Is it a good idea to upload our comics to deviantart?

[MegaStorm252]

Hey there!
So recently I spoke to a friend of mine who enjoys my comic series & they told me I should try branching out to other platforms such as tumblr and deviantart as not everyone is going to have a tapas account, let alone sign up just for one or two comics and I was wondering if anybody else has decided to branch out to other platforms.

I've used tumblr in the past before it became big and I don't really know how to capture an audience with their hashtag system...so I'm not sure about that, and with deviantart I've heard that apparently when you upload to their site, they own copyright to your work, or the rights to use your work in any way they want. Is this true? Because if I've uploaded a chapter here a good while ago, and then I reupload it to deviantart, surely they couldn't claim copyright as the copyright would belong to me and evidenced on here?

Does anyone have any advice on this topic?
It would be greatly appreciated!

[punkarsenic]

tumblr is full of comic book fans, so getting a following is pretty easy. theres also a lot of competition and tumblr gives you noooo favours with promotion. if you find the fanbase, youre set, but finding its the hard bit.
external links dont show up in their searches, but internal links (links to other tumblr pages or posts) do - so make a page on your blog linking to all the places ppl can find your comic, and link to that, instead of linking directly. use tags liberally, but id say prioritise comic related tags. feel free to tag tapastic and webtoons and the rest.
id say, make yourself a personal blog, and a comic blog (this could be posting the comic or linking it to tapas if you want to keep pushing people there). post about every update on your personal blog, and build up a following by posting art (fanart does well) and generally being a normal blogger. youre more likely to get people to your comic who are following you than people just searching for it. encourage people to reblog your work, a lot. begging is permissible.

as for dA... they do have some weird things in their ToS. and theyve done sketchy shit in the past. i havent heard of them ripping off comics though; they typically target pretty fanart they can sell to teeshirt makers or the like, in my experience. however, having your comic here first wouldnt save you, because what catches people is their ToS giving them contractual permission to use what you posted. that said, do research this because im not heavily involved in dA and this is just what ive heard. read their ToS id say.
that said, youll prolly be fine, and it does reach a new side of potential fanbase that makes it potentially worth it.

i think mirroring in various places is a very good idea, but if you aim for money or recognition (which you dont have to, knowing people are loving your work can always be enough) id suggest pushing people to one key site; patreon, or tapas, or the like.

[shazzbaa]

and with deviantart I've heard that apparently when you upload to their site, they own copyright to your work, or the rights to use your work in any way they want. Is this true?

It is not true. Years ago, someone on tumblr panicked when Hot Topic ripped off a deviantArt user's design (not the first time HT has done this sort of thing), claiming dA must've sold it to them, and someone else misread the DeviantArt ToS (the part that says that dA is able to display your artwork on their site) claiming that it gave DeviantArt the ability to sell your work to third parties. This is untrue. Tons of people debunked it, but here's DeviantArt themselves re-iterating that artists retain full rights to their work and thus dA cannot sell or license your work to a third party.

That said, Deviantart is a pretty slow place nowadays unless you're in specific communities -- I upload my comic there, and the amount of activity I see now is way down from what it was in dA's heyday. But you may still find an audience there; there are folks who are still active. It can't hurt!

I'd agree with punkarsenic that tumblr has a much larger and more active audience, and that just "being a normal blogger" is the best way to find a following on tumblr! It definitely does feel like yelling into a void at first, but if you're doing more than just promoing your comic, you can grow a following over time!

[indagold]

No don't use deviantart. It's practically dead and has no scheduling features, so either you purchase a fancy account to schedule and waste your money or manually upload pages.

The only activity I get is 10 year olds or people who want to make love to sonic. It's not worth it.

[60Six]

It's practically dead

Just to sort of back this...
I have over 2000 watchers on DeviantArt but get about an average of 9-15 favs whenever I upload something these days. Everyone has just kind of migrated off of there it seems. Some people seem to do fine on there? But I know over the past few years practically everyone I know (short of one person) has just left for other sites.

[heterodont]

3rd'ing the fact that dA is practically dead. As far from what I've seen the only people who are moderately successful on there are people who sell adopts - and even at that it's a very specific subsection of adopts that are moderately successful.

Theres no way to really effeciently gain a following on tumblr besides a whole lot of patience. Even with uploading fanart people are very likely going to follow you primarily for fanart so its a chance they might not even care for your original work. Also only the first 5 tags work for the search function, every other tag only works in the blog search!

What might be easier is use other social media accounts to advertise that you have a webcomic, that way only one site gets the majority of traffic and thus, more attention. Afaik people can just. read a webcomic without a tapas account. ofc you'll miss out on likes and stuff like that, but its not like itll be unreadable.

[Aspie_Gamer]

No offense, but as soon as I saw the words "DeviantArt" and "Tumblr" in your post, I face palmed.

To be clear, I don't say that to be ugly, but not counting all the drama that hovers around both sites, from both what I've seen and in my personal experience of using both sites as a way to host my art, DeviantArt is the MySpace of art sharing sites and Tumblr is only really useful if you draw fanart for a particular fandom (and not even then in most cases).On the subject of DA, Back in the 2000's when it was pretty much the only way to share your art, DeviantArt was actually pretty solid for the most part, but with the advent of social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, and I suppose Tumblr as well (though again, its not much better imho) in the New 10's, there really isn't a reason anymore to use a site like DA when you have far superior options at your disposal.

To give an example, back when I naively posted my art on DeviantArt, I barely got any attention. Like at all. (cue Tumbleweed gif) Not to mention DA is notorious for its bad user unfriendly site design. Posting just one of your drawings is like pimping out your high school English essay making sure to properly cite every last reference you used to write it! And even if you don't mind it, I've heard horror stories about people getting nasty viruses from DA because staff can't be bothered to check what kind of ads they run on their crappy site.

On Instagram where I'm at with over 300 followers, I get about 20-30 likes depending on what it is I post as I post non-art things too on my Instagram account. Not to mention posting your latest drawing or what have you is as easy as one two three and yes, that includes the (in)famous hashtags. My advice is to post three times a day, use about 6 hashtags at most per post, and follow people related to your niche of course. Before you know it, you should be able to build up a solid following. Source: Somebody who went from low double digits to over 300 unique followers over the course of last summer.

tl;dr Instagram is the way to promote yourself as an artist in my opinion.

.

[NickRowler]

DA is not really worth it for webcomics. Partly because the site is dying, part being that most users prefer fanart, and part because you have to set up your own links between pages. If you have a preexisting fanbase on the site, you might be somewhat successful but it is not good for gaining new followers.

I've been far more successful using Tapas.

Tumblr might be better for gag comics, but for sequential pieces, it seems weird. Tumblr also has an awful search engine, so you need to rely heavily on people reblogging your work.

[mg78]

as everyone said, DA should be off the list.

in my case, i keep it just for 2 reason:
A) im in there from 14 years. so i feel like it's my place, my website. that's why i put on each work i do the link on my DA home,
B) i can host HiRes image without any limitation. quite cool. (here, on other place... u cant just do the same........ just to say)