To Cameo or not to Cameo...

[RemusShepherd]

I'm trying to decide if I want to do a page full of cameos or not, at the end of my current chapter.

For those of you who don't care, my comic is currently depicting the spirit world, the realm where fictional creatures live. (Those of you who do care are reading it, and know that I've gone gonzo on the art and, unfortunately, on the exposition also.) In the storyline of my comic, the spirit world *should* be populated with all kinds of well-known and copyrighted characters, all fighting among each other for dominance. That was my original concept, but I decided not to commit mass copyright violations. (I'm not worried about being sued as much as I'm paranoid that the ComicGenesis folks will use any excuse to be rid of me. And 'paranoid' is the right word there, as I have no real reason to be worried about that. )

However, in the process of planning for this chapter, I got permission to use one copyrighted character -- God, the dyslexic doG, the title character of an amazing book drawn by one of my artistic idols Alex Nino. It was very, very cool of Brian Phillipson, one of the authors of God, to give me this permission, and I'd hate to waste it. And let's face it, a lot of the look of this current chapter comes from Nino's drawings.

But I'm at the end of the chapter and I haven't had characters running through it yet. So if I'm going to have cameos, they're all going to be crowded on one page. And I've been remiss (and just a little scared) in asking all of you people if I can cameo your creations, especially in that fashion. Especially now when my stock with y'all is at low ebb, and offering to cameo you might appear to be me fawning to appease people that I've offended.

(Of course, if fawning would work, I'd totally do that. Don't get me wrong. )

Anyhow, I'm not sure whether to give up on a cameo page or not.

If I went through with it, I'd need your permission to use your characters -- the less human and the more colorful the better. My initial thoughts were to use Six from Fainting Spells, Woot from EOI, Visage from Parallel Dementia...maybe the Doppies, or their pet. Maybe fighting each other, maybe just watching the main battle. I don't know.

Enough rambling. Anyone want to give me permission to cameo their characters? Anyone want to talk me in or out of doing it?

[Linkara]

Well, despite my lack of non-human characters so far in my comic, Remus, I give you permission to cameo any that you should feel the need to. ^^

[Mo]

maybe the Doppies, or their pet

I give you my 50.1%* permission to use the Doppies (or the Thing) if you wanna, now you just need Robin's... sure she'd be cool with it though.

*What? I have a bigger ego...

[Tim]

Since you were kind enough to lend one of your characters to cameo in my comic, I'd be more than happy to let you borrow one of mine.
though even then that's pushing the copyright envelope

[Jim North]

You can use my characters, but I want my own trailer and a wine glass filled with red Skittles. And your deity or deities protect you if I find a single non-red Skittle!

*shakes fist*

[JessicaRaven]

could throw some of my non human charas in if you want, best bet would probably be Vyolette


View Here

[[geoduck]]

You can use any of my non-human species if you'd like. I posted a fairly comprehensive list of them starting here.

[Legendary]

You can use any of my characters you think would be appropriate.

[Dotty]

My comic Elvenbaath(.com) came back, and the Character ClockworkZen is the king of the spirit world, and ex-lord of time. He might be fun to use. He also kinda looks like Visage. Mine came first though. Someday we should make them fight. <3

My thoughts on cameos? More the merrier. They CAN be overdone, yes, but it really helps to make your world a lot more fun when you can recognize a person or two in it...and someone who doesn't know our community wouldn't really be able to tell the difference. It'd be swell.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

Knock yourself, out, yo.

[LibertyCabbage]

If any of my characters are weird enough for ya, then knock yerself out.

[McDuffies]

People are always free to cameo my characters. I wouldn't be terribly upset if someone did it without permission.

[Garneta]

Well, you're free to use any of my characters...but all the ones in my strip at this point are human, so they probably wouldn't fit...

[EmergencyExit]

Your free to use any of mine from EE or UF, there's some ghosts and zombies in UF and EE has a few demons and a robot.

[The Mortician]

I'm around if you need cameo filler. I don't mind it and I believe in eye for an eye. I think chapter 3's gonna have a few cameos I owe...

[Shishio]

You can cameo myself if you want, but not any other characters from One-liners.

[EvilChihuahua]

Feel free. In fact Chang's a chibi shoulder-bieng, so he would look right at home in a spirit world.

[The Neko]

I'm likely in the minority here, but I'm against cameos on the basis that most people can't execute them decently. They often are so full of winks and nudges that it becomes a desperate cry for attention and acceptance than being an allusion or an homage. It gets really bad when they make the gag hinge entirely upon knowledge of the person or their work.

If you can pull it off, all power to you.

[Keffria]

I think that's more what you get with crossovers. Crowd-scene-style cameos are fun and mostly harmless; it's when you take someone else's character and just dump them into a storyline that it often messes things up and seems more like a cheap gimmick.

Ah, anyway, everyone likes the hippo in court uniform for some reason. You can have him if you want. ;>_>

[The Neko]

Well, crowd-scenes can be innocent, but it really can jeopardize the comic universe if you're not careful. If you have a comic that takes place in a realistic world, including cartoon animals is a bad idea and changes the rules of that universe.