An Introduction and Some Questions about Tapas (from a newbie)

hollylaing 2024-06-03 21:26:32 UTC #1

Hello everyone! I hope I'm posting this to the right section. I've long been registered to this site (on the creator side anyway) and I have yet to post on the forums, so I thought I should finally introduce myself. My name's Holly Laing and I've been making webcomics since 2009. I made the sci-fi webcomic Terra which ran for 14 years (completed in 2023) and I am now working on its remake, Terra Incognita.

I have been doing the self hosted thing for a long while but I want to try mirroring the comic on some of the other platforms, mainly here on Tapas. I wanted to ask if you all had any advice/tips for a newcomer such as myself (like ideal update frequency, how tapas differs from other webcomic hosting sites, etc). I do notice a lot of comics are scrollable (like on webtoon) but I was wondering if it's okay to post individual comic pages as that is the format I currently use.

Also the comic is adult themed (mild nudity, occasional harsh language and somewhat graphic violence), so I am guessing (going by the rules) that I will have to censor my comic, which is fine. Though I was wondering if I mark it as mature, is some violence/swearing still allowed? I'm guessing the nudity is a no-go so I will edit that out when posting, but the guidelines for violence were a bit vague so if anyone could offer a bit more clarity on that matter, it would be much appreciated.

I'm planning to start posting Terra Incognita on Tapas starting in September, so I wanted to make sure that I'm properly prepared rather than just rushing into things.

I'm excited to be back on a forum, I always preferred forums to social media in general so it's great that there are still spaces like this online (between this and starting webcomics in 2009, I'm probably starting to show my age here lol).

Hope to chat with you all soon!

BlairFujin 2024-06-03 22:26:55 UTC #2

it's ok to post in page format (but when it comes to popularity on tapas your best bet is coloured, scroll-format, romance, with artstyle similair to korean webcomics)
more frequent updates means more chances to appear in the newest section (wherever it got hidden at this point...)
tapas seem to be more lenient when it comes to violence and swearing, it's nudity and sexual content that may take you off the app (and thus rob your series of ever being organically found by the readers on this site)

hollylaing 2024-06-04 19:49:44 UTC #3

Thank you for the info! I might end up converting it to scroll-format, but I will have to see how much extra work that entails as getting it to print is my end goal.

As for the mature stuff, I suppose I could always pixelate/blur the more graphic violence (and completely censor/paint out the nudity) if that is permitted on the app. My comic is fairly violent at times, but it's not so bad that I couldn't censor the occasional panel. Though I suppose I would have to look into where they draw the line for blood as the first chapter has a few battle scenes which means it is quite violent with characters getting shot/etc.

Though looking at other comics on here, it does look like you can mark individual pages/episodes as mature so that might be a better workaround since only about 6 out of 30 pages that I've completed so far would need to be censored.

Thanks again for your help! I'll be sure to do more research before I start posting pages, but I feel like I have a better idea of how things work around here.