I have the opposite problem. I actively look for backlash. One of my comics is incredibly violent and will only get moreso with time and another is a highly politically charged, probably very offensive satire, and I've noticed that... nobody on Tapastic lashes out. It's astonishing. Everybody here is so nice and supportive even if you go completely out of your way to illicit a reaction. That's one of the things I love about this site. You just keep doing what feels right to you and if people do get a bit agitated, explain your reasoning to them and maybe they'll respect you for making the changes you make.

I think that the fear of backlash is normal, mainly when you deal with sensitive topics.

For dealing with this, you have to create 2 categories in your head: The Haters and Everyone Else.

The Haters will not give you construtive criticism. They are here with the sole objective of hating. So, you should ignore them, cause the problem of the situation is them, not you or your work.

Everone Else will make critics, but with good intentions. You should listen, select what's worthy and always try to improve.

The hard part is ignoring haters when you have anxiety, but spotting them helps.

I have similar concerns for my comic as well concerning how readers will react to future conflicts within the story. I can understand where the concern comes from, but the way how I see it is that your readers are either gonna love what you bring to the table or they won't. There's no sense in rewriting parts of the story for fear that the readers won't take well to certain scenes. As far as getting flat out haters to your story because of it, the best advice I can really give is to just ignore them since most of the time, you can't reason with haters and trolls anyway.

Know that you've got someone in a similar situation by your side to get through it all In regards to Time Gate, the story takes a slow but sure 180 spin into the horrific and malicious. And it started off about a girl who just hated a guy's guts... siiiigh the good old days. And we haven't even started towards that 180 change yet - people think it's getting violent and dark now, hoooo boy are they in for a treat.

Tell the story you want to tell. The people who genuinely enjoy your work and support you will continue to do so through all the ups and downs of your story. It wouldn't really be your story anymore if you changed it to suit an audience, would it?

Just know that you have someone fighting a similar battle and you're not alone ^_^"

I kinda have the same thing going for a story of mine. And I basically have in the description it saying that it's going to get dark fast. Mostly I feel safe saying that because it's sort of like a movie rating (or more specifically the text next to it), it gives the reader/watcher a vague idea of what they're getting into without flat out saying how it's going to happen.
If you just said "oh, by the way blankity blank character is going to be trampled to death by giant lemmings" that gives it away, which a simple label saying "violent" doesn't.

But of course I have no clue what I'm talking about really...

this question h a u n t s me

i think about it lot. the social groups i associate with are really critical of the social implications of certain narrative decisions, and i am too, so naturally i want to write a good and unoffensive story(to the people whose opinions i care about at least lol)

it's really hard to do, though! i constantly look back over my work and think, "am i stepping on anyone's toes with this? is it not my place to tell this story? am i letting some internalized bias drive how i treat these characters and their stories?" sometimes the answer is yes! i've worked a lot of kinks out of both of the stories i'm currently writing and i think it's a better story for all of the attention i've paid to certain parts. i like the satisfaction of not doubting my own treatment of the story. of course, there are lots of thing i miss because i'm still learning, but i do try to listen to lots of different perspectives esp from people with the same backgrounds as my characters

as far as violence goes, i don't think any violence can really be called "tasteful" but there are levels to what you can show and i think part of that it a matter of personal preference. you'll always run into people who hate violence and feel completely alienated by a violent turn in the story, but i think you'll definitely find other people who love it! it depends on the person. it also depends on what you're comfortable with
i think it's safer to use warnings maybe as image at the top of especially graphic pages? i don't think it interrupts anything but it gives people a chance to prepare themselves for content that might upset them

I've got the same problem to an extent. I plan to introduce a few taboo, problematic subjects into my comic later on, and getting backlash is something I get nervous about. What helps me a bit is plastering everything with disclaimers, put a warning in the description on sites you're advertising, I myself even drew a disclaimer image4(contains blood!) to get readers prepared for what's coming up. If you bring up things that happen in real life, such as mental/physical illness and such, it's best to do as much research as possible beforehand.
While backlash of some kind is expected due to the nature of the subject, and the fact that everyone experiences things differently and may not find the way I portray it to be practical to them, if someone gets upset by the mere existence of it within my comic it's kind of their own fault for not paying attention to the warning signs. Do your best to keep your mind on enjoying the project, and the people who do enjoy and support it.

I don't suffer quite as badly from this particular anxiety, though I do have a whole host of worries regarding my comic that keep me awake at night sometimes. Posting ANY kind of art online is an act of vulnerability; you're putting something that matters a lot to you on display for strangers, and there is NO way of predicting how they will react.

Ultimately, though, it is better to just do the thing. I've found that as scared and nauseous I get at the thought of doing the thing, doing the thing has always proved to be not as bad as I thought it would be.

I think that if it worries you, you might want to mention it to your readers, and be honest that the tone of the series will be getting darker. You won't have to spoil anything - just say that hey, things might get dark from here on out.

It's probably fine if you don't, too; I imagine your comic won't go from sweetness and light to utter darkness in the span of two pages, so you will have time to hint at the change in tone, build up to it in your story, and it will probably just feel natural to your readers when it happens.

@hades
As said in another reply, this is a normal reaction that we all go through, and sadly the fact that people who have enjoyed the work don't bother doing the small act of pressing a like button only makes matters worse.

I think something far worse than backlash is turning people away and sadly I know that some elements of my story lines has done just that, leaving me with the dilemma of should I change things just to be excepted? After thinking it over I decided to say No, my comic is Indie and proud! and indie comics can do what the hell they please, we are meant to show a different type of story and if it causes backlash well so be it. Not everything is trendy right away, sometimes it takes time to build a following.

so yes keep trucking on.

I understand this fear a lot, and I think I go through a lot of the same anxieties that @sorrelma mentioned up there. Telling a story can be really difficult, knowing that you're putting out something that you put a lot of time into, and the possibility of a bad response is inevitable in some ways. Anything from the obvious to the more subtle can cause an unfavorable reaction to different people regardless of whether we expected it or not because the human experience is so varied! Things that are alright with some may not be okay with others, and I think as creators this is just a risk we end up taking.

I say to really think about your story and if what you're doing is important to your intention and the story that you want to tell, then do it. Just do it. There will always be people who will be uncomfortable with certain things, and it sucks knowing that you might lose a few with the directions you take, but if telling the story you want to tell is the thing that is most imperative to you, then do your best with your intentions.

I think adding warnings in author comments or gating a page is a good way to warn people who are more sensitive to certain materials if you worry about that. I think it's good for you to think about these things! It means that the audience means something to you Best of luck, it's a discomfiting path to tread sometimes.

this is very true ! i think the best advice for avoiding backlash might just be to always be receptive to feedback from readers. "the customer is always right" well noo - not always - but it's definitely worth addressing any concerns readers have. it builds a lot of rapport with your fanbase to be someone who is willing to listen and make changes when someone brings up a valid point

Game of Thrones, both the book (A Song of Fire and Ice) and the television series are known for ripping their readers/viewers heart, then chewing it, and then proceeded by spitting it back out while they watched. Yet, no one ever said "I'm not going to read/watch this series ever again!" because YOUR real supporters are the ones that say they can't wait to come back for the next book/episode. Sometimes backlash can be your friend if done right.

The worst thing that can happen is 1 person not reading your story vs the 5 that actually enjoy it. I'd rather keep those 5 people happy. Just my 2 cents.

Like some here, I actually have a similar fear for one particular part of my comic, to the point where I've been flip-flopping on whether to try and avoid it or not, this coming from someone who's comic has had throat tearing and popping eyeballs. XD

However, that also means my comic has had some very messed up scenes already and I've never received any real backlash, even though the comic started out pretty tame. I can only trust people to turn away and stop reading if the comic becomes too uncomfortable for them.

You can say "there will be dark stuff in this comic" or "tthere will be violence/trigger fuel/ect" if you feel the need to be more specific, I don't think either of those type of warnings will really spoil the flow of the story. Then at least you can say you warned people.

I doubt any shift in the story's mood will make you lose tons of your regular readers, I wouldn't worry about it, but either way, sometimes you just have to go with your gut so you can tell the story you want to tell and not worry so much about people's feelings. Being considerate is all well and good, but worrying about that too much can also drive you crazy and lead to making edits you don't really want to make...then suddenly you've lost your original vision.

I got no self confidence what so ever and I will publish any crazy bizarre crap for the hell of it haha!

sorry but I did, in fact i got so pissed waiting for the last book to come out I sold my books. I must admit i have watched the tv show since i said that but im not half as interested in it as a was. My personal opinion is Martin love the shine of profit more and the love of fans and has sold out , but that's just me. (sorry to go off topic with this answer)

Attention? What's that?

I'm in the same boat, and yes my social anxiety kicks in when I feel there will be a backlash against my work. There have been some potent attacks on mainstream superhero comics of late as to how they portray their characters, where as I like to think I put a little saucy postcard titillation in my art, you never know who is going to be offended. I worry because I enjoy working with diverse cultures but I have no experience of them except through the media and I'm afraid I wont get something authentic and potentially upset someone, which would in turn upset me.

I also have anxiety but when it comes to backlash, I am on the fence.

I want to in the future dive into darker themes with my comic like abuse and manipulation but I am a bit afraid that if I don't handle it right, people will think I am being tasteless.

However, I am also tempted to push the boundaries "too far" just to get a reaction out of people.

The approach I've always taken to this is, make stuff that you want to read. Don't try to make comics for a specific audience, or even worry about who that audience is. If you're making the stuff you really love, the right audience will flock to you. Of course that said, you do have to market your stuff via social media in order to find "your people" but the main thing to remember is, there's an audience for everything. So bottom line, make what you wanna make!

PS if you want to check out my comic, you can do so here: https://tapastic.com/series/The-Adventures-of-Toad1

I have severe anxiety as well actually and have a similar fear even took a comic down a while back because I convinced myself the art wasn't good enough and when people where commenting (the occasional mean human) it would just ruin me. Mine never had to do with the content turning darker(because I never got that far into it ) but with my ability itself, Took me almost a year again to work up the courage to make a new comic and post it.

There's a comic here called Patrik The Vampire that did something like that and i think it actually gained a whole lot more readership after becoming darker and more plot heavy. (it's also fantastic i 100% recommend)

Honestly, this problem has stopped projects in their tracks for me. Just thinking of all the constant criticism I could get.

I think a good thing to do, with any social anxiety problem, is look at how you perceive others. Like, you don't notice or care about things about other people that you get anxious they're judging you for. Nobody's gonna get angry about your anatomy slip up there, or shout about how terrible your plot is. In fact, from what I've seen here, there's very rarely backlash in general. When people don't like something, they just don't subscribe, or don't read.

But also, as someone dealing with this anxiety, I know understanding that doesn't always work. I'd honestly say, fuck all of them, you're making this comic for you and you're gonna enjoy it even if they don't - and some other people will, too. The best way to deal with anxiety for me is to just give zero fucks. It's hard - especially since deep down you really really really really care - but just try to convince yourself, see how it goes.

Well first of all, there will always be backlash on something, it's just something that you gotta deal with. Also a little advice me friend told me once, you really should' worry so much. Rebecca Black did a pretty crappy music video and it still got famous and popular.

As for your story, I don't know if it would cause backlash, but it sounds like a sudden shift that could take the audience by surprise, almost like it's a direct 360 in audience direction. I would say yes you should put some warning up and kinda ease the audience into that "darker" tone your trying to set later. Don't just spring it all of a sudden.

Good Luck.

wow...
this is a very interesting topic that I really didn't consider. The more you know.

I previously expected that our comic2 will not get much in terms of readership because it is very dark and who likes to read dark stuff... haha..

(I like dark :D) .

But readers have been supportive so far...

Our comic started off dark (so I guess you kind of knew what kind of story it is), but I'm actually at a point where its going back to dark and it is about to get really ugly.

Never thought of a disclaimer post... that is a really helpful idea... should probably do it to warn readers of sensitive content up ahead.
- WasH

"Who would have thought there'd be so much death in a vampire show?" - Skeletor

In most cases, you want to make sure your opening stories have some elements of whatever you want to feature heavily in later episodes or the ending. Cowboy Bebop gets away with a downer ending because the series did have many elements of tragedy and bad ends for other people between moments of absurd comedy and Jackie Chan slapstick without suffering tone whiplash.

Ctrl+Alt+Del failed at escalation and getting the audience comfortable at switching to dramatic moments because the author just told a story of idiots being idiots in zany situations with no real repercussions and then suddenly miscarriage. We all know where that went.

The other thing is to stand by your creations and your work if you're feeling that you're being true to your mission statement. Robert Kirkman of Walking Dead got unfairly called out as several of his minority characters had bad things happen to them, even though in the Walking Dead, everyone isn't safe and inclusion doesn't mean special favors for the sake of keeping a diverse cast. Enough people understood what that meant and stuck with it.

I too, get a little nervous at times talking about some of my projects or what elements it has but if you believe in it and speak honestly, you will more often be pleasantly surprised by people, especially if you also treat them with respect with their concerns.

If it makes you feel better, I have a comic about President Trump2 so the backlash potential is huge. Sometimes you just need to not care what peoples' reactions will be and go with your instinct.

MAGAToons: lol subbed

I'd say a good, healthy way to think about it is to realize of people are happy, mad, scared, whatever enough (pick an emotion) to actually respond or talk to you, you're doing it exactly right. Every comment makes you more popular in Tapastic's eyes, so yes, do whatever you want. People talking is the greatest gift in the world, even if it's "MAN THIS COMIC MADE ME MAD."

In today's overly sensitive PC world where even a healthy internet debate over dogs vs cats is enough to rustle someone's jimmies, you are going to encounter some kind of backlash no matter what. For example, in Life of an Aspie1, simply having a relatable female character with gasp flaws would be enough to have some social media "feminist" screech "OPPPPPRRREEESSSSHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN!!!!" and let's not even mention Eiji being a dick to Susan not because she's a girl, but because of her mental disorder. (And yes, Eiji Onizuka was designed to be what I like to call a "charismatic douchebag". Basically the Eric Cartman of LoaA to put it simply.)