the grey zone

[Rasiel_Draconis]

Username: I would like to get the name the grey zone like it says above and because it is the name of the current site.

E-mail: rasiel_draconis AT earthlink.net is the one I use but the other artists on the site have different emails. I will explain that later.

Current Website: www.thegreyzone.tk

Site Description: It is a home for my nephew, a freind of mine, and my own comics. We were all looking to try to make our own webcomics but, due to various reasons, couldn't individually. So after talking to each other, we merged together to make this site. I am the site admin and updater because I am the oldest out of the three of us. My nephew's comic is LOst minds, mine is Last Bus to Paradise, and my friend, who is now trying to deal with some personal schedualing problems, will be starting on Bankerville soon. The comics are as varied as the people who are making them.
My nephew is a fairly weird person who likes to make jokes out of the most idiotic or random things. Just take a look at his comic's archive to see his brand of stick figure insanity. The main reason he does stick figure like things is because he does not like how he draws with pencil and paper, mostly due to the fact that he has problems drawing elaborate character with any kind of repetition.
I like good and interesting storylines and recently became interested in the furry art. My inspiration comes from Amber who does with DMFA and also what David Hopkins does with his webcomic, Jack, (www.pholph.com). From those and a few other comics I read, I decided to try my hand at it and the result so far is now called Last Bus to Paradise. The plan I have for it is for each arc to revolve around a central character and his/her beliefs as they are chalenged is a couple of different ways. There may be a couple of times when previous characters will come up.
I do not know too much about bankerville yet except a few characters. My freind kept the story alive in his head and has yet to make a single comic. He claims to know everything about what he will do with them but I simply do not know at this time which way his comic will go.

Why should you host us?: We just want to put something out there that will hopefully entertain someone. I know that the website we are now with is working and is not very big but the host might go from free to something we may have to pay for. I just finished HS and will be starting college soon. My nephew is going into the 9th grade and my freind is entering his junior year. We all have no incoming cash but plan to apply for a paypal tipjar for the site soon.

I do have one question about the site. I understand that you use ftp to make the pages and, even though the current site is working fine, I don't know that much ftp, html or any other scripting languages. Is it possible for me to use an external editor like trellix or frontpage to make the site?

[Munerift]

We dont use FTP to make our sites here, it is meerly a tool we use to upload those pages to the internet. I myself use DREAMWEAVER and then clean up the HTML myself as needbe, however you can get by making them in plain Microsoft© WORD and then instead of saving the document as a doc, save it as an HTML extension.

[tickyhead]

Okay, three things.

1: Usernames (your potential URL, don't forget) can't have spaces. This is something a lot of people who apply here don't bother checking, for some reason. Your .tk name? (thegreyzone) That would work. "The grey zone?" No.

2: You obviously haven't been looking around the site long, as we just got through with a similar application to yours. Similar in that they had JUST started and had very little content up. I'll give you a hint as to the outcome: it did not go well.
You see, at xepher.net there are a LOT of webcomics that apply. (even I did, partially) This is probably all DMFA's fault, but we still love Amber anyway. So the main thing to look at in a webcomic application, that not only works very well in evaluating its future, but also in keeping the webcomic community from getting out of hand, is looking at two things: how MANY pages they have, and how LONG they've been doing it. The more and longer, the better. You, counting the......pseudo-stick figures of your nephew, have 6. Counting only the stuff that actually requires artistic talent, (no offence, little nephew) you have 2. I can't tell how long you've been at it, but I'm hoping that with only 2 (6) pages, it hasn't been very long.
Now, before you start going off about your "plans" and such, if you had read the xepher site thoroughly you would know that we don't go on plans. It's all content, baby.

3. As munerift stated, FTP is NOT what you use to make webpages. it's a way to transfer files from your computer to the webserver. Think of it like sending a friend a file over IM, except the friend is a large piece of hardware in some indeteriminate location. And it doesn't talk. And it downloads the file a lot faster. And its a hell of a lot more complicated than I just said.
Now, I'm not sure what you made your current site with, but if it was not coded with HTML,CSS or PHP, and uploaded to the internet via FTP or SCP, then you are probably looking in the wrong place for hosting. Moreso if you have no idea what anything I said in that last sentence is.

Also, I just use aceHTML for all my coding needs, 'cos it's free and has prettier colors than notepad. (which has black, black, and more....black.)

[griever]

We were all looking to try to make our own webcomics but, due to various reasons, couldn't individually.

Based on one month's worth of work, you're not really making a collaborative web comic either.  You guys ARE making your own comics individually, as each of you have your own sections.

Personally, I'd like to see more of a portfolio.  Although I'm a fan of stick figures (my own artistic level, really), there's not enough there to be convincing that you are dedicated to your projects and your site.  I'm not an artist, so I can't really comment on quality and stuff, the fact that your site is less than a month old is a red warning light.

[Rasiel_Draconis]

the main reason behind the new site thing is that we will be losing the current free host. My mom and I will be switching our isp from earthlink dialup to bellsouth dsl and earthlink allows free webspace as long as you are a member. Once we switch, I will have to delete the current site. So I'm looking for a new host now before the switch.

thegreyzone as one thing would be fine. I'll take a look at the aceHTML. I did read the rules but wasn't thinking straight when writing the first message. Sorry about the dumb post about the ftp. I did take a class during hs for frontpage though. We should have more content up soon. I will also see if my nephew can up his art skills a bit for his comic.

I am sorry though if I mislead anyone as far as what we would be doing. We will be doing our own webcomics, seperate from each other, but under the same site. We did agree to allow each other to borrow each other's characters from time to time, but other then that, they should all be in their own little worlds.

[tickyhead]

Ah, but you still have not addressed the fact that you have nothing other than a meager amount of pages and a bunch of "plans" for us to go on. As I said, that won't be enough, and unfortunately most of us here don't get swayed by "sob" stories (although, yours is not very sobby, I commend you for being so honest). If you could prove that you have more content fot the site, maybe 10 or so pages sitting on your hard drive, awaiting their ascension to the internet? (god I gotta stop playing kingdom hearts) That would definitely help your application.

As it is, though, you may consider looking to other free hosting services for now. There's a lot of hosting out there, I'm sure at least someone here can direct you to a good one. If you still have your heart set on xepher's hosting about, oh.....I think xepher usually puts it at 6 months? If you find another hosting service, put up some more pages, and still have your heart set on xepher's hosting about 6 months from now, then by all means come visit us again. Your chances will be much better, I think.

[Munerift]

As for a tempother hosting site, I would look at http://atspace.com . They offer free, AD FREE hosting; and if I remember correctly they might even have a helpful page-layout thingy.

At this point with not too much to go on, I also predict this application would be a no for right now; but keep in mind that's not a forever thing.

Like I said check that other place out, and use it to build up your comic-circle's portfolios, and then reapply at a later date.

[Xepher]

Just chiming in here to "officalize" what Mune and Ticky have said. So go ahead and assume that what they said above as coming from me directly. Saved me some time not having to explain all that myself. Thanks ya'll!

[tickyhead]

Any time. Hey, at least it's something to do over the summer that doesn't involve getting my annual sunburn count any higher.

[Munerift]

I'm the Xeph deputy! *shows off her official badge* WHAT?!?!? No it's not in CRAYON!!!!! =P

[Rasiel_Draconis]

Thanks for all the suggestions. We'll see if we can get more content up faster. I just finished penciling my next comic. Maybe if I work on making my comics faster, I might be able to get more up and change my sched from once a week to twice. My neph is being a stick in the mud about changing his comics though. Our third artist however will be trying to draw at least a preview pic for his comic, which he said he would start working on more consitently sometime in july or august

Btw, tickyhead, thanks for suggesting aceHTML. I looked into it and found it to be nearly identical to frontpage. Unfortunatly the space we currently have does not allow any external programs like acehtml. (offically it only allows either trellix or some other program that cost $50) However Trellix does allow webgems which I might use a bit more now by coding stuff before hand with ace then pasting the code later.

[Munerift]

One important note however is it isnt about speed and quantity, it's about quality and originality!

[Cassiopeia]

XD, yeah take it from the person who just went through the same exact thing. Hahaha, we'll both re-send our applications in once we've posted more. Although I must say you took it much better then I did, so good for you.

[GabrielsThoughts]

I would be weary of saving anything in "MSWord" under an html extention, it tends to cause errors for your page durring the conversion process that makes the page invalid. Unless they've fixed this problem within the  last few months you can use word for spellchecking and then cut and paste it into an notepad document and then save it to html... Ialso suggest you get a program like "Homesite" to check for additional errors.

[Databits]

I would suggest that everyone have a basic understanding of at least HTML, even before making a page in something like dreamweaver or any other web development program. Far too many people make things in dreamweaver and such, upload it, and call it good. Now dreamweaver itself is better than most at things, but generation software doesn't tend to always come up with the best code in WC3 compliance, as well as it isn't always as compatible with multiple browsers as you'd hope.

While W3C compliance isn't always a major issue with people, the site having actual issues (scripts not working correctly, things displaying wrong, etc...) can be. One of the most irritating things I find online is websites with something like an Internet Explorer only fetish. Not caring at all about if it works in other browsers.

Another thing I'd be weary of is PHP generation in things like dreamweaver. While I'm sure that those guys who made the software know what they're doing (I'd hope). I would NEVER trust generated code from any program without reviewing things myself. PHP has updates and changes, just like anything else. The slightest things can break generated code, and if you have no idea what is wrong, well... you're kinda stuck doing things like reading books and posting to forums for help in the problem (for instance, in PHP 4.0.4 the array_diff() function did not work correctly and was fixed in the next release, just like unset() used to have a return value prior to PHP 4, but no longer does and results in a parsing error).