A couple months back I (me being @bryan-imhoff) first proposed a brief outline of the Steem Comic Convention in this post. If you'd like to read it for the first time or revisit it, please do! Once you're ready we can continue on to some updates, news, and requests! In short, the Steem Comic Convention is my initiative to begin building and bringing together the geeks of the "Steemiverse" prior to the official launch of community features on the blockchain platform. (There, saved you a bit of reading if you're in a hurry!)
So What's Happened Since Then?
A Comic Convention By Any Other Name...
(would still smell of body odor)
The name has been subtly altered to be simply Steem Comic Convention, rather than my previously referenced "Steemit" Comic Convention. The reasons are twofold.
- The community should be platform agnostic. While it runs on the Steem blockchain, users may access it through any number of means such as Busy.org, eSteem, ChainBB, Zappl, Steepshot, and more to come. Thus specifying Steemit would be a misnomer.
- From other comments I've observed made by Steem ownership, I believe the Steem blockchain is open source and the names and trademarks are fair to use, however the name Steemit is owned and controlled privately by Steemit Inc. I'd like to respect those boundaries of course. This project is not run or endorsed by Steemit Inc. itself.
I've also been using the full words "Comic Convention" rather than the often used Comicon, as there is currently a legal battle with San Diego Comicon attempting to assert trademark and ownership of the term. I'd rather not stray across that boundary in the future if that organization is successful in it's case.
Pressing Forward Despite Delays
The official Steemit developers have also been recently giving updates about their projects and progress. Currently they are working to solve backend performance and scalability issues for the platform. While it hasn't been explicitly stated, based on all available information it seems official communities implemented on the Steem platform are most certainly behind the timetable set out in the 2017 roadmap. That's no reason not to move ahead with organizing in advance though, and I fully support the desire to get the system in order prior to driving millions more users to Steem.
Registration, Registration, ... and Registration
Registration One
The Steem account you are now reading has been registered! Be sure to follow @steem-comic-con for official news, collaborative articles, and curated re-steems of geeky content!
...and speaking of registration...
Registration Two
There now exists the website steemcomicconvention.com!
With my rather limited skills I've begun building the site as a hub and reference tool for the Steem Comic Convention and all things geeky on Steem! I'm utilizing WordPress as a framework into which I can insert custom pages such as the Show Floor, and a copious amount of feeds drawing content direct from the Steem blockchain. All of these features will only get better as the technology develops and I either...
a) learn more
or
b) can hire a more competent developer than I am!
So far the site features a barebones directory with user submittable entries, the start of an interactive "show floor" graphic which emulates the maps attendees at a physical convention would receive, and some basic information and featured links to members of the fledgling Steem comic community.
Directory listings and pages for individual Steemians will each feature a feed of their comics related content that links back to Steemit, courtesy of the Steemit Feed plugin developed and maintained by @wordpress-tips.
It's a wonderful tool to help spread Steem across the web and @wordpress-tips has even provided me some great tech support right here on Steemit. Please follow and support this account and it's projects! I'd also like to give a shout out to the Steemit Design Resources (www.steemitdesign.com) by @andrejcibik. They've been helpful with the color palette and design and deserve some recognition as well.
Visual improvements are definitely in the works, such as a custom logo, illustrations and the like!
Registration You!
Now here's where you come in! I've begun pre populating the site with appropriate Steem content, but I'm looking for everyone to register themselves, showing their interest and approval while also providing me with content to represent them on the site. The registration form can be found here. This "early registration" event is also my test run so please be patient with any delays, glitches, etc! All placement and representation within the convention is at my discretion right now, though it certainly may change in the future. I'll be working to categorize users in sensible ways to aid in exploration and connecting with others.
In order to give your work and profile the most chance of being featured at the convention please tag appropriate content with either "comics" or "steemcomiccon".
Please note that all of this applies to both "exhibitors" and "attendees!"
Exhibitors
If you're an artist, creator, run an online shop, etc. you'll probably receive a table or booth on our virtual showfloor. For these folks in particular, please feel free to link to any promotional or press materials you have that I can then include in the site. Logos, web banners, advertising images, bios, press releases, etc. For now drop me a link to any such resources in the comments of this post if it's not something you can include within the normal registration fields. I'll set up custom posts and email addresses for certain requests as the demands increase.
Attendees
A convention is a failure without attendees and enthusiasts! If you love attending comic conventions or are a fan of anything geeky, please register utilizing a list of interests. The convention can build out pages to serve as gaming areas, discussion panels, and meet and greets which will pool attendees with similar passions so that you can browse the Steem profiles you may most be interested in interacting with!
Above all Comic Conventions are always welcoming places. Whether you're into Dr. Who, Anime, or 1950's B Movies, there's a home for you. The convention may not be able to greatly support or cater to every interest from the outset, but please feel free to shout them loud and proud so at the very least others wandering the virtual aisles can hear you.
More Fund!
The initial proposal post netted a total of 35.777 Steem which forms the starting budget for future advertising, development, contests and promotional prizes. Obviously earnings from this post will continue to grow that "war chest!" Down the road, a small percentage of earnings by the Steem Comic Convention from posts, advertising, or community features will be paid to staff, but for now it's all being reinvested into the community and it's users. I'm in the process of powering down one cycle from my primary @bryan-imhoff account to transfer the appropriate funds here. I've already invested out of pocket to purchase the domain, web hosting, and some premium WordPress items to help develop the site.
(Full disclosure, I also run the comic publishing account @spottyproduction, as well as the comic review account @exploreunlimited. I'm a serial account creator! It's a great way to separate content and I hope to make some of these accounts into "multi-user publications" in the future.)
The Future
Other than the continued development of the website and awaiting details on official community features, I'm definitely building a wish list of upcoming promotions and projects to help harness the creativity and enthusiasm of the comics community on Steem. Keep watching for further announcements!
As plugins improve, and blockchain features are added, I'll do my best to integrate them into the site and the Steem Comic Convention has every intention of forming a full fledged Steem community when the toolset arrives.
The site will eventually be utilizing minimal advertising as an additional revenue source. To better suit the community I'm experimenting with the A-Ads platform, which focuses on the cryptocurrency industry, and is much more lightweight and non intrusive to viewers than options like Google Adsense. In the near future I'll also implement a couple paid banner slots for Steemians to make use of. With a small amount of SBD users will be able to purchase a set number of views or clicks of your banner advertisement to help promote your blog to the Steem comics community.
Thanks for checking out the Steem Comic Convention at it's inception! Don't forget to register your profile to help in building a very useful database of all us geeks here on Steem. Consider supporting further development and fun future contests and projects with your votes and resteems. And of course, just have some geeky fun.
-Bryan "the Imp" Imhoff @bryan-imhoff
for The Steem Comic Convention @steem-comic-con