Frequently Asked Questions

While the stories themselves are great introductions, you can also go to the official Carpe Chaos Wiki to learn more about the Carpe Chaos universe! We've got story scripts, background articles, and a bunch of other stuff. This might be a good place to start on the Wiki.

We don't want readers to immediately identify with one species more than another. There aren't any clear "good" or "bad" races, and that's by design; each species of alien has a wide array of groups and individuals and each of those is unique in its own right. It's up to every individual reader to form opinions about each of our alien races. Or, as Eric often puts it, "nobody wants to play Humans in video games, so why would they want to read about them in comic books?"

We love video games and TV, but as we say in our mission statement our goal is to expand the generally accepted potential of comics. They can be so much more than superhero sagas and newspaper strips. For more on what we think about comics, read this blog post.

Carpe Chaos is Latin for "seize space," but if you only translate half of it you get "seize chaos." We chose this name because just as the different alien species in our comic are vying for dominance and seizing the chaos in their galaxy, we are taking hold of our own chaos as we build this universe and make Carpe Chaos comics. It's about taking advantage of opportunity, about seeing potential and striving to achieve it.

We kick off a new Carpe Chaos comic chapter at the beginning of each month and we continue to post pages throughout the month, finishing each chapter on the first of the following month. We upload a new page at least every other day, and more often than that for longer chapters!

We begin publishing comics on the first day of each month, but if you want to be reminded there are a few things you can do. You can subscribe to our RSS feeds if you have an RSS reader (the links are at the bottom of the site), you can follow us on Twitter, you can follow us on Google Buzz, you can watch us on DeviantArt, and you can become a fan of our Facebook page. We update all of these when we kick off a new comic chapter.

The number one reason to create an account is to contribute to the Carpe Chaos Wiki. The number two reason is probably so you can discuss the blog posts on the Creating Carpe Chaos blog. With an account you can also change your preferences so each comic loads using the HTML viewer instead of the flash viewer, and you can configure the HTML viewer to display at a higher resolution (1920x1080 instead of 720x1280) if you prefer. You can enter your email address so if we create a newsletter in the future, you will receive it. Last and probably least, you can set your time zone so the times and dates on the site make more sense to you.

No, we use MegaZine3.

Sure. If you register an account, you can configure the site to use our alternate HTML-based viewer instead. Plus, in January of 2011 we added "non-flash" links to the New Chapters column and Comic Timeline page to make our HTML-based viewer even easier to access.

Shop in our store or donate a few bucks! That way, we can keep doing what we're doing, which is making comics. For you. However, if you're the frugal type and would rather avoid the amazing treasures for sale at The Carpe Chaos Emporium, you would still be doing us a solid by spreading the word about CarpeChaos.com. How should you share CarpeChaos.com, you ask? Just click here.

Whether or not you're willing to spend money on—or "evangelize"—Carpe Chaos, you can more passively spread the word about us by following us on twitter, becoming a fan of our facebook page, giving us a thumbs up on StumbleUpon, watching us on DeviantArt, or following us on Google Buzz.

Yes! Totally, 100% yes! We printed a collection of our first stories, and it's in the store right now! This collection includes Filter Dregs, Strength in Numbers, Moments of Elation, Worst Case Scenario, Hard Lessons, an alternate version of Rurban Sprawl by Daniel Allen, the first chapter of Rising Up, and the first half of the second chapter of Rising Up, in that order. The book is more than 100 full-color pages long!

Two of them, yep. The Moments of Elation poster is 7.5 feet long, and the Strength in Numbers poster is 11.5 feet long!

We've got differently priced versions of our digital prints in the store, and if you only care about getting the artwork then you should just get the cheapest one listed. The more-expensive versions are there to provide a convenient way for you to give additional support to Carpe Chaos. If you elect to do this, your print(s) will commemorate your added support by prominently displaying better versions of the official Carpe Chaos seal, which (we think) looks pretty cool. There are two levels of gratuity to choose from: silver and gold. The bronze seal is optional and does not cost extra.

In short, you can buy more expensive prints to support Carpe Chaos, and when you do the seal will change color to match the level of extra money you paid.

Whenever we want to say a few words about something that isn't a simple update, we'll put it on the blog. Convention recaps, media mentions, whatever. And at least once a month we write a new post about creating Carpe Chaos.

Many of the blog entries are about creating Carpe Chaos comics. A lot of work goes into our comics, and if you want to know how we make them you should check out these posts. They're all marked with a "Making Of" tag, so if you want to read them just click the Making Of tag on the blog (or just click here).

We've got an About the Team page on the blog. Just click here.

The Antidote Trust is a collective of independent comics creators. We're proud to be part of the group, and if you want to learn more about the people behind it just click here for the full list of members.

The Internet! We all live in different cities, and for the most part different states. Carpe Chaos wouldn't be possible without the Internet—we collaborate online to put everything together. Some of us worked together for more than two years without ever meeting in person or even talking on the phone! If you really want to know from which vicinities we hail, check out the About the Team page.

Lots... We use MediaWiki and Google Wave to organize our writings, and when we develop comics we track them in a private web forum. The artists use OpenCanvas, Corel Painter, and Photoshop to create the artwork you see in the comics and across the site. We use Photoshop to master our comics before publishing them on the web, and to build the mobile version of each comic. Before printing a book we master each page using InDesign. We keep all of our files straight with Subversion, and we keep all of our work private with a VPN.

No, our artists work 100% digitally. Everything you see on CarpeChaos.com is digital art.

Yes! If you visit CarpeChaos.com on your mobile device you can our HTML/Javascript viewer to read our comics. To scroll a comic within the HTML/Javascript viewer on an iPhone or iPad, use two fingers.

We do! Each chapter is contained in its own app. Just go to the iTunes store and search for Carpe Chaos, or click this link if you have iTunes installed. All of the comics we've converted to our mobile format will come right up!

The first chapter's always free! And since most of our stories so far are only one chapter long, most of our stories are completely free.

Not currently. But we hope to have one someday. Our comics are available through Graphic.ly, though, and they have an Android version of their platform!

• You can read our comics anywhere you want
• The screen is bright and crisp
• There's no need for active resizing or rotating because the comic is formatted to fit the screen
• You can show our comics to friends as easily as printed comics by handing them your iPhone or iPad or iPod touch
• All first chapters (and single-story chapters) are completely free to download and read
• I think it's pretty cool, and all the cool kids agree that yes, it's pretty cool

Graphic.ly is a digital comics distributor, and in their sizable comics catalog you'll find our comics, too! They distribute comics with their own proprietary software, and last I checked they had versions available for iPhones, iPads, Android phones, Windows 7, any web browser, and anything that can run Adobe Air. So there are probably too many ways to read Carpe Chaos comics.

The Graphic.ly software is free to install and use. Just go to Graphic.ly and click the version you want to use, or download their app on your mobile device. Once it's installed and running you can download comics from the Graphic.ly Comic Store. Most of the comics there cost money, but most Carpe Chaos comics don't—the first chapter's always free! And since most of our stories so far are only one chapter long, most of our stories are completely free.

That's a fair question. Here are some fair answers:

• Their software works on Apple mobile devices including the iPhone and iPad as well as Windows desktop computers
• They also have their software in the Chrome Web Store for Google Chrome (and a simpler web-based version for other browsers).
• Their software is now also available on Android phones!
• The Graphic.ly software offers new ways to read our comics, including the Graphic.ly Flow mode which blows up individual panels and automatically guides you through each comic (making them even easier to read)
• You can zoom in on each page, allowing you become even more immersed in our stories
• All first chapters (and single-story chapters) are completely free to download and read
• Graphic.ly is a virtual community, which means you can use it to have discussions with other people about Carpe Chaos comics