Ever since Keenspot announced its dissolution, there has been much chatter on the web condemning comic collectives. The gripe is that Keenspot, the first, elite, webcomic publisher, decided to announce that they would no longer be accepting new members, and that the majority of comics would have to find a new home.  While I am not privy to the Crosby’s business outside of my dealings with the Xyliatales website, I understand Keenspot’s decision to focus on in-house properties (though I am perturbed at their actions regarding Kel). It’s a business move. Comics that are not making them money (or are not updating, or are not related by genre or audience) need to be dropped. Why? How dare traitorous Keenspot do this to all those comics that had been there for years? Because Keenspot is a publisher. It is also a collective. And a host. But it is these things IN THAT ORDER. The money comes first, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The web is a much different place now than it was over 10 years ago.

But I’m not really writing this article to talk about the Keenspot “fiasco.” I’m writing this to clarify some terms that are being used synonymously when they are quite different indeed. Since I started off with Keenspot, I suppose I might as well define what I’m talking about with “publisher” here:

A publisher is any business that creates products in large quantities to be sold (and in the case of online properties, quite often distributed). In Keenspot’s case, what was sold was pageviews. Those ads you saw on every page when you visited, those made Keenspot money. Keenspot took percentages from the Swag store and sold ad slots in the header.  The ads not only paid for the hosting costs of all those comics, but also made the Crosbys money.  A business is not magnanimous. What properties do not make money are only a drain on resources, and must be cut loose.  Since Keenspot was the first webcomic publisher, I understand how the dissolution of the network can upset those of us who still remember dreaming about “being Spotted,” but again, the web has changed.

Keenspot was (going to be using the past-tense here) also a collective, but only in an accidental sense of late. A collective is a group of people with the same, common interest who cooperate for the benefit of all. In short, members do better together than they would apart. A collective has nothing to do with revenue in a business sense. If money is made, it’s either kept by the person who makes it or is shared equally. Unlike a business, a working collective requires cooperative members, not just good products!  To visualize the difference between a publisher and collective, take a gander at Keenspot sites as compared to SpiderForest sites. SpiderForest is a collective (and the wonderful place that hosts my comics!) What do you notice? The focus on the comic and members, not SELLING a product.  Everyone self-publishes their own work. Is one better than the other? Well, that really depends on what you’re looking for! Just remember than a collective ≠ publisher!

Now in that previous paragraph, I mentioned that SpiderForest hosts my comic. So SpiderForest is not only a collective (cooperating, self-hosted sites), but ALSO a host. Hosts do exactly what they say: they provide a webpage and server space for comics. A host, however, is under NO obligation to commit to the betterment of the group. A host provides a service only, perhaps for a fee and perhaps not, and that’s where the relationship ends.  Examples of webcomic hosts include ComicGenesis and DrunkDuck. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “But Kez, both CG and DD have these completely AWESOME communities and we help each other out by cross-linking and forum posting and stuff!” Well, sure, yeah, but the host isn’t doing that…YOU are.   The host has no obligation to provide forums, and even if they do, it’s your choice to go there or not.

The last classification I’m going to mention is what we call affiliations. This is tight, exclusive relationship between a SMALL group comics committed to sharing traffic, who are not part of a collective (or simply a stronger relationship between certain members of a collective. What matters is that it’s exclusive).  An affiliation is more than a link exchange because of the commitment.  A great, recent example is Webcomic Bucket.  Some affiliations result in communities, some actually turn into collectives when the affiliations grow large enough.  The biggest difference in my opinion between affiliations and collectives is often the NAME. Collectives are branded, ex, I am a SpiderForest creator, my comics are SpiderForest comics. The collective may come first sometimes, and indeed, the SpiderForest header is at the TOP of the great majority of SF sites. In affiliations, there is little or no branding. If there is branding, it is always given less priority than the comic itself. No members of Webcomic Bucket proudly state their comic is a “A Webcomic Bucket Comic!”  There’s also the matter of shared resources. In a collective, members may rise or fall together because everyone is sharing their audience. In an affiliation, people may come and go, and it’s no big deal. Affiliations are more independent than co-dependent.

Anyone reading through this by now ought to notice quite a bit of overlap in these terms.  Many places can be listed under multiple names. Keenspot was a publisher, collective AND host; Spiderforest is a collective and host; ComicGenesis/DrunkDuck/SmackJeeves/WebcomicsNation/ComicSpace are hosts.  I want to reiterate here that I am not slamming any site or group for being one or the other term here. There IS no “better,” because it all depends on your goals.  This is article is just about classification. As a member of the SpiderForest Webcomic Collective, I got SICK of people bashing the term “collective” because of their fervor over The Keenspot Decision. Hence, I was inspired. Enjoy!