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General FAQ
Webcomic Collective
Tomgeeks: The Comic
Who manages this site and how can I contact you?
Crystal Yates can be reached at tomgeeks(at)gmail(dot)com. Just a warning though, I'm not very good at keeping up via email, so the best you can expect from me is one (not particularly timely) reply.
So what's a "tomgeek" anyway?
If you'd like to know more about the origins of this term, click here.
I didn't get the forum confirmation email - what do I do?
The first thing you should do is check your junk email folder. Nine times out of ten, your confirmation email has wound up there. If it's not there, THEN you can send us an email at tomgeeks(at)gmail(dot)com with your username in it and we'll fix it up for you.
How can I join the Tomgeeks Webcomic Collective?
Check out our Membership Info section on the Collective page for everything you need to know about joining.
How often are new members (Noobs) added to the site?
The first Thursday of every month! This gives our lovely little noobs a good chunk of high exposure time and makes sure that there isn't just one lonely banner up at a time.
Can't guys just pretend to be girls to get into the Collective?
Sure, they can. We operate on an honour system and hope that no one will be so silly as to do this, but hey! If I were a guy, I'd probably wanna be a girl too ;)
Guys are more than welcome to join the forums, but the Collective is reserved for the promotion of female webcomic artists/authors only!
Why are banners removed from the Collective? And how can I get a banner back up?
If a comic dies a horrible death*, its banner will removed from the Collective during our (hopefully) semi-annual purge. If your comic was removed and has sinced been resurrected, you are welcome to reapply for membership using the original form.
*"Horrible death" is defined as not updating for more than 2 months. This does not apply to completed comics.
I've got a banner in the Collective and I'd like to change the URL/banner image/genre/etc.
Simply send an email with the new information/banner along with your comic's name, current genre, and location in the list (i.e. first column, towards the top, etc) and it'll be taken care of as soon as possible.
My comic is co-authored/illustrated by a guy - can I still join?
Sure! So long as one of you is a lady - or at least female - there's no problem.
Will you put ANY comic done by a woman up on the collective? (If yaknowwhaddimean)...
Pretty much, but we won't put up anything that is racist, sexist, or explicitly pornographic.
Founding Mommas? What's that about?
When Tomgeeks started back in 2007, I rounded up some of my "powerhouse" webcomicing associates to join as "Founders". As such, we provided the Collective a kick-start in readership by encouraging our large established fanbases to check out up and coming comics featured on Tomgeeks. And we continue to do so!
What's the deal with this comic on the main page? I thought this was a collective. I didn't sign up to promote YOUR comic!
Fair enough. It's not what you signed up for. Though the idea behind having a comic on Tomgeeks is to draw more attention to the site and, in turn, your site as well, I can understand if you're not that hot on the idea... And I have a couple of solutions for you if you're feeling this way.
First of all, you could ask to be removed from the Collective. I hope you won't, but that's always an option. Secondly, you could change the url your banner links to the Collective page and not the home page. That's totally acceptable. Thirdly, you could enjoy the comic, keep calm and carry on! I am personally a fan of options 2 and 3! Though not in that order ;)
When does the comic update?
Every Thursday.
Why green?
It's my favourite colour! It's also gender neutral - Lex would approve.
Is this comic based on your experiences as a teenager?
Sort of! I'd call it "semi-autobiographical" in the sense that Annie's personality and appearance is largely based upon my teenaged self, but the situations she finds herself in are not necessarily those of my youth. And my friends weren't quite as zany as hers. Well, most of them.
Why did you put a comic up here? I liked Tomgeeks better as just a collective.
The whole idea of the comic is to draw extra attention to the Collective - to give people another reason to check in on the site. (And to encourage ME to update it on a more regular basis!)
Tomgeeks: A History
When it came to describing myself, I was always at a loss. That is to say, no single generic term easily summed up my existence. Which, really, isn’t a bad thing, but it presents a challenge. I grew up devouring comics, watching cartoons, playing with Transformers, engrossed in Star Trek, reading fantasy novels, and loving video games. In short, I had the interests of a stereotypical nerd, but I was a girl. I would’ve called myself a “tomboy”… but that implied that I thought baseball caps were all the rage and wanted to be outside playing sports all the time, shunning my fellow females for the company of boys. Such was not the case. In fact, I hate sports. And I’m not ashamed of being a girl. Quite proud of it to be quite honest, and “tomboys” aren’t. Thus the term “tomgeek” was born. It encompassed all that I wanted to say about myself in one simple word. Mission accomplished.
But when the term was coined, so was another idea. I had noticed when I entered into the wild and wooly world of webcomics that there were a lot of women doing their own comics. In fact, most of the strongest written, beautifully drawn fantasy webcomics were done by women. There were even women doing humourous gaming comics! There were other tomgeeks like me! I started plotting immediately to build a female comic collective. But, like so many other things, it got put on the backburner as my own comic took off. The url has sat stagnant for three years, but now I’m pulling up my socks and getting it going. It’s time for tomgeeks.com to see the light of day.
The notion of a women webcomic collective isn’t a new one. Well, not entirely new. Girlamatic, Sequential Tart, and others have certainly paved the way for women in the webcomic community, true enough. But talking about it like that makes it sound like we ladies are fighting to survive in a a male-dominated comic world, and while maybe on the print side of things that is the case … out there on the internets, it doesn’t matter so much. We aren’t held back by our gender because there isn’t anyone to hold us back in the first place! The only people we answer to are our fans, and they certainly don’t seem to mind that we’re women. Tomgeeks is about enjoying being a girl geek! We’re not fighting a losing battle here, we’re thriving!
So get yer comic on, ladies! There's a whole internet out there just waiting to read what you've got.
(This article was written in November 2007 for the original "About" page for Tomgeeks)
