Yeah see like it only just so happens by chance that I'm at the number I'm at. I'd be just as infuriated if I was stuck at 12,343 subscribers or 15 subscribers. Stuck is stuck. And I've been stuck in the same place statistically for going on 5 years now with no amount of effort (or lack thereof) making a difference. I'm just as surprised my sub count hasn't dropped severely below the number I'm at now due to the hiatus I was on for a couple years (and again, considering I seem to lose a sub for every sub I gain... why do these people who unsub wait until I gain new subs lmao I mean technically it's an unsub that happens when they get the notification and are like "whoop let's get rid of that" but this has been the case for 4+ years and through an extended hiatus. So it's like... why. Just move. Do something besides sitting at the same number lol)

EDIT: I just checked out your comic's stats and while your sub count isn't in the hundreds yet, your audience engagement is way higher. I get maybe 1-2 comments on each update that I put up, despite that 3.2k sub count. The majority of my subscribers are just flat out dead accounts at this point.

So maybe I'm just being a salty old man who misses their old community lol All of the people who used to engage with my comics (and vice versa) have long since disappeared and the community that was once here just isn't the same as the one before. Hell, I know many artists and community members left Tapastic after that whole Right of First Refusal BS that happened back in 2017/2018 and many of them were people that I enjoyed collaborating and communing with here. Not to say a community shift is a bad thing, obviously there are wonderful members of the community today as well, but it's like putting a baby boomer in a room full of Gen Z'ers and expecting them to understand one another.

I understand that concept and I'm honestly perfectly fine with it. I barely capitalize on my work as it is - my Patreon has been reduced to a tip jar, I don't charge for the complete novelized edition of the comic, etc. because I don't do this for a living and I don't want to try. I'm a tattoo artist and I make a decent living through that while maintaining a great work-home life that isn't too overbearing so I'm in a very fortunate situation where I can give up the pursuing of financial gain from my comics.

But when you're stuck in the same place for so long, it does start to grate on you. There's a reason why I've still been doing this after 4 years of it. Time Gate: Reaper started in 2014, and this sub/unsub loop didn't start until 2016. I care about what I do and I don't plan on stopping due to some slowing statistics. But it doesn't make it any less infuriating. Not discouraging. Just infuriating.

Funny you say that because I've been updating the pages for the first chapter lol There will be a bit of culture shock between the first chapter and the following chapters which I'm not planning on redrawing, but I'm hoping the new redrawn opening chapter will be a bit more inviting.

Again though, I will reiterate, I don't plan on giving up this comic series over slowness in traffic. I don't do this for money. I've been working on the series as a whole for 10+ years (officially 10 years of online publication when I first posted the novel versions online as of this past February; so I'd say more accurately I've been working on this series for 11-12 years) so it's gonna take a lot more than stagnation to make me want to stop working on it. I do it for myself first. And I have had other projects on the go here and there, not updated as often, but gag strips and the like. When I started here it was with the Uzuki strips which were basically gag-a-day, I think they only made it to like 1.5k subs. And I stopped doing it mostly because I had started drawing Time Gate: Reaper (and the Uzuki gag strips were based off Time Gate so like... basically just the Soul Eater Not! of Time Gate lol) and wanted to focus more on that. And that's been the last nearly 6 years of my life now lol

This post wasn't regarding whether or not I should 'move on', even if that would be good advice for some scenarios. I feel it just doesn't apply to me.

I've been working on the novelized versions in the meantime. I had uploaded most of Time Gate: Reaper's novelized version to Tapas, and planned to post more, until Tapas updated and destroyed all the by-hand formatting I had done (because they don't have formatting tools beyond Italics and Headers). So that kinda took the wind out of my sails there, the book has been done for like 2 years now so really, at this point, I'm probably just gonna post a PDF doc for anyone who wants to read the entire thing in case I'm not able to muster up the strength to go back through my Tapas version and reformat it. Again.

I'm just sick of seeing 3.2k in the way that it is and was wondering if anyone else has dealt with this to the same teeth-grinding degree. If this is really where Time Gate: Reaper is gonna stay, alright. I think we're just over the halfway mark now anyway. I don't know yet if I'll be drawing book 2 as a comic, we'll see what Tapas' novel functions are like by then. Seeing as how it's taken me 6 years to get to the current point in the story and I probably have another 4-6 years ahead of me just to finish Reaper, probably not, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it lmao

TL ; DR Time Gate is a life project that I've dedicated myself to for the last 10+ years, and I don't plan on giving it up to pursue other projects because any other projects I do pursue will be related to it anyway (novelized versions, derivative gag strips, etc.). Money's not the issue. I enjoy drawing the comic and writing the books. Just general seething rage that Tapas is the only place I've dealt with this while my numbers steadily climb and change (for better or worse) on other platforms. If that makes sense. The validation of others having gone through this helps though. Maybe Time Gate: Reaper's just gonna be one of those indie bands that plays at the same bar with the same 5 fans showing up every night lol

This did briefly come to mind while I was tossing about in bed last night lol I don't really want to go about deleting the old series though, considering 1. there's some fanart and such that I've uploaded that I'm not sure is backed up so I don't want to lose them (though I could probably just edit the episodes to see the filename and pray that they're on an external HDD somewhere) and 2. there are years worth of memorable comments from the old community that I don't want to part with IDK I just have a lot of fond connections to it. I also don't want to bug my current subscribers to hunt down the new version because it's taking a huge chance that some of them will even notice it's not popping up in their subscription feed (especially with the current on/off updating schedule). Wall posts are okay but not a lot of people check those.

I dunno, maybe I'm just being paranoid lol If I didn't delete the original series, I wouldn't want to re-upload the series either with the old one still live because that just feels ... disingenuous. I'll think over it for sure, considering it's an idea that's already popped into my head and here you are suggesting it haha

That's true, as a collective group you have the advantage of more people to do promotions and such. Even still, seeing as how Time Gate: Reaper's been on Tapas for 5-6 years now, it's disheartening to see the engagement go down rather than up. Especially during this point in the story where shit's really starting to get suspenseful/dark/etc. There's always something going on in the story, of course, as it operates like a manga with arcs that vary in style in its storytelling and the like, but this is one of the biggest, most influential arcs so far.

It's also disheartening because I'll get on average 15-20 likes per new episode the first 24-48 hours after they go up, but maybe 1 comment if I'm lucky. And that one comment is often from one consistent user who only ever comments emoticons lol like I'm glad they like the story but usually it's just a or a or the equivalent of a react button if Tapas had those. So not really engagement but I'm living for those emoticons now lmao So in regards to those like-comment ratio stats, it's like, people read and like, and then move on. It's hard to know if people actually care about the content they're reading when they don't engage. I understand that the comment:like ratio is always gonna be uneven, typically you'll always see more likes than comments by a fair bit, but shit's rough when the number is heavily favored towards likes over comments.

I've noticed a drop in comment engagement on LINE Webtoons as well though. I haven't had any comments on any of my episodes for the last 3 or so updates on Tapas, and it's been around the same for LINE (4 episodes posted in the last few weeks, not a single comment on any of them, but there are typically on average 8-10 likes within the first 24-48 hours of posting, so very similar statistics to Tapas, albeit lower by just a handful). So... idk if this is just reflective of how readers have changed in how they consume and interact with their webcomic media? I know there's been a major shift in how webcomics are presented, marketed and consumed; lately I've noticed that many comics either regularly have 0 comments or 200+ of them lmao The fact that the lack of commenting/engaging is happening on various platforms is... interesting. But again, I don't know if that's a valid observation to make because I don't know if other people are experiencing this in the same way. I'm sure there are, but is it enough to wonder if this is a real trend or just bad luck? Viewing wise, I feel like many people would be reading webcomics more than ever right now with quarantine laws in place just about everywhere lol

I guess all I'm saying in your case is that while your numbers may not be as high as they are, please don't take the engagement for granted. I would happily take a few dozen engaged readers than three thousand dead ones. Considering the bad time I've been having with this for the past 4 years, even though past me only dreamed of hitting the number I'm at now, they wouldn't want to be where I am if they knew what I was dealing with in their future lmao

Dead accounts are something you're going to deal with on any platform, especially any platform that you've been using for a long while, but I agree, it's tiring to deal with when the dead:alive ratio is heavily unbalanced towards the former.

This would be a good way to deal with bot accounts and user storage, but I don't know if it's something that Tapas will ever consider doing, their priorities are obviously focused on their landing page, bug fixes from the recent update and their monetization features.

yeah it feels like no matter what time I update at it makes no difference in the stats lmao Usually I'll update at 2 PM PST time (which is 6 PM where I live), I've started moving that to earlier in the afternoon but it doesn't seem to be making any difference (though I haven't been posting the afternoon times for long so it hasn't been long enough to really make a sound comparison). Might try switching to mornings, but I don't want to make it too early in case it misses that window of opportunity (a window that I feel is very tiny to begin with).

Either way, I hope you're able to break out of this cycle before you reach the point I'm at. It's not a fun place to be in and I 100% empathize with you

I checked out your comic btw, I've been thinking that if I do continue on with the comic series after Reaper (which would be the second book, The Child Chapters) I'd be going for more of a 'sketchy' feel to lighten the load of lining and toning (which is already something I can do relatively quick but I still feel like sketching would be a little less stressful lmao) and I've seen other comics be successful with it such as The Demon Road and, well, yours now too haha So seeing your comic drawn in that style gave me confidence to try that out if and when we continue on to the Child Chapters I especially love your color work, it reminds me a lot of Yoshitaka Amano <3 (the concept artist for the first 6 Final Fantasy games before Tetsuya Nomura, AKA the guy who does all the backsplash logo art for all the games ! )

Anyway, you got a sub from me. If I can't find a way to help my own situation I can at least find a way to help others xD

Definitely let us know your findings :oo I usually get one or two subs per update as well but the problem is that I also tend to lose one sub per sub I gain and it's very irritating. I wouldn't give a damn if my sub count fell by a few hundred but it's turned into a very long and aggravating ritual that comes with about every update. It's like, at this point it's all I can come to expect now out of each update.

That being said, I'm uploading a new episode that's gonna go up tomorrow evening. I've had a handful of pals on and off Tapas subscribe just to cheer me up and help me get out of this slump, so we'll see if those numbers stay risen after tomorrow's update. I think we're at 3,265 now so I'll be crossing my fingers that tomorrow's update doesn't sink it all again.

I think from memory alone I could confidently say I have maybe 2 users who regularly leave comments, vs. the 10-15 regulars I used to have. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, one of those users likes to just leave emoji reacts with nothing else most of the time lol So like the equivalent of a Facebook react

It's definitely a lot of dead subs. Again, I know that going on hiatus for over a year definitely didn't help with that, but I've seen comics go on longer hiatuses and return with much more audience reception than 0.6% (yep, I did the math u o u this is in terms of likes, not comments haha in terms of views, it's more like 5%-6%, on average based on a two week period since an episode's upload. Still pretty low for a subcount like 3k). It might be hipster of me to say, but it just seems that many of my subs were a part of "classic Tapastic" vs. rebranded Tapas and are as a result, gone. I know many of the artists who used to engage with my work (and vice versa) have dropped off the face of this website.

I'm genuinely curious now what factors in to a comic showing up in the related comics tab. Seeing as how that tab only comes up for people who have one series apparently? (like I have more than one series so instead of seeing a related comics or recommended comics tab, it's just my other series that are all pretty inactive at the moment lol). There's still the "Read Next" and "More like this series" categories within the actual comic though, and again, genuinely curious what the algorithm takes into account when generating those comics. Genre and related tags are obviously the draw for "More like this series" but it's hard to say whether "Read Next" is based on page traffic alone or comments and likes as well. I'm just not gonna pretend to know how the Tapas algorithm works haha If it is based on actual engagement though through things like comments, it would make sense why Time Gate: Reaper isn't showing up, well, anywhere.

Considering you're the second person to recommend that and I've already considered it prior to it being recommended the first time, starting to feel like this may be the best route.

I mean, I've already been considering chopping the novel up into two parts lmao the bloody thing is 330,000 words, apparently according to some people that's 'too much' (still shorter than Game of Thrones ) Considering we're just about at the halfway mark now of the comic, I might consider splitting it either now, with Volume 7 having just started, or after the current arc we're dealing with. The latter isn't really as appealing tbh because it could be another several weeks before this volume is done as it's LITERALLY just started lol And that's a gracious estimate as I'm getting lots of work done on it now, but I've got COVID-19 quarantining to thank for that

Thanks for the advice I'll definitely consider possibly cutting it up into a second part - or just posting maybe a "fresh" version with the pages getting re-uploaded from the start on a bi-weekly basis, with the old one getting 'archived', if that makes sense. Now might be a good time for that, now that I think about it, as I've started redrawing the first chapter. It's not done yet but I'm hoping I'll have it all finished within the next couple weeks. Not like I don't have plenty of time to put aside for it

As far as I'm feeling, I definitely don't plan on deleting the original because of all the comments and memories I have stowed away in that version haha I don't want to be a choosing beggar when it comes to my options but seeing as how little of the old community is still around, the physical proof of the memories of what once was are nice to have. Maybe that's silly though.

Thank you, I appreciate that. It's been 10+ years of working on it and I can't say I regret a single moment. There are definitely times where I've asked myself why I've subjected myself to years of drawing the same characters over and over again LOL but it's worth it to me in the end because they're characters and stories that I've spent a lot of time with, to the point that I can't imagine being without them.

I think that's part of what makes its public journey so difficult to deal with - it's like, you'd think with art and writing and comic formatting that's IMPROVED since the start, the reception would be far more lively lmao I'm not gonna gloat about my skills as an artist, but it's obvious that as an artist, I've made a lot of progress in the last 6 years and stylistically, it's like a completely different comic now. I'm just in a good spot right now where I'm sort of like, whatever I want to draw I usually can without running into blocks or getting frustrated. I know that's not going to last forever because I'm going to hit that stage where my eye for quality goes up again and my artistic ability won't be able to keep up and I'll be super critical of myself again but these things come in waves and I'm pretty content with where I am right now. It's just a shame that the reception hasn't been able to keep up. I'm hoping that someday this, too, like the critical low points in my career as an artist, will eventually pass.

EDIT: oh ffs "Read Next" is like, your subbed library. Doi.

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