Comics Submissions


Many many many people seem to want to help with the comics. Personally, I can't blame them. It's fun. The only problem is that I can do it quickly and easily by myself compared to coordinating efforts with others, and my comics are my own artistic expression. I can't easily bring others into that, nor do I want to.

However, other people certainly have the talent and ability to make some great comics, but don't have the means and/or desire to create their own web sites, not that I would mind if they did; I'm not concerned about competition right now, since I feel that the amount of new comics being created still falls short of everyone's hunger for them.

Anyway, the compromise that I have devised is simply this: If you would like to make some comics, then do it! You can use whatever means you choose to create them, but it must fit within certain rules and guidelines in order to be posted here. Also note that even if it does fit these rules, postings may also be limited by disk-space, other rules I think up on the fly, etc. Basically there is no gaurantee that your comic strip will get placed on the site. After all, this is my site for my comics, so I have the final say.

Before getting started on making your own comic strips, you may wish to read my "comics tips and advice" page.

Please read ALL of the following rules & guidelines. You will be held accountable for it, and they may change at any time without notice. In submitting comics, you agree to to my terms:

  1. The filenames should be within the DOS standard lengths (meaning the base-name can not be any longer than 8 letters). If they are sent as a ZIP file, then the zip file's name should also conform to this. Not using the Windows-95 long filename system will make things slightly easier at my end in preparing the strips for being put online.

  2. The comic strips should generally be no more than 6 images in length (guideline). A maximum of 10 will be allowed (rule), except maybe under extraordinary circumstances. You should try to use as few images as possible to get the point across. 6 is fine, 4 is better, 2 is wonderful! (generally, more images are fine if they're also small. Or you can have just a few large ones. I'm concerned mostly about the total number of bytes).

  3. Images should be no larger than about 30k each, though prefereably smaller. (I've found that using Paint Shop Pro's JPG compression level set to 25% works nicely, as a 300x240 image can be compressed into 15k to 29k depending on the image complexity). *

  4. Image-size in terms of pixels is not all that important compared to the file-size. However, it is best to try to make all the images that are in the same strip have the same hight, down to the pixel. The reason for this is that when listed out horizontally it looks best if they all have the same height. Originally, I started out with the sizes being determined mostly by the scene. Now I make nearly all of the comics 300x240. *

  5. They should be designed to look as though they "could" happen in UO. Certainly you are free to take some artistic liscense like I have (such as having Diablo appear as a punchline, or making the spell effects look a little better than they really would). But for the most part you should be true to UO. This means nothing "hand-drawn" (meaning things like pencil sketches, since mouse-drawn details are often both useful and necessary), and all the speech should be in the UO font. (what this means is that your #1 tool should be the screenshot method you use). I want to keep all of the comics on this site consistent in style. This is not a strict rule, just a guideline.

  6. There should be nothing vulgar or offensive. This one is a judgement call (my judgement call), since irreverence is OK within reason. After all, I already have some womanizing in mine. :-) Cussing is OK, as long as it too is within reason and is used appropriately (such as shouting "aw shit!" after getting hacked to bits by a liche, for instance). I don't mind things stepping onto the line a little usually, as long as they don't leap over it. :-)

  7. You are free to create your own characters and use the pre-existing Ultima characters (such as Lord British), however you may *NOT* use the characters I have created, such as the chief guard, or the skeletons. You may have your own chief guard or your own skeletons, they just can't be Osso, Ossis, Bones, etc. :-) Of course, you should realize that if you do use similar characters, people are likely to think you're making a cheap rip-off, so be careful.

  8. You can't interfere with my plot. You are free to develop your own plot, just don't step on mine. For instance, you may not have the lawyer come and beat up Lord British and then expect me to continue from there. My plot will continue to develop independantly from your work.

  9. Submissions may be e-mailed to me if they aren't large, but I would prefer if you put them somewhere online, such as at GeoCities, so that I may review them easily.

  10. Your work is your own. If you later decide you would like it removed, or you would like to break away and use your own work to start your own comics site, that is your decision. Likewise, please respect my work, and not use it in the creation of yours.

  11. Every submission should include a title for the web page. I reserve the right to give them titles if a title is absent. Likewise, if you want your name displayed a certain way, or even omitted you must tell me, otherwise I'll take the author-info from your e-mail header.

  12. Bones is lord, Bones is master. What Bones says goes. Defiance of Bones can result in removal of all of your comics. :-)

* I reserve the right to crop/recompress those images that do not fit within the pixel-size and file-size limits. Please note that JPG's that are uncompressed then recompressed look worse than if they were properly compressed the first time, so please get it right.

When you're ready,
Submit Thy Comics


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(Bones' UO Comics (C) Copyright 1998, Ed T. Toton III, All Rights Reserved)

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