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Apr 2020

So I just saw tapas has licensed* The Lady and Her Butler. A comic that was originally an exclusive on another webtoon site Lezhin.
I've had this tinfoil hat theory for years now that tapas were subtly copying lezhin with a lot of their features over the past few years (mainly the switch to coins, er, ink, the layout of the site, the focus towards mobile-oriented long-form comics over standard page layouts used mostly by other webtoons sites, adult media etc.) but I wrote off all of them by assuming they were features most comic sites had (which they are.)
But now they're starting to release comics from that site specifically on their platform which just seems odd to me.

IDK, sorry if this seems rude, I might just be overthinking this.

*I'm pretty they did because it's a comic heavily advertised by Lezhin, google the name and the first option will be an ad by them.

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Well, Tapas isn't exactly known for being... innovative. As much as I love it, and it's focus as a business right now is acquiring the largest amount of professional web comic properties as possible. It's not that Tapas is copying Lezhin it's that they're trying to copy everyone and expand their resources as quickly as possible without spending money on innovating. Why do you think most pro webcomics on here are four panels or romance manwha? They're just taking on a "Don't fix what ain't broke" attitude.

oh bean, this is far from rude, compared to some of the tea i've splashed tapas' way in the last month alone :') <3 I'm basically the neighborhood crackpot at this point lmao

I actually completely forgot about Lezhin. All this time I've been primarily focusing on Tapas becoming a LINE Webtoons clone, but whoof, the Lezhin similarities are pretty real too.

Seeing as how SmackJeeves got bought out by a company (NHN) that basically changed SJ to mimic their original platform, Comico...

haha yikes.

But that's SJ/Comico, it merely serves as an example, so I don't know how accurately it can be compared to Tapas' situation.

Either way, I'm still standing firm by the idea of Tapas clearly trying to mimic ... something. Whether it's Lezhin or LINE, the proof is in the layout and functioning. That doesn't necessarily mean they were "bought out", but something's definitely at play that's heavily encouraging Tapas to lose a lot of its individuality and opt for copying instead. Tapas at this point is basically LINE/Lezhin but with added novel features (and those 'features' are hardly worth toting tbh. I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you're going to introduce novel features, can we at least make them a little more complex than Notepad?) Tapas' obvious attempts at mimicking with their lack of transparency regarding it is, as you surely know, a big reason why I'm already halfway out Tapas' door :grimacing: At this point I'm just trying chest compressions to get a heartbeat before I call time of death lol

EDIT to add:

This sort of thing is a double-edged sword, though. Because on the one hand, they're a relatively new company (compared to the other webcomic giants that have been around for years, ex. LINE Webtoons) so they might want to play it safe so they don't go bankrupt immediately.

On the other hand, they've been around long enough now that playing it safe is going to start harming them more than helping them. Because from an investor's point of view, lack of innovation for too long means you run the risk of stagnancy and irrelevance. After all, why invest in a company that's trying to be the same as everyone else? You could just invest in those companies who made those innovations in the first place and do it better as a result, not the ones trying to copy.

And this point of view can be applied to consumers as well - why should creators/readers use Tapas when LINE is right there and does everything it does but better because they were the ones to come up with the model that's being copied in the first place? They put in the work to achieve what they have and Tapas is basically just copying homework at this point and expecting to get an A+.

I make this comparison often, but it's like when you see an artist try to mimic someone else's work, and it comes out shoddy - that's because they didn't see the years of discipline, practice, trial and error that went into refining that style and that quality. You can't very well mimic the surface image of quality when you don't know what went into it to get it there in the first place. Honestly, it takes more work to try and mimic someone else's level of quality than to just refine your own (and the latter of which tends to be far more worthwhile and rewarding because at least then you can call it your own).

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
I didn't have a way to tie this into my post here but there is a comic site that innovated a lot even though it's only a scanlation site, mangadex.
For example here are all of the page display options.


That along with uploading systems that don't have a hard limit and better ways of organizing your reading list are all features that would give any one of these sites a HUGE advantage and this one's doing it all for free*

It kinda feels like most of them aren't even trying at this point.

*but they also don't have to pay to license the comics themselves since they're scanlations (which have their own issues), but that shouldn't effect how the site functions, which this kinda proves.

Scanlations are great! Anyone who reduces scanlation to mere thievery is missing the point of why they exist. Actual paid mangakas have asked for scanlators to scan and translate their work because it allows their work to be introduced to other countries/languages. There are so many great stories out there that wouldn't have ever been introduced to Western shores if it weren't for scanlators working so diligently to bring them to us :')

Back to the point, if we're talking about webcomic innovation here, honestly the first thing that came to my mind was the mobile-reading tools over on GlobalComix (they used to also be available on SmackJeeves from what I've been told by the SJ community, but such tools have since been ax'ed). It's essentially a 'framing' tool that lets you create and customize frames according to your panel layouts (with as many angles and degrees as you need) so that instead of going 'page to page', you go 'panel to panel'. Here's an example of a comic that has it (just make sure you have "interactive" turned on in the top right corner!):

It can be a sort of tedious process to set up creator-side imo but it's completely optional, you can still read comics on their platform just fine even without those frames. But it's worthwhile if you want your comics to be mobile-ready, without having to succumb to the typical vertical-scrolling layout style. It means that even your old school horizontal comics can still be mobile-usable without having to sacrifice its layout choices.

I think its just Lezhin's english exclusive rights for those titles ran out or something. Lezhin also has titles that overlap with Tappytoon.

But on the topic of Tapas, it is a bit odd. Tapas really does try to do a lot at once.

All of these publishers generally follow trends (ex. BL, romance) but they usually have a thing they do well enough consistently that keeps readers coming back. Lezhin has the adult BL/GL/straight webtoons, Tappytoon has been doing the shoujo and romance light novel adaptations, but Tapas I have no idea really (same can almost be said for Line Webtoon nowadays but they're so big they kinda get away with it). I used to think of Tapas as the place for page format webcomics since it was the only app that made those readable tbh, but then they changed the site (and there's Hiveworks).

It's kinda frustrating as both a consumer and a creator wanting to work with publishers. Like I want to spend money on Tapas comics and create content for them, but its not clear what they are trying to sell or what they want from their creators. But maybe that's just me and admittedly idk anything about business strategies for this kind of thing. I just make comics.

Oh yeah, I think Comixology uses a similar feature on their app along with a few others so it does make for a good compromise on mobile and something I should've brought up before ^^

(Also I probably should've phrased the scanlation bit better considering I mostly read those now, I just never know where the line is when it comes to those)

From what I can tell what most people consider tapas' golden era was the boom in gag-a-day and slice of life comics with ones like Owlturd and Fail by Error being good representations of the site as a whole. And I'd be inclined to agree since it was the last time it felt like tapas had an identity.
I think the shift to more common webtoon formats kinda threw a wrench in the works which led to this. IDK if you're right and the English license just ran out but it's still available there too and I'm pretty sure the majority of people aren't going to go to tapas to read it.

Tapas also has premium comics that are exclusive on webcomicsapp.
shrug I don't know anymore. All I know is that I miss the old Tapas...

Ahh those were simpler times~

I thought given some of the titles they have, Tapas was going to push the isekai/action/adventure comics, especially the light novel adaptations, but I guess not. They still can, especially if they got a title like Solo-Levelling, but who knows at this point.

I wonder if Tapas (and also Line Webtoon) is struggling with being both a publisher and platform simultaneously, and the latter is interfering w/ the former. And to make it even more difficult, Tapas tries to mix premium and non-premium titles together. Like none of the other webtoon sites do this to the extent Tapas does, and its probably for good reason.

I get that Tapas wants to serve creators posting on their platform, but after the redesign drama it really made me question whether they should bother trying to appease non-premium creators at all. Its a tough problem to deal with really. In the end I just want Tapas to grow and succeed (now more than ever given the current reliance on digital publishing).

Edit: To elaborate, I'm not saying anything bad about non-premium creators or title. But maybe what works and grows on a comic platform might not be the best direction to go in from a publisher's perspective. Like yes, romance, BL, adult comics are a powerful force to contend with, but it doesn't mean they should take control of the site.

I mean, even still, from personal experience, LINE still does it better, in various ways including (but not limited to) the following:

  • Having the Featured section be separate from the Canvas (free to read) section. This means that you know what you're getting from both sections, and neither of them are having to "compete" with one another by being in the same space. Yes, Featured comics are prioritized by being the main focus of the website (by being the landing page, Canvas takes extra clicks to get to) but at least they're not competing for the same space. There are both Featured and free to read comics that I enjoy reading and follow adamantly and neither have anything to do with their "status", it all boils down to the quality of their stories. LINE also comes built in with a "personality quiz" for finding Canvas comics that might suit your tastes, which I think is pretty cool. This tasteful division between Featured and Canvas also reduces the "us vs. them" mentality with privileged elitism that is RAMPANT on Tapas, from both sides (that being said, LINE also doesn't have a forum so... y'know, who knows what kind of crap we'd be seeing if they did lmao)

  • Featured comics are not locked behind permanent paywalls. This is a big thing for me. I've found webcomics on Tapas, ex. The Witch's Throne, that I've enjoyed but just... not enough to want to pay for. Because there just wasn't enough for me to read to want to spend money on it. And the fact that some people have had bad experiences with webcomics' quality "going down" post-paywall (as all the Premium comics typically go 5-6 episodes before locking)... yeah. Lore Olympus and Midnight Poppy Land however? I love those comics, enough that I'm willing to wait for the next update; and even still, I still feel tempted to just buy the next 3 episodes. Which I might end up doing. And that's because, unlike Tapas, LINE Webtoons uses their paywalls as an early access feature, not a permanent hindrance. So there's more than enough to binge read (I literally spent an entire day reading Lore Olympus non stop, it was insane) that by the time I catch up, I'm legitimately asking myself if I want to purchase the next few episodes to read right now. But I know those episodes will be available if I'm willing to wait for them - so I'm not missing out for not using their paywall system. It's rewarding, not punishing.

  • LINE has a lot more variety now compared to how they were. Yes, they were one of the leading platforms in BL/GL Korean comics once, but they've moved past that (there are still BL/GL Korean comics, mind you, but they're not the constant focus). With Tapas copying that model, it's like how it felt watching the Sony Playstation and Xbox copy the Nintendo Wii after the fact... and then Nintendo dropped motion controls altogether and innovated the gaming industry yet again with the Nintendo Switch. Leaving Sony and Xbox with their horrible motion controls that just aren't as marketable anymore because a lot of us are tired of motion controls lol

  • (this is more of a grain of salt take, not meant to be put on the same merit as the former points) There are a few webcomics on LINE that have started out small and humble and are now getting TV adaptions. Lore Olympus has a Netflix adaption in the works, and Tower of God just got a crunchyroll anime. Last I checked, both those comics started on LINE and grew their readership there organically. Meanwhile Tapas totes its "now being made for TV" series but from what I can tell, they're series belonging to larger companies that have been bought out and formulated for the very purpose of seeing adaptations get made. Which sorta goes against Tapas' original concept and draw that anyone can make a living off their work in some way. That's me making a big assumption tho so take it with grains of salt lol

I still agree with the point you're making though. The way I see it, Tapas definitely seems to be going through a "branding crisis" where they don't really know what they want to be and for who. Their target demographic is questionable, their mission statement is basically non-existent when it comes to its application, and overall, they just don't have any sort of reason to be "the platform you should use" when compared to their competitors. Yes, in comparison to said competitors, they're still new, but they're not brand new - now's not the time to be skittish, now's the time to start taking risks and innovating, lest they want to become irrelevant when compared to those who are constantly evolving and taking things to new heights.

A lot of good points .

On the first one, yeah I really doubt Line webtoons will ever get a forum lol. I really like the tapas forum, but the tapas redesign drama revealed a lot about how much people take the premium vs non-premium thing personally. I get that small creators feel pushed aside, but it's worth looking at the bigger picture.

Also, if you're working with a site as big as Line webtoons, it's better to just encourage creators to communicate with Instagram/Twitter to build social media presence.

As for paywalls, I don't mind them as much as you do (also taking piracy into account). Lezhin and Tappytoon have done a pretty good job of sucking me dry lol, but can't say the same for Tapas really. Lezhin tries to be consistent and maintain quality. I know what I'm buying when I spend money on Lezhin, but Tapas feels all over the place.

But who knows if Tapas will do any major rebranding in the near future. I would love to see them taking risks and innovating, and possibly take a leadership role in the current comic market. It's great to see comics getting adaptations, but I worry webtoons aren't ready yet.

But what can we do 🤷

The problem goes back to what you said originally though - that Tapas seems stuck between wanting to be a platform and a publisher. So you, as a creator, get the impression that you can grow your readership on Tapas, but a lot of it ends up turning into a "only if you're really really really really really lucky and even then your chances will be slim to none." Because platform side, Tapas' usability has been turned into a sheer 90 degree cliff that's essentially impossible to climb. So there's just no benefit to the non-premium creators in bringing their content here because all they're really doing is bringing in more traffic for the premium creators and the website as a whole with next to nothing in return (including visibility).

And don't get me wrong, webcomics aren't an easy business to make it in, you're going to need luck already. But at least other platforms like LINE don't feel like they've been built to actively work against your growth.

See I like this concept, because social media presence is something that more webcomic artists really ought to take advantage of (it's also a skillset all on its own that takes practice and refinement).

I don't mind paywalls though. I just don't particularly care for Tapas' methods of doing them, as you've mentioned. LINE's paywall system gives me more than enough reason to want to pay out for them, because there's plenty of binge-worthy content to read before those paywalls hit (because they do it as more of an early access model, i.e. "want to read the next 3 episodes now and not have to wait 3 more weeks for them to update?"). Like I'm definitely gonna end up paying out for Lore Olympus at some point, I've been addicted to it for the past week lol Nothing on Tapas particularly screams "I'm worth paying for" though, because many of those series just don't have enough free to read content to grab me in the first place. Not to mention their issues with many of the Premium series here being carbon copies of one another with the same formulas, genres, art styles, etc. so that's definitely not worth paying for either. Not all of them suffer from this same-face syndrome, mind you, but enough of them that it's been a hot topic for quite some time now.

Then there's also Tapas' ... shady ink system that's been called out for having faulty conversions. Those issues haven't been fully addressed yet despite staff assuring they would be so that definitely doesn't make me want to take part in the ink system (which I already find convoluted and bloated to begin with. There are far better ways to support an artist you like, is all I'm saying).

I think that rebranding has already been happening since 2015/16ish (basically when the app was released) and they just don't want to admit what kind of platform they're becoming lol Because let's face it, they wouldn't exactly be where they are today if it hadn't been for all the non-premium free to read comics that created a massive library for them to put on display (that library included flagship series with HUGE followings like GamerCAT, Owlturd, Fail By Error, A Matter of Life and Death, etc.). So they don't want to lose that free advertising that those free to read comics bring in, but "hey, buy our premium comics". That's just my speculation on it, at least.

If Tapas wants to be a publisher-only website like Hiveworks/Lezhin/etc. sure, I'd be fine with that. But where their branding execution stands now kinda comes across as... catfishing lol

Demand better as members of the community who have built this platform to what it is with the traffic we pull in and free content we provide - otherwise, research your options and exercise your right to give your work a platform that it deserves. That's what I'm doing, at least, and I know I'm not the only one. Just look at all the veteran artists who have already left the platform in recent years.

We've got no moral or contractual obligation to stick it out for a corporate run platform that's made its bottom line and priorities clear lol Don't make up imaginary relationships with corporate entities, we owe them nothing :wink: /finger waggle

True, I don't particularly like the approach their taking, but for now it's probably working, honestly their current goal is probably forming a monopoly on certain niches or just getting a slice of the cake. It's a pretty unimaginative way to do business either way though.

Tapas looks like a mess right now. I find it a brutal chore to even upload our content on this site so I stopped all together this year. Weird thing, it hasn't affected me negatively, so why bother?

Maaybe mimic those sites and publish those titles sells more? Imagination and inovation arent so important if the dosh doesn't come to the wallet. Lezhin has good sales, Webtons even being the sugar babe of Naver also adopted coins... there are lots of platforms like this. Maybe because it's what is working on a business pov.

There's this concept in capitalism/business called oversaturation. If everyone does the same thing, with the same methods and presentation, eventually no one will want the product that's being offered.

Look at the Netflix model. For a long time, it was helping to combat pirating and torrenting with its accessible (and growing) library, all for a very low and convenient price that piraters were willing to pay for in exchange for the convenience of having their favorite movies and shows right there without needing to go through the whole VPN/torrent process. Since Netflix had its boom in 2011/12ish, other companies like Disney, Warner, Amazon, even NBC, are jumping on the opportunity to copy them. As a result, Netflix is losing a lot of the titles that drew people in in the first place (as they're legally bound to be offered on those alternative streaming services instead).

Now guess what's happening? People are cutting their subscriptions and going back to pirating. They've created the very problem they tried to solve with it. All because every company tried to hop on the bandwagon and oversaturated the market. Nobody is going to spend $60-$80 a month on 8 different subscriptions to watch their shows/movies when they could just download everything for free, so long as they know where to look.

The weird thing with Tapas is that they seem to be doing things the opposite way around. When Tapas was still 'new', back in the early 2010's, they were definitely easy to pick out from the flock for good reasons - their look, their functionality, their library, etc. But now they're falling into that cookie cutter mentality that a newer company would be doing, for the sake of 'playing it safe'. They're too old now to be getting skittish and copying 'what's popular' in an attempt to play it safe. The chance to be skittish was years ago, not now when it's more important than ever to start innovating, when every website is the same and people are itching for something new that doesn't look like a Webtoons clone. Just look at the SmackJeeves community, the lot of them jumped ship the moment NHN took over, and for good reason: if they wanted to use a Webtoons clone, they would stick to using Webtoons.

The point against your own argument is in your post: "Lezhin has good sales. Webtoons has adopted coins. There are lots of platforms like this."

So why use Tapas when websites like Lezhin and Webtoons are right next door and doing it better? This is why it's dangerous to play it safe. You run the risk of becoming irrelevant.

It's true! You don't see whatever complaints the LINE Webtoon users have because they just have no way of being heard. In fact, a lot of LINE Webtoon related discussion ends up here.

I've seen it a ton of times, that people don't "care" what the forum users think, etc. But honestly, it's just because the forum isn't advertised or accessible on the app. Everything we're seeing now isn't just "a few butthurt people", it's a preview of what would happen if the forums were more accessible and integrated into the main site than they are now. I've picked my bones with staff already that they should consider themselves lucky the forums aren't more accessible lol It seems to stress them out enough as it is dealing with a thread with 30+ people updating at once, could you imagine thousands? Yikes.

I really like GlobalComix. It's still not my primary platform as I've still got my LINE Webtoons community and GC has yet to catch up with my extremely large buffer of already finished chapters (it'll take like a year of weekly updates for it to catch up, and then some lol) And honestly, a lot of the things I like about it aren't even really seen on the surface level - it's within the community. The GC staff is very small but they're very open to discussion and questions/concerns/etc. on an actual level that's communicative and not passive aggressive or complacent. That line of communication could very well tighten as they grow, but I've got a lot of faith that they won't ever lose it entirely because they value communication right up there with their mission statement.

The biggest "flaw" it has is just the fact that you're not going to be gaining a reader list of 1k+ any time soon. Like, the first person who ever hits 1k over there will be setting a milestone for the platform as well xD But that's not so much a "flaw" as it is an expectation for a website that's still brand new and growing. I think lately they've been hitting a curve in their readership and creator base (right now they're focusing on pulling creators over so they'll actually have content to provide to readers) which is really great to see. I'm hoping we'll start seeing a bigger reader community in the coming year or so, but the big hurdle right now is pulling in creators first and foremost. Can't very well have readers if there's nothing to read :stuck_out_tongue: :laughing:

We're all doing our part to help it out as well because even if it's not "better than Tapas", having alternatives is a good thing. It gives people options. A lot of people's doubts with wanting to try other platforms is just because they don't really have a lot of options, and they've been led to believe it's either LINE, Tapas, or bust. Especially now that every website seems to be copying LINE, it's like, hey, take your pick, LINE Webtoons, LINE Webtoons clone #1, or LINE Webtoons clone #2. Or this old outdated php/BBcode website from 2002 that hasn't updated its look ever since lol GC is, at the very least, presenting options that are new and not the same schtick as what everyone else is doing. And judging from the staff's perspective on it, I don't think we'll have to worry about such a thing happening any time soon.

I understand, and Im in agree. But that is how they do it. No matter how saturated it is, they will keep milking the cow until it dries. Then when the poor cow is just skin and bones, they will try to inovate, or copy whoever came up with some fresh idea this time.

Okay, so what are we even talking about then? I don't participate in these discussions to just kick rocks and twiddle thumbs, y'know lol I don't accept "because that's the way it is" as an answer. Why does it have to be the way that it is? Why can't we expect better as members of the community who offer our hours of work to be put on display, drawing in traffic, no matter how big or small, from the platform we give that work to? It seems like with the more recent update, they're dead set on hacking slices off the original vision of what Tapas was rather than adding to it to make it better. At the very least, as someone who doesn't even plan on making a living off their work anytime soon, I'd want to find joy in being in a place like this - but I'm not anymore. The give:take ratio has become extremely skewed here over the years. Just because we're not contracted workers or w/e doesn't mean we're not allowed to decide what platforms are worth putting our time and labor into.

If this is how they're going to keep doing it, then community members, readers and creators alike deserve to be informed so they can make better decisions for themselves and their work (not for the platform because they're a company and companies do not care about you. Trying to convince yourself otherwise is a fool's task that isn't worth a dime.) That's why I'm already halfway out the door :grimacing: