient space and hosting for gay positive strips? You wouldn't even need to put ads for the collective on your site -- in fact, it might be stronger if you didn't, because then you've just got your comic out there, supporting a point of view they in turn support.

This moves us into a new direction -- we've put so much energy and emphasis on business models for webcomics, we now find that sociological models for webcomics are beginning to appear. This could be fueled out of a desire to see art flourish, or a point of view, or a philosophy. So long as the content fits a specific guideline or extols a specific thesis, it's worth the relatively inexpensive cost to keep it in business.

Does this sound familiar? It should. We're describing patronage. For hundreds of years, the great works of art were created under the auspices of wealthy men who supported some higher principle. That principle might have been God (or one of the Gods, depending on the era of history), their own place in history, the commemoration of a battle, a King or government, or what have you. Artists were fed by virtue of being able to produce great works of art that matched up to a specific point of view.

And the culture as a whole was enriched by it.

So. Why not? Why shouldn't the Scientologists underwrite the site expenses of a webcomic that is Scientology-friendly? Or MoveOn.org underwrite a wholly liberal, wholly anti-Bush webcomic? Or bunches of them?

And should we care?

So long as the editorial guidelines remain guidelines, and artists be free to write whatever they want within those guidelines, I don't think we should care, actually. I have no problem with someone signing on to Gutterfly for the free bandwidth and hosting without ads -- chances are likely I won't notice the lack of breasts or swear words on their strips, either. I have no problem with someone who decides to draw a Christian webcomic on his own lookout deciding to accept hosting from a Christian organization, so long as the comic strip remains good and fun to read. If someone manages to write a Scientology-based webcomic that's interesting and funny and well written, why should I care if they're paying for their own hosting or if Bridge Publications is paying for it?

However. People who are actually trying to make money with their webcomics should care.

Some of these patronage systems will permit said moneymaking. Gutterfly's one of them. If you want to run advertising (family friendly, of course), they're down with that. The same might be true of a hypothetical Christian, or Gay, or Liberal, or Scientological organization -- do as you want, so long as you stay within the guidelines we've set forth. But either way, you have a whole new ballgame opening up -- people who are going up against the for-profit collectives head to head, without any profit motive in mind.

Think of the response the Syndicates had when Keensyndicate and Scott Kurtz began offering their strips for free to newspapers. Now, turn it this way -- what does it mean when someone who doesn't care if they lose money every month begins underwriting a competing webcomic's expenses? What does patronage mean to independent creators who are trying to feed their families? What does it mean to Joey Manley or Chris Crosby?

What does it mean to Webcomics?

We honestly don't know, just yet. But mark my words -- the next stage in the evolution of Webcomics is being set even as we speak. And we don't yet know how that performance will go.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at April 25, 2005 1:47 PM

Comments

Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at April 25, 2005 2:06 PM

Ack. I've been trying to put words together on this kind of thing for weeks, particularly since Keenspot's model is so very vastly misunderstood where this kind of thing is concerned. And here you go provoking me to thought again. You are an evil man, Mr. Burns.

(eeeeeeeexcelent)

Comment from: 32_footsteps posted at April 25, 2005 2:10 PM

Well, not that I have an answer to any of these questions. But how does patronage affect other art forms, compared to those that are more independent? That might give clues as to how this will develop.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at April 25, 2005 2:19 PM

There isn't really a concurrent example, 32.

Web publishing is mind bogglingly inexpensive compared to almost any other form of publishing in the past.

On the other hand, L. Ron Hubbard books continue to sell very well -- not the least of which because Bridge Publications puts out a significant amount of money to keep them in prominent shelf locations in bookstores....

But for the most part, we're just beginning to see a synergy -- web publishing is dirt cheap, and there are a lot of web artists out there who just want to produce without the headaches and overhead involved.

Like I said, it should get interesting from here.

Comment from: Justinpie posted at April 25, 2005 2:21 PM

It may depend on whether the collective's agenda or the comic themselves become the spotlight, since that's what the mainstream and audience to follow. I guess the closest thing we've seen to this is "networks" (like FOX News and Air America) that control the content with an objective in mind.

Would a bunch of collectives work out the same way? Would the Liberal webcomics mock the Conservative webcomics, and vice-versa? Would it just become comics talking smack about other comics? Maybe I've been jaded by the current state of the media, but if ideologues take charge of webcomics, too, it might just turn into another arena for juvenile sniping.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at April 25, 2005 2:21 PM

Oh, where I say "I've considered doing that" up above, in regards to Gossamer Commons? I mean I've considered dropping the naughty language. (If Trudy lets me, anyway. She's got quite the filthy little mouth on her). I haven't considered Gutterfly. I'm very, very happy with my hosting arrangement.

Comment from: Ben G. posted at April 25, 2005 2:29 PM

This is missing the point, I'm sure, but I don't think Gutterfly's terms are quite as stringent as you say. Their terms of service prohibit "excessive" languge and express a desire to keep the service "somewhat" family oriented; I imagine the occasional swear word or innuendo would be a-ok. Looking over the homepage crawl that displays various hosted comics, I see axes, swords, and guns, so they can't be too caught up on the "violence" thing either. It seems like they're going with the "if you could see it on basic cable, then it's fine by me" philosophy.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at April 25, 2005 2:46 PM

Ben -- from the Comixpedia article I got the info from:

In order to qualify for hosting at Gutterflycomix.com, all you have to do is ask. It�s that simple. The only restriction being that the content within the comic and the hosted site remain within a PG rating.

"We realize that kids as well as adults are on the internet and that our market consists mainly of kids and teenagers." says Clemmons. "We wanted to create, and now host, comics that we wouldn�t be embarrassed by if our own kids read them. So far, of all the comics we host, no one has really had a problem with keeping their content PG and, again, in the long run it will help them become better creators too."

So, yeah. They're honestly trying to broaden the overall webcomics community, but they're also putting governors on it. They actively want PG webcomics. And that's perfectly fine -- I'm not castigating them. It's just a new wrinkle. "We'll pay your hosting, but I want something my kids can read."

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at April 25, 2005 3:17 PM

At the request of Groon, some comments left here by him (and my responses) that were apparently not germane to the discussion have been deleted.

Just so folks know.

Comment from: Petie posted at April 25, 2005 3:39 PM

Their prices for extra storage and bandwidth seem high, but considering their free features, I suppose it's not that bad. Still, I can get 60GB of transfer and 250MB of storage space for $8 a month. Their hosting seems to be tailored for those just starting a comic and trying to build a fanbase, which is troubling for me. If I buy into the idea that it's analogous to the patronage system, why does it seem to be a model that you can rapidly grow out of? Of course, it may be that Gutterfly doesn't even consider the hosting as patronage. However, you've put forth that this is the infancy of patronage, which would allow for more trial and error.

Comment from: Christopher B. Wright posted at April 25, 2005 4:04 PM

But if you talk about patronage in the classic sense, it's "if you create what I want, I'll write your ticket." This worked very well for some artists in the Renaissance (and some artists, like Beethoven, abused the hell out of it by accepting a patrons money and never getting around to the comissioned works) but the deal was "you do this for me and I will pay you."

In that sense, Gutterfly isn't really a pure patron model, and that could actually work against the cartoonists who use it, especially if the service is a success.

For example, say a bunch of starting comics go over there, and Gutterfly begins to advertise as "family friendly" comics. If that *works*, then there will be an influx of traffic, and the new artists will begin to exceed their 2gb transfer (which, for the record, is not hard to do -- I regularly exceed ten to fifteen times that much a month, and I do not have a "big name" webcomic by any stretch of the imagination).

So all of a sudden the "selling point" of Gutterfly is gone, because it's speaking to a popular market (I do think there is a market for family-friendly webcomics, and I do think that could draw a significant audience). And now you have starting artists who are unprepared for the costs involved who will be moving *away* from the service.

This isn't a criticism of the idea -- I think it's a neat idea as long as artists are going there willingly and understand what they're getting into. But I think there is some problem with the implementation, and they're going to have to be really flexible and adaptable on the outset in order for the "patronage" aspect of it to hold any real allure.

Comment from: djcoffman posted at April 25, 2005 4:08 PM

I know it use to bug the hell out of me how the Thomas guy from Gutterfly would spam his messages all over everyone's forums and pretend to be part of communities. -- I guess it's worked out for him? We'll see.

This is something similar to what PV was going to do, but alas, sooner or later there will be some hefty bills to pay. Refer to Scott Kurtz's success can kill your webcomic. Wouldnt it suck if you put faith in somethig new, and it was around for a year and then vanished completely??? So i urge caution AND backup to anyone thinking of using it. If gutterfly would have seemed more genuine to me when the guy spammed everywhere, I would say otherwise. Something just doesnt seem as personable about that.--

Comment from: Reinder Dijkhuis posted at April 25, 2005 4:23 PM

Xepher.net has been doing something similar for years, albeit without stringent content restrictions. I have a mirror site and weblog hosted there, and you while I am willing to tone down swearing and violence, I find restrictions on nekkidness in my comics unacceptable:)

Comment from: djcoffman posted at April 25, 2005 4:34 PM

Damn--- I think I end up doing more than 2GBs a day! I get 120gbs at dreamhost. 7.95 a month. http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?djc --

the freehosting MAY be good for beginning folks, but really you're going to have to look at paid hosting sooner or later if you're serious about your comic. Its the only real reliable way in my opinion.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at April 25, 2005 4:47 PM

DJ -- today that's certainly true. And Gutterfly looks optimized for newcomers.

But it's the implications I'm interested in.

If Dreamhost can afford to sell you 120GBs of bandwidth for under ten bucks, it could certainly be worth that kind of price for advocacy groups or other patronage style organizations to provide for sympathetic webcartoonists.

Comment from: quiller posted at April 25, 2005 4:47 PM

You'd have a hard time hosting ROCR archives there, that's for sure.

If there was an actual patronage model I wouldn't see it changing the face of webcomics really. If there is a competition in webcomics it is a competition for the limited dollars of the readers. Some comics are going to get their PayPal buttons hit more than others. Some people can afford to print T-shirts, others have to use Cafe Press if they do anything. But, while I've seen webcomics who have gotten into financial pinchs over success, I don't remember any that have actually stopped existing over finances. (Usually they just change hosting). Schoolwork and fulltime jobs have killed more webcomics than finances have (though I suppose finances can add to the stress that causes an artist to stop producing).

Err, so basically, I don't think a new economic model is going to change much unless it is one that is so compelling that it attracts webcomics like flies.

Comment from: kirabug posted at April 25, 2005 5:34 PM

When ready to start my own comic, I just bought hosting, (roughly same deal mentioned by Petie) 'cause I could. In that sense, I guess I'm my own patron ;)

How does Gutterfly compare to Keenspace and similar?

(And who would ever think a host named "Gutterfly" would be hosting PG content?)

Comment from: arscott posted at April 25, 2005 10:31 PM

I agree with Chris. What Eric is describing isn't patronage. Patronage is "Look at me! I'm a medici! I'm so rich I can afford to buy a famous painter!", not "eh, your a raw beginner who may or may not be that good, buy I'll help you out because I agree with you politically."

Given that gutterfly has restrictions on content and size, what does it have to offer that keenspace doesn't?

And on another note, what was the response of the sydicates to the possibility of kurtz and keen in the papers? for that matter, what was the response of the papers themselves? All I know is that the services are being offered and Wiley doesn't like it. Have they actually been a success?

Comment from: William_G posted at April 25, 2005 11:21 PM

I personally don't see webcomics as being a valuable enough tool for various special interest groups to start tossing money at to help "spread the word" so to speak.

If anything, a Scientology-friendly comic may get a spot in a scientology webmagazine, but the idea of comics as a social force simply doesnt exist. They have no real cultural influence and so there is little motivation for any group to financially support a comic collective unless it is the comics themselves that they're trying to push.

The way I see it, Gutterfly feels there's a potential webcomic market that's being under-exploited (which is true since webcomics by and large are created by adult geeks for other adult geeks), and they want to fill that niche up. And that's about it.

Comment from: Ray Radlein posted at April 26, 2005 2:25 AM

It's actually not that difficult to find examples of pure patronage projects even today: The Washington Times springs immediately to mind, as does American Spectator and Regnery Press. I'm not completely sure about Regnery's finances, but the other two lose money all year, every year, by the bushel, at a rate which would have gotten them shut down in a heartbeat — even if this were still the dot.com boom and they had a .com at the end of their names — if making money were any part whatsoever of their purpose.

Comment from: Doc posted at April 26, 2005 6:52 AM

I'm thinking this may be more of a business model than patronage. The way I'm seeing it, they get artists in when they are small, make it easy for them to start up and get their money back when they become more popular. Possibly I'm being naive and they couldn't possibly make money this way, but I thought the PG thing was just the knee jerk business reaction of 'don't offend anyone so we don't scare off our audience'.

What I would be more interested in is if people started putting limits on standards of content instead of substance. Like Snarkomics where "Cast Pages are mandatory".

Comment from: Rhandir posted at April 26, 2005 9:36 AM

I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen this sooner. Bandwith/hosting costs are a small price to pay to promote your pet point of view. To constrast, webhosting through www.midwestmonitor.com is less favorably priced (i.e. not free) for five times the bandwith and more than double the space.*

That said, Gutterfly is a terrrible, terrible name for a PG rated webcomics collective. (I mean, really, what mental image are we going for? Flies buzzing around remains of your mind in some back alley gutter? No fairies even???)

As I re-read the terms of service, I get the feeling that the restrictions are a bit more for the sake of booting off really heinous stuff. After all, the internet really is a wretched hive of scum and villainy[2], particularly when resources are "free".

I suppose there is something to be said for being PG in order to market your stuff to a broad audience. Certainly, I would not tell any of my friend's kids "oh, just go online and look at [insert webcomic collective name] they're really cool". I wonder what I could recommend in good conscience.

*disclaimer: I use them. This is not a paid endorsement. Heck, this is not much of an endorsement at all.

[2]examples: usenet, irc, slashdot[3]

[3]kidding. (well, mostly)

Comment from: ghostcat posted at April 26, 2005 10:59 AM

2GB a month? A webcomic can easily go over that with just a few hundred readers. Hardly any room for growth. One link from a big webcomic, and it's "bandwidth limit exceeded" considering inter-comic links are usually the way for a comic to grow in popularity, I think this model is very limiting. Paid webspace it the best way to go if you are serious. ($7 a month fits into most 10 year old's allowance, leaving plenty of money to blow on candy) If you just want to put some crap up on the web for free, this might be a good idea, but for a serious webcartoonist, even keenspace seems to be a better option.

Comment from: Rachi posted at April 26, 2005 9:22 PM

Kirabug-

I was going to comment and I totally agree that 'Gutterfly' is the most bizzare name one could come up with for family friendly comics. It sounds like either a butterfly that's dead and in the gutter, or more metaphorically, a butterfly that's drugged out and has a bunch of piercings from hanging out with all those bugs in the gutter.

I mean, GUTTERfly?

Comment from: Doug posted at April 27, 2005 5:34 AM

Say what you will, but I'll wager that Leonardo DaVinci would have made one kickass webcartoonist.

Comment from: Bo Lindbergh posted at April 27, 2005 5:53 AM

Quoth Doug: