Also worth remembering that she did OTHER work before then, that built up her audience a lot and made CQ seem to grow much quicker than it would've if she were starting from scratch!
It is so so so common to see a comic that seemed to "come out of nowhere" and grow quickly to popularity over a couple of years, and then only find out later that oh, this is the creator's second comic, actually. It came out of nowhere because they already had an audience.
It's really easy to start buying into the lie that your age is what makes you special. People say "oh my god you're 14?? You're so good for 14!!" and you start to believe that Being Good At 14 is what you have to do in order to be noticed, and that your skills will be worthless as soon as you cross the threshold of 25. I FELT THE SAME WAY WHEN I WAS YOUNGER!!
That ain't true. being So Good For Fourteen doesn't stop being exciting when you stop being 14 -- it's exciting because it means you're going to be Actually Good At Twenty Six or Really Stellar At Thirty Four!! Besides, building your audience is a long road -- if you're starting now, that's great! That's a head start! I started my first comic when I was 23, and now I'm in my 30s and finally have a small but good audience for the work I'm proudest of. If you're starting now, your audience will grow as you continue to create and improve. They don't all unsub as soon as you hit 30.
I still remember one of the most encouraging things I heard was when I was talking to Spike Trotman at a convention. "I'm so glad I got big when I'm 37, instead of when I was in my twenties," she said. "I wouldn't have been able to handle all this well back then; I wouldn't have known what to do with it. I'm glad I got here after I knew what I was doing." It was a really important reminder that I wasn't falling behind just because I wasn't famous yet at 30!
For engagement, I always strongly recommend folks look at the PERCENTAGE of engagement of more famous creators. Clicking on some regularly updating popular comics on the front page, and looking at their latest update:
47 comments out of 37,600 subscribers
27 comments out of 35,500 subscribers
77 comments out of 49,300 subscribers
that norm is less than 1%??? I've seen engagement get as high as like, 12% or 14%, but it's usually pretty darn low even for famous people. Look at your percentage of engagement in that light and you might find you're doing pretty well!
That's not saying "it's hopeless," that's saying that you'll find that engagement as your audience grows.
I did a journal comic before my current comic, and almost 10 years later, there's still a few folks that tell me how important that comic was to them, there's still folks who buy that comic book when I sell it at conventions.... people still remember that work.
But the truth is that I've moved on. After I finished TNH, I didn't want to sit there and keep thinking about TNH -- I had new ideas that I cared about even more, and I wanted to focus on those. A lot of the people who had grown to love my work through TNH were excited to see my new ideas and followed me to those. Yeah, I'm way more likely to be associated with Runewriters now than with TNH -- but that's good!! Runewriters is the thing I'm excited about right now!!
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Webcomics is a long road. If you wanna get famous before you turn a certain age, I think you're going to be frustrated and stressed. If you want to find your audience and find the people who will engage with your work, I think you will, over time, if you keep working at it and updating as consistently as you can and engaging with others as much as you can and sharing your work as much as you can and improving as much as you can.
I think if you do webcomics for a year or two and find it's not rewarding, then it's up to you whether you want to keep going. Not because 2 years is the point where you're supposed to have gotten popular, but because after that point you've hopefully found a small audience with some engagement and you've gotten a sense for the endurance and work that webcomics takes. You've seen what you're capable of and can decide if it's rewarding for you, even if you never get capital-P Popular.