Webcomics

ArtofAleksey

@SketchyArtish awesome thank you im going to take a look

NessIllustration

@Aleksey I had a webcomic for a little over a year! Sadly I had to shelf that project when I became freelance because I became too busy to deal with it I was posting it on Webtoons and Tapas, which are webcomic platforms.

The advantage of using a webcomic platform is that you don't have to worry about building a website, hosting or archiving in an easy way to navigate as it's all done for you, they have built-in audiences so more readers, and both Tapas and Webtoons have systems to help you monetize your comic if that's something that you'd ever be interested in. Webtoons gives you money monthly if you reach certain quotas of views and followers and allows you to link a Patreon directly to your page. Tapas has an ad revenue system, and also a coin system where people can tip you or pay to unlock more chapters.

The platforms have quite different audiences too. Webtoons is much larger and you can get hundreds or thousands of readers just by posting regularly, but the audience is mostly teenagers who are not very likely to join a Patreon or even comment (so you get thousands of readers and only 10 comments, it's weird!) Tapas has a much smaller audience but made up of mostly artists and creatives who are very supportive of each other, so it's much less readers but who are very likely to help you and support you, and comment!

A personal blog website is also good, people really like to read webcomics on the creator's own website, but it's also much more difficult to get readers because you have to drive your own traffic to your website without any help from a platform... Be ready to do a lot of social media work and basically take every single reader by the hand to bring them to your website, which is rewarding but exhausting...

EDIT: A few pages from my comic in no particular order!

ArtofAleksey

@NessIllustration oh wow this is super helpful thanks so much!

braden H

Can confirm tapas and webtoons are a good way to go. I think Tumblr has some pretty awesome webcomic templates as well.

I use comicfury for my webcomic. It's got some plug and play templates which work just fine. The community's small, but supportive (though at times cliquey).

The benefit of using a dedicated webcomic host is that your work is usually displayed on an 'updated recently' page, and you're more likely to get some starter traffic than if you host your own.

Give us a link once you get it up and running

ArtofAleksey

@Braden-Hallett sweet, oh yeah definitely will

Susan Marks

@Aleksey check out Jason brubaker’s YouTube channel. He has quite a bit to say about this. (I sometimes think of Jason as being the 4th muskateer to the SVS guys.)

ArtofAleksey

@Susan-Marks cool that would be awesome i learn best from videos

ThisKateCreates

I hosted on keenspace.... 12 years ago.... so may not be a help.

RJWoodworth

I would agree that Webtoon and Tapas are great options. They both have dedicated phone apps. Using Webtoon, it always updates me on new comics and when a comic I am following has a new post. Would definitely check yours out when you get it started!

Kris

@Aleksey
I'm also considering starting up a comic. In addition to what @Susan-Marks said Jason Brubaker actually released the wordpress template that he uses for his webcomics. It's not maintained or anything but I love the idea of a email updated comic that's self hosted. The template is called Inkblot Ace.
I think there's also an interesting idea to think about whether you want to make a 'Webcomic' or a comic that lives on the web, because; I'm having trouble not thinking about a comic as something that will eventually end up in publication, whether that's epub or physical. I feel like comics hosting sites would make it harder to unite the experience for the reader between the publication and the webcomic because the format would necessarily be different per the medium. I'd also be interested in the stats on the frequency with which you would have to post on something like webtoons to make an impact...my suspicion is that you might be better off just diving into the social media work in order to find a core audience that you can take to future projects. Any thoughts on that? Genuinely curious
Peace

ArtofAleksey

@Kris yeah good points. This is gonna be a sorta a limited amount of panels per page. Might not really have an overarching theme. It’ll probably have a punchline here and there. Quite frankly it’s sorta like a practice comic before i do one that is more complex.

Kris

@Aleksey
Oh cool, so sort of like an old style gag cartoon then? That's a good approach, doing the practice cartoon. I guess habit building is probably the best way to go if there's still some stuff you're working out.

ArtofAleksey

@Kris yes exactly! But with an attempt at some sort of story telling. Kinda like calvin and hobbes writing? Except fantasy and magic jokes

Kris

@Aleksey
%100 on board with that.
Let me know if you want someone to bounce an idea off of.

ArtofAleksey

@Kris lol ty I’ll post stuff here as i go

ArtofAleksey

Ok here is a rough of the first panel. I want to make it a big opening panel. The wizard dad is going to get his daughter a new magical pet at the “Magic Friends Adoption Agency”
That’s the hippie dad.
In the scene the wizard and daughter are tiny silhouettes.

braden H

@Aleksey I like! Is this a sketch, or will you be compositing the pages from multiple drawings?

Also, I see you've sketched in some bubbles (yay!) have you discovered the awesome resource that is blambot for comic fonts yet?

ArtofAleksey

@Braden-Hallett this is a rough sketch and no i have no idea what that is tell me more!

braden H

@Aleksey Many free comic fonts! Blambott!

So much better than using comic sans.

The use of comic fonts has vicious grammar and style crusaders. I learned a fair bit the hard way :smiling_face_with_open_mouth_closed_eyes:

braden H

Unless of course you're going for hand-lettering in which case Calligraphr is your best friend