Can a serious webcomic find it's way on Tapastic?

minzinger 2014-12-05 22:26:47 UTC #46

@lunox99 - It's not our intention. Long stories are more difficult to feature. @changkim @daronakira can perhaps help us out here. I understand your concerns.

Something like that is being worked on. Progress and quality take time...I mean A LOT. Tapastic has improved significantly over the past 2 years. There has been some side-effects like biased towards shorts. It's a continuous struggle to solve problems we face with. Hope you understand.

Alli 2014-12-06 03:58:42 UTC #47

Oh wow, awesome! And when I said Tapastic catering to short comics I probably should have said something more along the lines of "the Tapastic Community". It's a community that shares things on social media, and it's the community that collectively takes interest in the funnies. The site just reflects that. I am actually really happy with Tapastic as far as a publishing site goes. It's much easier to reach fans here than on anything else I have ever tried, and the staff is very vocal and eager to please.

As far as suggestions go, I think it would be pretty beneficial if creators were able to put themselves in groups, similar to the option deviantart offers. You could request to join a group and then the members look over your work to see if you have a comic similar to their own. It would make it easier for readers new to Tapastic to find similar comics, and then there might not be as much pressure to feature all different kinds of comics on the front page. The suggested reading section you offer now is helpful, but I feel like it could be more effective this way.

Requiem 2014-12-11 14:28:06 UTC #48

I completely understand how you feel greatnessiam1. For the most part I have noticed the more comedic comics getting the spotlight. Granted they are probably the best to use to get more publicity for the site.

Two of my comics lean more towards the serious side of things (still has some humor in it here and there). I've gotten a few good complements here and there from people. Mostly get most of my views from sharing on social media sites personally.

ck_tapastic 2014-12-12 18:24:08 UTC #49

Long form, short form, serials, one off's ... at the end of the day what matters is great stories, as we know.

greatnessiam1 2014-12-12 21:22:19 UTC #50

Absolutely understand that! I do agree 110%

At the end of the day I just want to tell my great story on any stage or venue the world has to offer.

Exposure comes in the long run aslong as you put the work in for it. This is my first year I've got time
to grow!

It's all apart of the journey right?
Infinite The Journey Have you joined the journey?
Infinite The Journey

thebrosse 2014-12-13 07:26:59 UTC #51

I've found a few worth reading after a lot of digging, but I agree that it is very difficult to rise up the ranks with a serious story in you arsenal.

jonsaintamant 2014-12-14 06:04:27 UTC #52

I totally agree with a character feature. It could even be as simple as having a character introduce themselves by answering some random question. The key is to provide an enticing sample for prospective subscribers.

ck_tapastic 2014-12-15 19:57:29 UTC #53

Maybe a more clear distinction between short forms and long forms would help here?

kurisquare 2014-12-15 22:48:31 UTC #54

I don't know if it's a good idea to make a strict distinction between short and long form since sometimes people can work with a mix of the two? Sakana works with pages that work as "short form" comics sometimes (punchlines and all a lot of times), but they're all connected as one long story.

But then we might just have to choose sides if it's for the sake of organization

thebrosse 2014-12-15 23:43:21 UTC #55

Also there should be an option that allows new readers to not begin certain stories from the latest released comic. I figured that if a new reader began reading an on-going series from the latest chapter, they would have no idea what was going on and just move on.

yuliusefferven 2014-12-16 00:12:43 UTC #56

@ck_tapastic and @thebrosse I think we shouldn't segregate the 2 but give readers and creators ways to differentiate between them. like @thebrosse said, creators should have the option to default their 'first page' when clicking on the series by an new reader to the first page or last page depending on which is more sensible to their comic. Maybe there should be little tags in the comic title/description to show whether it is a story comic or gag comic. Short form comics can still have stories in them though as well as gags, so it's really hard to make a clear distinction sometimes.

minzinger 2014-12-16 05:05:43 UTC #57

Similar to the way there are sitcoms and serialized dramas, I feel it helps the readers to be able to distinguish the two from the start to understand the time investment to keep up with the series.

T10K 2014-12-16 06:48:08 UTC #58

I believe they can find their way, they're not going to have the explosive subscribers that a lot of shorts do. Long term comics take time to build up a reader base; it's an investment on the reader's part as been said several times above. A lot of the suggestions posted in this thread are wonderful as to how to promote serial and serious comics better, it's been a good read.

That said, it would be absolutely wonderful to have that feature where you add to existing episodes and it sends notification to the readers instead of having to do each page as a separate issue. Totally a vote for that from us!

ck_tapastic 2014-12-16 20:03:24 UTC #59

I think this is one of the cases where we can't satisfy everyone. By the way, did you notice we have the "go to the first episode" link on the side for the readers? (the little double arrow on the top, right side)

minzinger 2014-12-16 21:04:10 UTC #60

Coming... Yes, one of the most requested feature. thank you for your patience.

PotooGryphon 2014-12-16 21:07:33 UTC #61

To build on that, it'd also be nice if there was a feature were we could organize/rearranging already posted comic pages.

yuliusefferven 2014-12-16 23:26:06 UTC #62

@ck_tapastic yes I noticed that, though I can't say all the readers notice but it's not a matter of huge importance I guess... If they are interested they will go back the beginning.

@minzinger I guess an easy way of distinguishing between short and long form comics is nice, I think the genre and tagging is supposed to do some of that? What other ways do you think the site could make distinctions between them?

minzinger 2014-12-17 19:23:22 UTC #63

Good question. We'll need to do some research, make some mocks, do user testing...before we can feel good about the direction.

thebrosse 2014-12-17 21:20:40 UTC #64

@minzinger @yuliusefferven @CyndiFoster

It could be as simple introducing a new genre called something along the lines of "long-form serials" or "acquired taste", meaning it takes some investment to appreciate these stories, and selling them as "stories catering to the serious readership". This creates a clear distinction between long and short form comics and allows for readers to distinguish themselves into different zones of taste. It's a means to divide and conquer readers without losing traffic to the website because many readers enjoy long form stories, exclusively, especially in the culture of manga i come from. So for an individual like that to visit tapastic and be bombarded with western-style Sunday strips on the front-page will cause them to turn away and never come back. If Tapastic takes steps to capture the more serious, more lucrative, more proprietary readership, nothing but good will blossom from those efforts.

ck_tapastic 2014-12-18 02:29:02 UTC #65

This is a good point. Also I think it's important to give enough context to the users -- i.e. labeling long form serials as long form serials, though it would be fairly easy to recognize them as long forms. In general, users want to feel reinforced and empowered when they use a service and putting clear labels is helping that.