Late last month Keenspot executive and Nukees artist Darren Bleuel, AKA “Gavin”, announced to us that a Keenspace name change may soon be on the horizon. The possibility of a name change is nothing new. The issue first sparked debate back in September of last year when Phalanx of the Keenspace message boards floated the idea while requesting suggestions for naming possibilities. The issue sparked some controversy and in the end a list of names was taken but until now the issue seemed to be on the Keenspot Brass’ backburner.

Not any more it seems. When we asked him how final the possibility of the name change was Darren said “I wouldn't say ‘final’, but rather ‘greater than 90% likely.’” I later asked how soon the change could take place Darren said “It's very difficult to say. If we choose to discuss the issue again soon, then I would say there's a good chance that we at least start the ball rolling before the next Comic Con this July. If we put off the issue for longer, then I'm just not sure when we'll bring it back up. I think, however, it's been a good idea to introduce the idea early and let everyone get used to the concept before any actual changes take place. People are always irritated by instant change, but the more time everyone has had to mull it over, I've noticed, the more everyone is approving of the idea.” A surprise considering that in the six months since the issue first came up many had simply forgotten about it.

But why is a change necessary? Darren spoke on the subject. “The problem is that the casual reader can't seem to be able to tell the difference between Keenspot and Keenspace. It happens all the time. At conventions, I'll mention that I represent Keenspot comics, and will hear, ‘Oh, I read comic X on Keenspot’, when in fact comic X is on Keenspace…” and later noted ‘Even seasoned comic readers who post regularly on webcomic forums often confuse the two’.”

As it stands now readers have full rights to their own comics. An author can print his or her own work, sell it, sell the rights to it, and retain full creative control of the work. However, there are still restrictions. Recently, John Fortman (AKA FAUB of Fallen Angels Used Books) tried to print and distribute a Keenspace Sampler but was not allowed due to the brand confusion issue and has since renamed the project “Deadly Bear Attacks: May Not Contain Bears” and has successfully printed it. Furthermore Keenspacers cannot set up a “Keenspace” booth or do anything else with the Keenspace name at this time. The name change, however, could fix that. “I can't speak for all four Keenspot owners, but it would certainly be a lot easier for us to consider if this brand confusion didn't exist,” he noted.

Lastly he commented on the convenience of such a name change. At this time Keenspace artists all have comic URLs like http://comicx.keenspace.com. Naturally, these names would have to change to something like http://comicx.somethingspace.com along with all file names. Darren, however, assured me that the inconvenience would be made as minimal as possible. “We'd try to implement it in such a way as to require the least amount of work on your part. For a period of perhaps six months to one year, both *.keenspace.com and the new URLs would function. That will give you a great deal of time to notify people to change outside links. We would likely also offer a way to automatically convert all the links currently on your webpages. You'd then be free to download the converted webpages to your home computer. Then, after the ‘dual URL’ period, we would probably not disable the keenspace.com URLs completely, but instead it would lead to a notification page indicating the new address. Thus, anyone still linking to the old address would still be able to find your site.”

Darren wouldn’t say what the name change would be. However he has been taking input on the matter. “We've compiled an extensive list of suggestions and have boiled it down to a few candidates. My personal preference is to choose a name that is both descriptive, but which also helps maintain the great sense of community and identification that has formed, and as such I'd prefer that ‘space’ continue to be in the name, since it's the ‘Keen’ part that causes brand confusion and the ‘Space’ part is what many ‘Spacers’ identify with.” When asked about future ties with Keenspot he said “the affiliation shouldn't change at all” and assured me that things like the handling of server costs would remain the same.

In the meantime, all eyes are on Keenspot’s execs and all we can do is await their final decision.

-Woodson Baldwin, Newsletter Staff.

(Note that I intentionally didn't get other Spacer's input. I want this to be more of an announcement than commentary. Later, next issue, we can have a debate issue and maybe a couple of interviews.)

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