Manga Depression

[Kura]

Comics were a luxury that were far out of my price range when I was growing up. I actually was not able to read comics/manga until scanslation sites started popping up. Honestly if not for scanslations I probably would have never been able to read comics enough to get into them. So it's kind of difficult to be inspired by a style that I was too poor to be exposed to.

As for the few comics I was able to get from the library to read, it was mostly Asterix and TinTin. They didn't have superhero comics there. While the very few times we could afford the extra money a month to get a comic it had to be one that all of the siblings agreed on. So it usually ended up being random issues of Sonic the Hedgehog.

As for webcomics, I honestly see a lot in all kinds of styles thriving (or not thriving) online. Not just 'western' and 'manga' styles. You want an actual shit storm of people harassing you for your style try drawing a comic with anthro characters. I know I've complained on the forums about how bad my fans can get, but the non-fans were even worse. The amount of times I have been called a pervert, sick furry, insult to humanity, something that needs to be scourged off the earth, and sent threats (including death threats) just because I drew a comic that had 'animal people' in it is insane. I'm not even a furry (I didn't even know what a furry was until after I started making the comic), and it's a clean comic (Where is the pervert stuff coming from???) ! I Just wanted to do a kid series like ninja turtles cause I loved that show as a kid.

[joannekwan]

Yep as many others have pointed out, a lot of the popular series are more influenced by western work. Shoot, you know how many times I come across a webcomic that really reminds me of Steven Universe, Adventure Time, Over the Garden Wall, or Glen Keane's work? TOO MANY. Ehem, anyway...

Back to the subject of manga-esque comics, I think sometimes people are disadvantaging themselves when they try to emulate that style. Mostly because these people in question don't have enough experience to pull it off right. They botch the screen-tones, chibis are all over the place when there should be a specific time and place for them, the characters are just cut and paste from published manga... the list goes on.

I'll admit, I was part of the manga boom of the early 2000's and did try to draw in that style. I realized I sucked at it so I then did really cartoony western work up until college.

Don't forget, people can be dismissive about manga as well. They think, "Oh, it's more of that Japanese crap only weeaboos like." : P

And @kurapikasuki, omg, I don't understand how you're attracting the scum of the internet! You get the worst people :o

[SpavVy]

There are many types of comics that I've seen on Tapastic that actually do quite well. Some of the ones on my reading list I think are good examples.

Singmire Haze
Child of the Swan
Extiction This story just barely started and it already has 1k readers.
Demon of the Underground

And here are others that are also doing pretty well.
Silversong
Oops
Stutterhug
Trivia from Nature
Kamikaze

I could link more comics from just this site alone but I'd probably be at this all night.

There is also a really popular comic called Zoophobia and it is one of my personal favorites.

But yes, many non-manga comics can thrive online.
I'll admit I draw my story in a very manga-like style and I do enjoy reading manga and manga-inspired comics but I also enjoy other art styles as well. I'm a huge fan of Disney, Dreamworks, Marvel, and DC.

[SpavVy]

I wonder how you manage to get some of the worst people o.o'
The last comment you left on a thread about the hissy Americans telling you that you don't do enough research on Canada was just...wut?

[Kura]

@joannekwan @Savannah I actually have no idea how I do it, really wish I didn't have this luck. It's turned into one of those things my friends like to tease me about.

[FriKitty]

IMO there are a lot of good "mangas" on the Internet, also a lot of terrible "mangas" (quotation marks because it's not really Japanese comic), and some sort of... Internet style? I don't know, here in Tapastic I see a bunch of popular comics which doesn't look like manga at all. Maybe they have strong influence, maybe even from anime and not manga, but... the narrative is different. I also see a lot of influence from western cartoons. I'm ok with it because I really enjoy the mix. And also I enjoy manga, but really, Japanese manga and webcomics I read are very different.

There's nothing wrong with manga anyway. It's bad when (young) people try to imitate and don't try to learn how to draw first, but when someone makes a comic that makes you wonder if it's really from the west or from a Japanese mangaka, what's the problem? :')

EDIT: Omg am I using replies the right way or what D:

[apocryphagraphics]

There's no doubt that there are a ton of manga -style/anime influenced comics here on Tapastic, but more than that the dominant art style is simply cute. Cute manga characters, cute cartoony characters, cute animals, cute bl, cute slice-of-life comics cute superhero stuff etc... Check out the daily snack and it's overwhelmingly CUTE. I think that may be even closer to what is getting @ToonDoctor down as anything. There are quite a few of us on here who are doing stuff that is very uncute both artistically and story-wise but we all have to feel absolutely lost in a sea of goggly-eyed cuteness. Even the asian influenced action comics with darker tones are made cuter by the manga facial style. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, as much as we love the Tapastic technical platform, a lot of us doing less cutesy stuff don't always feel like this is the right platform thematically. Certainly the staff have shown a heavy preference in showcasing these cuter comics to even SFW darker stuff with less cutesy art.

[keii4ii]

I think @apocryphagraphics is on the right track. It doesn't mean uncute styles can't be successful, but cute is definitely dominating. Looking at the comic listing organized in the order of subscriber #, the first few pages are full of cute; the rare not-quite-cutesy ones are mostly "pretty," which is a close kin of cute. I think my own work falls under that pretty category.

The only neutral (just neutral, not "uncute") example I could find was Witchy.

[Kura]

@apocryphagraphics That would actually make a LOT more sense.

[jacintawibowo]

Non-manga comics can totally thrive as webcomics. One of the reasons I love Tapastic is the acceptance of diverse styles! My style's inspired off of modern western cartoons, and it was never very well accepted as a comic style before coming into the Tapastic community (especially on sites like DeviantArt).

The idea that the "Superhero" genre defines comics is something of a Western predilection. My art college happens to have a base in the US and in Hong Kong. The comics community in the US are very adamant of sticking to the Superhero/Action genre. The professors discourage manga style, and students are encouraged to draw "realistically" in the DC/Marvel style. In the Hong Kong campus, that's not the case at all! Manga is heavily accepted and taught as being an equally valid style to the Superhero comics.

Some styles will be more popular than others. Sometimes it depends on your audience and changing modern tastes.

[jacintawibowo]

Oh dang that's a good point! Witchy had a following on other sites too, so it kind of stands out.

[ToonDoctor]

Great comments all. I dig the uncute/cute categories. I think they are closer to what I was trying to imply. For me much of the cute is manga-inspired. I mean, stuff like Steven Universe and Gumball which clearly influenced many web comics are themselves inspired by manga. So it's an indirect influence of cutesy but it's still manga-ish!

Then there is also the question of demographics. Who visits Tapastic and other web comics portals?

[okellymx]

I only read on tapastic and webtoon. I hate having 30 different web comic websites to check for updates.

[AnnaLandin]

Who visits Tapastic and other web comics portals?

Tapastic is my only webcomic portal - all the other comics I read, I read on their main websites. But then, I've been reading comics on the internet for the last... 16 years? Webcomic portals weren't really a THING back then, not in the same way. You just kind of ran a search for "webcomics" and hoped you got lucky.

ETA: Let's be clear - webcomics portals EXISTED. They just weren't as common or as well organised/designed as, say, Tapastic.

[elixiadragmire]

. I mean, stuff like Steven Universe and Gumball which clearly influenced many web comics are themselves inspired by manga.

And traditional manga was inspired and influenced by early Disney, so it's it's all swings and roundabouts. By such a broad stroke EVERYTHING is manga and EVERYTHING is Disney.

I have to parrot everyone here, there's not an overload of manga but plenty of multi influenced comics which makes them more fun to read.

[carloswebcomic]

It used to be that super hero comics were blamed for defining comics and being all that fans cared about in the print world.

Perhaps that was the case in your part of the world but I grew up with manga and European comics, superhero comics were but a small part of the comic spectrum.

I think you have a very centric definition of what comics were. Many parts of the world grew up reading manga and watching anime.
The number of people reading superhero comic probably still similar as before, it's just that with globalisation and the spread of internet you can now see the number of people that read manga.

So yeah, there's still room for superheroes, but it's far outnumbered by other styles.

[Mharz]

That's weird. I always thought it was the opposite. That Western (not just Marvel, DC but the cartoon style as well) style thrives better than the Manga style here on Tapastic. (I even read a post that he doesn't read comics because it's black and white) I probably wasn't exploring enough. I don't really have much time to go around and browse stuffs. It seems to me that the manga-style are taking a lot of heat especially creators calling theirs "Manga" even though they're not Japanese.

drawing manga is kinda harmful because it builds bad habits.

I think sometimes people are disadvantaging themselves when they try to emulate that style.

Oh yeah I totally agree with these. Despite the fact that my drawing style has Eastern-influence, I wouldn't really recommend practcing manga-style for starters cus you won't really learn much and those how to draw manga books won't help at all.

[carloswebcomic]

It seems to me that the manga-style are taking a lot of heat especially creators calling theirs "Manga" even though they're not Japanese.

I haven't really browsed a lot through other comics so I don't know if this is still a thing, but I remember in the early 2000's some English language webcomics were actually being made to read from left to right as they do in Japanese. Now that was just silly.

[Mharz]

There are still a lot out there. Even in our country some creators use right to left even if our language reads left to right.
I personally can understand if the reading orientation is right to left if they're Chinese or Japanese but aside from that, it doesn't make sense to me either. It just confuses the reader IMO.

[gnekomikero]

i think both comics aqnd manga are equally rise up. look in the bright side! hello 21st century movies. marvel like deadpool. people will be curious what it's comic people will search it and yes boom another geek comic lover was born. samething with anime. although manga's only way to spread its work is anime. in my perspective they be ok manga or comic. if you read some sites you can check that some manga book sellers are closing due to piracy and other staff same thing with comics. do you undersrtand what i mean? ***POTATO