View Covers and Download the Samplers

Submissions are now open for the Comic Genesis Sampler #4. Start drawing!

First comic Previous comic

Submission Guidelines

• Technical Requirements:
  • Content Page Size: 3000 x 4500 (5" x 7.5" or 126mm x 189mm)
    • Colors: Grayscale or 2-color Black & White images only
    • Format: PNG, GIF, JPG, TIFF
  • Cover Page Size: 1650 x 2550 (5.5" x 8.5")
    • Colors: 24-bit RGB
    • Format: PNG, GIF, JPG, TIFF
  • Please post a web version (396x612) in the active forum thread with a link to the large version. If the large version is not present, you cannot be added to the sampler.
• Content:
  • Submission is only open to current and former Comic Genesis members. This is a Comic Genesis Sampler.
  • PG-PG13 only. No nudity, graphic violence, excessive cursing. Suggest all you like.
  • No copyrighted content except your own. Sprite comics will not be allowed to submit unless they can prove they made their own sprites. No Evil Bert pics. That kind of thing.
  • Please post a content rating, especially if your comic contains mature content. (That might attract readers, who knows?)
  • Include your own copyright notice on your page. There will be a copyright page, but only to show the license of the book itself. The individual works are still yours.
  • Include your comic's title and/or URL if you want people to be able to find you.
  • Pages may be voted out by a simple majority of the other authors submitting. It's a group effort. You want to make the group look good, not just yourself.
  • You need to have a comic with at least some kind of archive to submit. The comic does not need to be on Keenspace since we aren't allowed to plug Keenspace. At least 20 comics online will make a good base but we can take it on a case-by-case basis (such as, you have more comics in your buffer than you have online).
  • Those who appeared in the previous sampler are allowed to make submissions but people who were not in the previous sampler get dibs on the pages. If we have too many submissions, new people people get in. Old people get to wait for later volumes.
  • Brief story comics are preferrable to single page ads. Try to limit the storylines to 2-3 pages, though. Take up too much space and you risk getting dropped because too many people submitted pages. There are no requirements for subject matter, only content requirments.
• Font Size: I only know GIMP font sizes so
  
  Small, yes, but readable. Consider these as the bare minimum font sizes (or the comparable font size in other programs).
• I see no reason to turn anyone away for any reason other than those listed above. The order in which comics are included can be first-come first-served, but see below.
• If you have previously submitted a page to the sampler, you may be bumped to add new people.

Legal Stuff

• The comic will be released in PDF format using a Creative Commons License.
• Attribution-NoDerivs License
  
  You are free:
  • to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
  • to make commercial use of the work
  • Under the following conditions:
    - Attribution: You must give the original author credit.
    - No Derivative Works: You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
  • For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
  • Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
• The Full Legal Code of this License Anyone wishing to make a submission should read this document entirely and understand what it means.
• Something to note: The license does not allow for derivative works to be produced. This includes translations. If the mini-comic is to be translated say by RPin into Portuguese, he would first need the permission of everyone who submitted pages and the work would be rereleased in Portuguese.
• The mini-comic may be distributed and sold publicly in whatever format the distributor sees fit to use. Joel Fagin has suggested a CD distribution for example. Taiwanimation has suggested distribution via Bittorrent or P2P software. This is also allowed under the license.
• From what I can see, the license DOES NOT restrict the Original Author of each page from using that page in any other way. Meaning, if you submit, you agree to have the page appear in the book and the license applies to the book. You're free to use the page again somewhere else. You aren't releasing your copyright to the page. You're just giving your permission to have the page appear in this Creative Commons licensed book. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong!
• There WILL be a copyright notice page that includes a list of artists/writers who have contributed, the license notice and a statement to the fact that all "Original Authors" have given their permission to have their work released under the license.

Comic Layout Templates

Sampler Layout Template
This layout was used to make Sampler 3 with Scribus (http://www.scribus.net/), an open source page layout program for Linux, Unix, MacOS, OS/2 and Windows. The layout was designed for a letter-sized page, but should work just as well for A4 paper.

FAUB Layout Template
This is the layout I use to make the minicomics for Fallen Angels Used Books. I use the same letter sized paper, but the image size for each page is different. My comic images are 3975x6150 which works out to 6.625"x10.25" at 600 dpi (I scale them down to 600x928 for the web.) This layout fits the comic-sized pages into a letter-sized minicomic.

Comic Genesis Samplers is hosted on ComicGenesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.