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Swiszczak
Nov '22

I have difficulty putting my thoughts in words but I hope I will explain it well.

I was thinking of Tapas and Webtoon Canvas independent authors. I was thinking especially of artists who create comics just for fun and who don't work as an artist anywhere, so they don't draw a comic also to promote themselves in order to get more new contracts, commissions etc. I was thinking of artists whose comics are just about their OCs and who just want to share their stories. And it happens that they choose to do it via webcomics.

I wonder if it happens often that some Webtoon and Tapas readers treat all comic authors as if they were professionals creating content only to cater to the audience? As if the authors were not drawing independent comics but sort of mainstream comics, a "product" that must appeal to "customers". I have a feeling that especially when a comic gets more and more readers (but still isn't official), some readers may be toxic, entitled and overly criticize authors, the plot, tropes, designs, slow updates etc. and don't understand the simple rule "don't like, don't read".

I wonder if publishing a comic on webtoon/tapas equals having to act as if you were a professional creator? Even if you're not and don't want to be one. And are readers often entitled and don't care that some authors just create what they personally like and not what readers like? Can authors do something about it? Or maybe in that case it's better not to post on sites like Webtoon or Tapas at all?

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    Nov '22

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Nugtown
Nov '22

I think this struggle is pretty universal and doesn't just extend to comics, but any area of entertainment...
Being independant is a double edged sword of having control over every aspect of your work, including being your own PR person and marketing department. On the internet you are forced to compete with industries in an involuntary way, and people will place the same standards they have for industry level work to other things they consume.

I'm not sure if anything can realistically be done about it. But the best you can do is make sure you communicate your intentions to your readers, especially if you have a young demographic because they just won't know webcomics are historically an 'infrequent' medium.

TheLemmaLlama
Nov '22

I don't think criticism constitutes entitlement, necessarily. Unless someone explicitly demands that we 'improve' and take their advice under consideration, there's nothing entitled about criticizing the plot, characters, tropes or designs`^. The issue with 'don't like, don't read' is that people don't know they don't like something until after they read it**, and even if they don't like the work itself, they may like dissecting a creative piece.

Legit cases of entitlement do suck though :sweat_02: Honestly, I'd say it sucks even if you are trying to be a professional - tbh, I think it's almost easier to ignore the entitlement if you're just creating what you want because that means you have no vested interest in retaining your audience and can thus politely tell them to screw off without fear of 'ruining your career'.

If you don't need your audience, they have no power over you. (Well okay, the power of psychological pressure; but pros have to deal with that too so they still have less power over you :P)

' On the other hand, I can't see why someone would 'criticize' your update pace unless they're trying to get you to update faster, so that's kind of entitled. And criticism of the author is irrelevant to their webcomic, so people shouldn't do that on webcomic pages either.

^ Some may argue it's a dick move to give unsolicited criticism regardless, but that's a different topic altogether. You can be a dick without being entitled/demanding.

** The exception being if you warned your audience upfront that your comic will contain X, and them people turn around and complain that your comic has too much X. Then 'don't like, don't read' is exactly what they need to hear. For instance, if your comic is clearly labelled a certain genre and someone comments saying 'I don't like this genre', then it's like ... what did you expect? XD

thepenmonster1
Nov '22

It doesn't matter the medium. The public has been conditioned to expect free entertainment and in exchange they might consider compensating the creative. And from YouTube to Spotify... I dunno... Pillowfort?.. artists see that shucking and jiving as their only route to follow a dream, despite the fact that these platforms have worse records for paying their creators than Arista and TLC.

Bad behavior on the part of some of the audience is expected because they've been trained to be selfish.

Not without a massive cultural change.

Legendofgenii
Nov '22

I haven’t experienced it myself. My readers are very patient, but I think that’s because they are creators too, so they’re more understanding. :sweat_smile::heart:️

BOMB
Nov '22

I see this situation like I would a free cookie situation.

If you give a person a free cookie, they have every right to tell you if it taste good or if there are ways they think it could be better. But you don't have to listen. And in no way are you required to give them another cookie.

But people are going to have opinions on everything, regardless of whether or not your a professional baker or a professional artist.

Now sure, you might say, you never asked for anyone's opinions, but if your putting yourself out into the world you can't realistically expect no one to ever share their thoughts.

KelheorRegular
Nov '22

There's this problem that most readers also don't know casual creators don't get anything (except for sweet readers love) from publishing on this sites. They are just used to those big creators who make an enormous amount of panels and obviously doing it for money. Many of them don't even realize there's some difference between these two parts of the site.
Sure if it bothers a creator so much, they can stop posting (or turn off the comments, you can do it on WT) . But I don't really know how big you should become for it to actually bother you, I personally got only a couple of comments like that. And well, unfortunately you can't really do anything about them, there's always a chance someone will leave a comment like that, but you can't live on assumption people are going to be a-holes, aren't you?

darthmongoose
Nov '22

My take on this, which I hope people don't find upsetting can be summed up as:

If you just soley want to make comics or novels as a hobby to hang out with people, and are genuinely upset by the idea somebody might assume you're trying to build an audience and might judge your work on how well it attracts and entertains readers, put your stuff on an appropriate platform for that.

Put them on The Duck or Comicfury or Deviantart; places where primarily comic creators both post and read comics, so everyone reading appreciates the work that goes into a comic and isn't expecting polished entertainment, the top performers usually only get a couple of thousand subs, nobody really makes money. There are also tons of places to share writing done just for fun to hang out with other writers.

Because on Tapas, over 90% of app users are readers, not creators, and they're here to be entertained, not to look behind the scenes and hang out with creators. From their perspective, they have no way of knowing that you just put your comic or novel up on the app just to hang out with people. How would they know? I'm pretty sure the people who upload their work intending to build a following would feel insulted if somebody said, "Oh... you're just making this for fun, right? You're doing great, honey." In my experience, it's way more insulting when you're genuinely trying to be professional and somebody is like "It's SO cute how you do those little doodles as a hobby!" than if you put your hobby work in a professional space and somebody is like "This is pretty good, but you should present it a bit more neatly if you want to get more people buying."

Putting your work on Tapas without wanting an audience to see it is like if instead of strumming guitar in your garage with some friends, you went to an open mic night at the local pub, and then when everyone was like "er...." at your random strumming and fragments of songs you mumble along to, you said to the audience, "Oh, I'm not performing for you, you're not meant to see this. I'm just practicing!". If I was at that pub, I'd be a bit confused.

People might call the readers entitled for expecting free entertainment for nothing in return, but isn't just expecting free hosting and listing in an index of works with a chance at visibility and features on not just a site, but an app with millions of users for nothing in return also a bit entitled? If you're uploading with no intention to build an audience that generates ad views and donations, your work costs more to host than it generates, and you're basically relying on those people whose work draws in an audience and so makes Tapas money for that free hosting to continue existing. Tapas lets you host your work for free, with the "payment" being the assumption that people who post will at least try to entertain the users and generate engagement.

BlairFujin
Nov '22

Eh, I just find it mildly annoying when people (mostly on webtoon and mangatoon) complain about update's length, to which I just respond with "That\s because I'm a single person working full time and drawing this comic in my spare time. Here's my pateron link, if you wish to read ahead of what's available here." ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Takaki03
Nov '22

I understand the frustration. But it seems to be inevitable when there's an entire industry out there that feeds the readers with fast updates and juicy content every day. I often comfort myself by telling myself that I tell my story because I have to. Not everyone have to echo with it, but some would eventually. And when you know those people really exist it does make myself feel better. There's really not much I can do about when it comes to the preferences of other people.

SargentAlchemist
Nov '22

Welp, I consider myself a professional webcomic artist, I've been working on Knight of HOPE (my webcomic, which today is it second anniversary) for a loong time a d now I reached a certain profesional level, but even with that, I dont think the audience has the right to put preassure against the creators and their content, even more because some of them (like me) cannot live or gain much mobey eith our comics and this is just a hobbie, there is a huge barrier between healthy critics to improve yourself or just tiny observations and a preassured hatred critic with no other will than just make you feel bad, those can be disguised by cute words which is even worst, but you can feel it when someone is teasing on you... my mindset is that you shouldnt take so much serious your public, just when a huge mayoruty think the same is when you should do something (and not allways, shipping is a very polemic thing, so you must do whatever you think is better for your story with this point)

Hope this helped you! Here is my comic if you wanna check out!

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Instagram: sargent_art_wekaverse

inkerclark
Nov '22
BlairFujin

Yep, and i mean if you are interested in the comic, (and i suppose you are because you took the time to write a comment) the most productive thing to do to make me work faster would be to support me.

1 month later

closed Dec 18, '22

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