Gutterflycomix
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gutterflycomix was a publisher of online comics and offered free and pay hosting for webcomics.
[edit] History
Founded in the summer of 2000 by Thomas G. Clemmons and Gary S. Burch, Gutterflycomix.com was formed to offer inspiration and innovation in online comics. Though there were several comics appearing on the web, few took advantage of many of the cutting edge benefits inherent to online entertainment such as sound, video, animation, and color.
Gutterflycomix.com set out to fill this void with the company's flagship title, Green: Wicked Wicked Ways. This Online Multimedia Comic was designed to utilize Macromedia Flash, Html, Quicktime Video, and other internet technologies. More specifically, the flash portion of the comic used traditional paneled artwork that was timed with music and sound effects in order to tell the story. Additional aspects of the story were told through a mock news website along with emails and live action video.
On July 5, 2001, the founders of Gutterflycomix.com recorded their first audio show that discussed webcomics, pop culture, and news from Gutterflycomix.com. Dubbed Gutterfly Radio, the show was presented as a quarterly live internet broadcast and as a monthly podcast.
During its short history, Gutterflycomix.com expanded to offer graphic arts, music, and flash design services as well as publishing other forms of webcomics in addition to the Online Multimedia Comic format. In February 2005, Gutterflycomix.com launched its Webcomic Hosting Service.
[edit] The Gutterflycomix Name
Thomas Clemmons first used the name Gutterflycomix for his art portfolio site in 1997. Clemmons states that, "The name is a take on the term, Barfly: A person that is a regular at a bar (Norm on Cheers is a barfly). The term 'gutter' in comics is the space between each panel. So I kind of took that idea of Barfly and equated it to people that hang out around comics a lot, or read and create them. So naturally they would hang out around the 'gutters' of comics, that space between panels. And thus the name Gutterfly came into play. I added comix because I feel that in today's age of information, we on the net are the equivalent of the 60's and 70's underground comix creators like Crumb and the like. So Gutterflycomix.com was born."
[edit] The End
On November 7, 2005, the site owners announced that they were calling it quits and Gutterflycomix would be going off-line. Reasons were mostly financial - according to the site blog, the site was not generating any profit. To make matters worse, the site was hit by hackers a few days before the announcement, forcing a reboot of the servers.
Certain episodes of the company's flagship title, Green: Wicked Wicked Ways can be viewed by doing a search over at www.newgrounds.com.
