Comics Cloud & OpenComicWare
TEAM
The OCW team is comprised of designers, programmers, inventors, artists, research specialists, and project managers. Each of these technicians has come together under the umbrella of Open ComicWare to express their desire to create an open platform for comic creators and artists within the Arts. The cast of characters is comprised of individuals that have a passion for the free open-source movement, and what they are building is free of charge and copyright clear. This team is much like a "Wikipedia-meets-Linux" team with the top-tier representatives verifying Open ComicWare (OCW) software and template releases.
None of the people involved in the OCW project are paid any funds whatsoever -and they never will be.
Benjamin Kuchera
Vision / Project Manager
Anthony Jones
Co-Project Manager / Templates
Benjamin studied at The School of the Art Institue of Chicago as an illustrator before migrating into film and graduating from The California Institute of the Arts where he majored in Film and Cinema Directing. He studied toward his Masters at the University of Cincinnati School of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning in the New Media division on a full-ride scholarship.
Benjamin finds that most great, life-changing projects are worth doing for free. He considers it an honor to be considered foolish for trying to implement unproven risky ideas. He has found his voice in the Arts again after a near resignation, and is, ultimately, completely terrified of the "Status quo".
Joe Lewis
Research & Development
Joe Lewis has been an integral part of Blueprint Saints Magazine and the developments of its technical and leadership structure. His gifting is in software research and copywriting. Joe has set out as a research fellow to find some of the best preexisting open source tools available, checking versions and plug-ins to make sure that the OCW team is building on top of solid architecture. His significant involvement in this area is leading to the eventual deployment of OCW's systems and applications.
Curtis Ware
Experimental / Social
Anthony is technical and creative illustrator with a solid background in design. He plies his trade at UK HealthCare and sporadically does freelance design if the project is right.
While not a big fan of most mainstream comics nowadays, he is a friend of creative independents who practice their trade for the sake of good storytelling versus making serialized garbage for money.
Ryan Lanigan
Plug-ins and Templates
Ryan has extensive experience in InDesign, one of the primary Adobe applications for creating magazines. He's worked in print and new media for years and it a large piece of the ability of OCWs template and document conversions. His job, along with others is to make sure what we have built over the last decade is converted to a free and open source environment.
We spent $14,000 to build one template. It's going to be converted for free use immediately, and Ryan is a big piece of making sure it works.
Also, Ryan was born in the city of Awesome. You can check. It's population was "1" -meaning, the city was actually named at the precises time in which he arrived in the city. A solid spirit of awesome is always around him at all times, and thus, OCW will become part of his awesomeness as well.
Curtis has come on board with OCW in the areas of strategy and structure. His eye for detail as well as the heart for the artist is the conscience to much of the entire OCW spirt. His intolerance of crap and true spirit of optimism and protection of the artist is invaluable to the OCW team. And, he's just the most kickn' rock n' roller we know.