Feel free to ask me comic related questions (I’m a featured original webcomic artist)

How popular was your webtoon on canvas before it got featured? (eg. subs or total views)

To be a bit vague, whenever I posted my comic, it would be in the top 5 in Popular by Genre and it was even on the Weekly Hot section a few times. I kinda wanna be vague to protect my identity but definitely 200,000+ subs. Nothing compared to the biggest comics, but decently high numbers.

How many episodes did you upload before you were contacted by webtoon?

Again... I kinda don't wanna say, but I was posting for over 2 year (at least), so that gives an idea.

How would you describe your art style? Similar to Korean webtoon style or a more western style?

Definitely more korean/eastern style. That was a conscious decision on my part when planning the comic as I personally like the eastern style more, but there is a bit of mixing, but also because I realised that was the audience I wanted to hit. (people who like anime and manga and traditional webtoons)

How long does it take to create one episode? (from storyboarding to adding dialogue?)

With assistants (4 to be clear), at about 40+ panels an episode, about a total of 25-30 hours when I was on canvas and working full time/studying full time. Now, the comic is my priority, so I spend extra time and take my time on it because I can It's the greatest joy for me to be able to take my time and I'm super grateful.

How strict is the policy regarding stuff like kissing + or violence?

Kissing is fine. Nobodies told me otherwise, but like 18+ seggsy stuff is kind of not preferred. Violence and for the sake of violence is also a no no. If there's a plot motive for having It in there you can negotiate for it but like, the real question is "do you need it?". Cause fi the answer if no, they'll want you to take it out.

I've read about 90% of webtoons on the site so it's possible that I've read yours too

and if you have, I'm eternally grateful for your support and for your support of all the artist.

I realise you didn't ask me for feedback, but I thought I'd just nosily dump my opinion on here because I do have a similar opinion to you hahah. Let me know if you want me to take this feedback down, no hard feelings.

So overall, I kind of have an unpopular opinion in that I agree. There's so much scrolling, and I always thought it was to make the reading experience longer. IDK, I don't talk about panel distancing with a lot of artist haha. But I like to set up my distance based on what's happening in the scene. If it's a conversation, close together cause it's a back and forth. If it's a fight scene, close together to build tension. But if it's a romantic or a sad scene? Longer spaces, to give people room to breath and for emotional plot points to hit harder.

for example, I took a brief look at your comic and it's beautifully drawn! I enjoyed that panels were close together, but also in places like the example below, in my opinion you could have gotten more impact by having that landscape shot by itself. When you're scrolling on the phone, you'll be able to see parts of previous and future panels depending on how large a panel is, so if you have an impact shot, isolate it so that;'s all you can see, because the fact is that people scroll really really fast and they'll blow past it regardless of whether a shot is important or not.

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You as the artist, control the pace they read (if only a little bit), so if you have panels stacked too closer together on a slow scene, they might blow past it way to fast.

Just my personal opinion though. Definitely not agreed upon by others. Lovely comic you've got there and good luck with it!

I make it a goal to read as many as possible. It's actually a very enjoyable process because I'm lucky enough to have very nice readers. I almost never get mean comments, so I'll spend about 1-2 hours checking in on comments after I post an episode, replying to them, liking them etc etc and then I'll go back over the next few days and reply to ones I find interesting. I'll typically read almost all of them unless it's an old episode. I don't have time to go back to old episodes to see if there are new comments on those.

I do know, that not all artists will do this. It is quite time consuming, but I always find that comments are very sweet and it's the least I can do to read them and reply considering how much my readers support me.

Well, I'm a bit out of the norm. I was at a point where it was either hire assistants to take on that work, or quit making comics because I just didn't have the time. Frankly I was at my wits end already even with assistants. So props to all those out there who do comics with a full time job, or full time study, cause I did and never again, I'm not even gonna try haha.

I think it's actually more rare for Canvas artists to hire assistants, most of them are 1 person comics, maybe 1-2 assistants here and there for bigger comics.

In fact.... I think all of my friends who were featured didn't have assistants. But they also got picked up within a year of doing the comic so they had to put up with work+education+comic for a shorter time than I did hahaha.

Much less. Webtoons doesn't like black and white comics very much. The most famous example of one that did make it though is I'm the Grim Reaper by Graveweaver. They started out black and white on Canvas but were asked to change it if they wanted to go to Originals, so they did and they now do full colour.

So it is possible to become an original as a black and white comic but a) it stacks the odds/chance of being an original against you and b) even if you do get taken to original, you'll likely have to redraw the entire comic in colour anyway.

And by stacking the odds, I'm saying that they'll have to find other reasons why your comic is worth the time and effort they'll have to put in to change such a big portion of your comic, compared to someone else who might be a straight reupload from Canvas to Original.

It's ok if you're slow, slow and steady is fine as long as you're consistent.

Hope that helps!

Action violence is fine. It is gore but not just gore because torture can have zero blood and guts but still be brutal. It's more about how brutal the violence is. And whether it's there just to be a "shock" factor or whether there's a real legit reason to be there.

This is a big thing for Webtoons. It's written in even the Canvas terms and conditions that the romanticisation of brutal violence is against terms. (that's not how they word it, but it was something to that extent). Action, like Naruto, God of Highschool kinda thing, is completely fine.

Mine was about 5-6 months maybe a little bit more. You do have deadlines. Chances are if your favourite artist is on "hiatus" they are actually working at the exact same pace as during non-hiatus season. Sometimes it's cause we are building up a backlog, sometimes we might need to organise or discuss other things regarding the comic. We do get breaks here and there but not really more than a couple weeks unless there's an issue that's come up in our own lives, which could totally be the case! Usually though, it just takes a really long time to draw hahah.

Any tips on gaining viewership on Webtoon Canvas? Kinda having trouble over there at the moment....

I've always said this, but it really depends on your goals. If your goal is to get "big" on Canvas, or webcomic websites in general like Tapas as well, you're probably going to need to take a very different approach to if your goal for the comic is to make an art piece. That's not to say these two are mutually exclusive, it is possible, but again, your priorities will be different.

If you want to be big/gain viewership, common factors are choosing to do a comic with relatable and high demand topics. Romance is always in, cute/handsome main characters are always in. Drama is always in. Comedy is always in. Pretty, Korean/asian style art that is coloured nicely is in. Regular and very frequent posts (once a week preferably, once every 2 weeks acceptable but probably no less than that).

Anything more "indie" in genre and look is going to have a harder time getting traction. There are plenty of amazing, artistic and emotional deep comics I love and many people enjoy, but there's a reason why one is called indie and one is called mainstream. People like reading the same kinda thing over and over again. You can take many of those mainstream elements and add that into your comic, but yeah, It kinda really depends on where your priorities are.

Feel free to let me know if you know which way your prefer and if you want more in depth explanation, but that pretty much sums it up.

How did it feel to get the email from Webtoon saying they wanted to feature you? (also i wanted to confirm whether it's true that editors are the ones that contact creators when they get featured hehe)

I actually think I blanked. I had to read the email 7 times cause I thought I was reading it wrong hahaha. Mine was a weird situation because it was in the middle of a chain of emails I had been having with someone at webtoons (not an editor) and the Head of Content.... we stopped emailing for like months, so many months, and then suddenly the Head of Content replied and was like... you wanna pitch your comic to us to be featured?

It was so out of left field hahaha. So I actually don't know if editors contact the creators.... I didn't ask any of my friends. I assume so???

Lastly, what are your favorite Webtoons atm? For me I really like Muted, Suitor Armor, and Brimstone and Roses - those got to be my top three, haha.

I'm more of an All Time Favourite, kind of person over a current favourites. So in general my favs are: Your Letter, Amongst Us, Little Rain and Bastard.