What is Stripcreator?
Stripcreator is a website that allows users to create and save their own comic strips. It officially went online January 6th, 2001. It was developed and is maintained by me, Brad.
What's the deal with donating?
Donations helps pay for Stripcreator's hosting costs. Aside from the tingly sense of well-being you may experience, donors also get some special features:
Donations are easiest for me by Paypal. If you want to send something by mail, please e-mail me at brad@stripcreator.com and I'll give you my mailing address. Please include your username. Here is the Paypal link:
What are the rules on Stripcreator?
Don't fight, don't flood. If you must fight, do it in the Fights Go Here forum.
What happens if I break the rules?
I'll delete your comics and ban you.
Donating does not protect you against this. If you donate and are an idiot on the site, you're still gone. No refunds.
What should I do if someone is being annoying on Stripcreator?
You should email a complaint to me at brad@stripcreator.com. Please make the complaint detailed and provide links to the offending content so that I can get an idea for what's going on.
Note: if you actually want this user to go away, do not reply to their messages on the site. Ignore them and email me. Otherwise you're just encouraging them and making things worse.
How do I get people to read my comics?
Your best bet is to post them to the Read My Damn Comics forum. The regulars are most receptive to people who are polite and funny.
What does my member rating mean?
Users who have donated to Stripcreator can rate other users 'good', 'okay' or 'bad' along with an optional comment. Those ratings make your member rating.
When you donate, you get access to a bunch of bonus features. Some of these are exclusive, some are features I haven't finished yet and am still testing amongst trusted users.
For a list of donor features please see What's the deal with donating?
I donated and I still can't delete or edit my comics! What's going on?
The registration process isn't automated. Once I've received your donation, it can take one to two business days for your account to be set up. Once it is, you'll need to log out and then in again to see the deleting and forum user comment editing features. If it's still not working, please email me. Make sure you include your username.
How do I edit my forum comment?
While you're logged in, click the "edit account" link at the top of the page. You should see a "Forum Comment" field.
How do I vote on comics?
You should see "bad", "okay" and "good" links underneath any comic you're viewing (except for in the forums). Click those links to vote on the comic. If you're interested in voting on random comics, you can use the random page.
How do I vote on users?
Visit any user's info page (when viewing a comic by a user, you can click the "info" link under their name). You'll see a bad/okay/good pulldown with a text field you can enter a comment into. Click save and you'll have voted on a user.
How do I create a set of comics?
Click the "create a new set" link underneath any of your comics. Fill out the text fields, select the comics you'd like to be in the set and click "save set". You'll then be able to see all of your sets on your user information page. (Click "info" on your comics page.)
What browsers does Stripcreator support?
Stripcreator works best in Internet Explorer 6. It also works in Firefox, though there are some glitches. I've heard that it works in Opera and Safari as well, which would just be luck.
Can I start a contest in the Comic Competitions forum?
Generally speaking, the winner of a comic competition starts the next one in the series. So the winner of Comic Competition 75 chooses the theme for and judges Comic Competition 76.
If you have a good idea you can try to initiate a new type of competition (for example, the Mystery Comic Cup to the Tag Team Comic Cup) in the More Comic Competitions forum. We'd suggest that you hang around for a few months and see how things work before you try that.
How do I include comics in my forum posts?
Just cut and paste the URL of your comic into the message and it will be displayed automatically.
What are all these inside jokes?
User Fuzzyman has compiled a comprehensive Stripcreator In-Joke FAQ which should get you going.
What do the little yellow stars beside user's names mean?
They mean that the user has donated to Stripcreator and is great.
Is there a Stripcreator chat?
Yes. If you have an IRC client (such as mIRC), you can connect to irc.chatjunkies.org on port 6667 and join channel #stripcreator if it doesn't happen automatically. There is also a web interface that you can use.
How do I print or save a comic?
If you donate, your comics will be automatically rendered to a printable format.
Otherwise you'll need to take a screen capture and print or save that. On Windows, load the comic you'd like to print up on the screen and press your Print Screen key. Then open a paint/image program such as Microsoft Paint (which comes with Windows) or Adobe Photoshop create a new image/project if necessary and hit Ctrl-V to paste the screenshot into the application. Then cut the comic strip out and print and/or save that.
There are some great instructions by Stripcreator user Injokester here.
How can I submit art?
Characters must be in GIF format and be at most 125 pixels wide and 175 pixels high.
Backgrounds must be in JPEG format and should be 250 pixels wide and 350 pixels high.
If your package of graphics is less than 500k in size, you can send them to me in email at brad@stripcreator.com. If it's larger than that, please put it on the web and send me a URL.
Can I use my comics outside of Stripcreator?
The art in the categories threereasons, dexx, kaddar, kaddar2, props, forumusers, holiday and submitted are okay to use. The other categories were contributed by artists who only gave me permission to use the art on Stripcreator.com. You'll have to check with them if you want to use their art for other purposes.
Where do I send suggestions / bug reports?
You can email them to me or you can post them in Regarding Stripcreator.
What if I have a question that's not answered here?
You can either take a look around in the Stripcreator forums or you can email me and ask.