How short or long an episode of your webcomic can be?

[malu_lara]

Hi friends! I just finished my first webcomic and I'm currently exploring ways to divide each chapter. I've seen a lot of comics that have very little content per episode - some had 3-4 frames and then a cliffhanger to the next. Is this acceptable? How long and how short each episode should be?

[BLTX]

I actually make each episode an episode without ANY dividing, and have a rule that each should be between 18 - 25 pages, but even that's pretty long for some people.

From what I've seen, most people have about 4 story pages per Tapas episode.

[malu_lara]

Do you find that (those who post only 4 frames) a bit of a desperate approach to remain relevant and such? This was my very first impression, but I'm so new to this that Might be off tone in my perception. Ps.: Thank you for the reply!

[kaetana]

The audience on Tapas tends to be pretty tolerant of shorter updates. I sometimes find single page updates to be a bit short for my personal tastes, but a lot depends on how the creator paces their updates and if it still feels like something significant happened. Basing your update length in terms of what will feel satisfying for the pacing tends to be a good call, in my experience. As for why people do short updates, it's usually just based around how long it takes them to create their pages. It seems to be beneficial on Tapas to update at least weekly, so if someone can only create one page a week, that's likely the amount they'll post.

[BLTX]

Hm? I've never really thought of it. To me it always just seemed like kind of the norm here, and one that for my own personal reasons I wasn't willing to follow.

I've had plenty of people suggest that I cut down, and separate my pages because having it all in one really long episode can "overwhelm" (for lack of a better term) readers, and having them separated would just make things much easier.

The reason I never did so is because I just like having each episode organized AS an episode, and it's not really something I'm willing to break.

[BLTX]

Basing your update length in terms of what will feel satisfying for the pacing tends to be a good call, in my experience.

I can see that. For me, each episode acts as a major turning point in the story, and it's dished out all at once, every month or two. And I feel it works out for me mainly because each update adds more than most other comics I've seen here, so for me it's a matter of "If I'm gonna make people wait 2 months for the next episode, I better give them alot to look forward to." That same philosophy also encourages me to make each and every episode the best it can be.

[malu_lara]

Makes a lot of sense! Thank you. I think I'm with you on that, the way I created each episode was very much based in the plot and each episode's theme. But as you mentioned yourself, I might get the same feedback... that they are too long and might overwhelm readers... Food for thought! Once again, thanks loads for the input!

[hakei]

Congrats on finishing your webcomic!

In general, 40~50 panels an episode seems to hit the sweet spot for a lot of readers — not too short, not too long. But the episode length depends on your genre, goals, and real-life commitments.

• -Genre: Lighthearted, slice-of-life type stories work well with short episodes. Sombre plot-based stories do well with longer episodes.

• -Goals: If your goal is to increase reader engagement, then having something major happen in every upload would be the goal (such as an important lore drop) so readers would comment on it and be excited for the next update. Or maybe your goal is to push the plot forward as much as possible. Or your goal may be to have your comic pop up in the Recently Updated category as frequently as possible so new eyes can see it.

• -RL Commitments: Since many creators are studying students or working adults, they don't have much time to draw. When you're burnt out after a nine-to-five job, producing four panels is a major accomplishment. If the creator is doing multiple comics at the same time, that might also contribute to shorter episode lengths.

[malu_lara]

I like the democratic approach and also the fact that the audience can accommodate the creators capabilities! thank you for the reply. It makes me feel a bit more confident too.

[malu_lara]

Very fair! I actually found some pretty good "slide-of-life" comics around, as you mentioned they had 4, 5 or 10 frames at most. But made total sense to what they were proposing! Thanks for the reply!

[smokesalty]

From what I've seen, a lot of comics update one page a week and people seem to be fine with it- although you're less likely to get comments and you have to load in the next page.

For me personally I update 3-4 pages a week, (12-20 panels) depending on where I want to end the episode. I find this allows enough content to move the story along and to give readers something new to think about. My first 4 episodes are 10+ pages each because I wanted to establish my hook and characters early on.

But yeah. The usual here is 1-3 pages per update, some people do more. Do note that posting weekly is better for the algorithm so find what works for you.

[BoomerZ]

My comics is weekly, and I have come to a good number of about 30ish panels. It allows enough space to tell the story and give enough of a story to let people read it quickly. Comics that put out small amount of content every couple weeks don't catch on from the metric. Most popular comics are weekly and have a fair amount of content for those weeks.

[powerplantanimations]

20-25 should be enough. At least for my comic. Although I make things bite-sized enough that things are quick (I hope).

[system]

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