Genres Webcomics | Years active 2006-current | |
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Members Anne BarnetsonNick Bertozzi (founding member)Pedro CamargoMike CavallaroKevin ColdenNikki Cook (founding member)Molly CrabappleAndrew DimittRami EfalUlises FarinasMichel Fiffe (founding member)Simon FraserDan Goldman (founding member)Tim Hamilton (founding member)Dean Haspiel (founding member)Jason LittlePaul MayburyJosh Neufeld (founding member)Leland Purvis (founding member)Ryan RomanBritt SaboNathan SchreiberJennifer TongChip Zdarsky Past members Mike DawsonDean Trippe | ||
ACT-I-VATE is an American webcomics collective based on an original idea by Dean Haspiel and founded by Haspiel and seven other cartoonists. It started out on the blogging platform Livejournal, and then moved to its own dedicated website.
Contents
The ACT-I-VATE collective features serialized graphic novels from over twenty-five hand-picked professional cartoonists (each of whom generally adds a new episode weekly), and is updated daily. ACT-I-VATE's artists are unpaid, and produce their work without editorial oversight. ACT-I-VATE is also free to view. In addition to the high-quality comics, the site is known for its vocal community of readers and the lengthy discussion threads between artist and reader.
Origins
ACT-I-VATE debuted on February 1, 2006, with eight cartoonists, and added four more members on April 5, 2006. Since then, the collective has added new hand-picked cartoonists at a regular rate to achieve its current membership.
From the web to print
ACT-I-VATE rose to prominence when many of its artists, including Haspiel, Michel Fiffe, Mike Cavallaro, Dan Goldman, and Nick Bertozzi, began to receive publishing deals. Haspiel and Fiffe's three-issue mini-series, Brawl, a "creature romance double feature" featuring Haspiel's "Immortal" (starring Billy Dogma) and Fiffe's "Panorama," which both originated on ACT-I-VATE, was published by Image Comics in the Fall of 2007. Similarly, Parade (with Fireworks), by Mike Cavallaro, began on ACT-I-VATE, was first excerpted in New York magazine and later published by Image.
In 2009, IDW Publishing released The Act-i-vate Primer, featuring 16 original comics stories by members of the collective.