Dec 2020
7 / 10
Dec 2020
Dec 2020
Rai_Muffin
Dec '20

I've been writing and drawing for over a decade now, but every time I try to create my series, I hate it and scrap it to start again.
Then last year I finally got to a point where I was happy with it.
It wasn't perfect, but it felt good enough to start from.

Last month I started posting on Tapas, uploading the first 9 chapters, and despite a decent number of people reading at least the first chapter nobody is subscribing.
I've been wondering if it was wise to start posting the series; if I wasn't good enough to start it then.

Should I start over? Redo the last year and a half of work?
I mean, if nobody is reading, then I'm clearly doing something wrong.

I don't want to throw out my work on a whim, much less invalidate the volumes I've already published on Amazon,
so I'm looking for feedback.

Please, I have to know what I'm doing wrong,
and if this series is even salvageable in its current state.

Am I just marketing to the wrong people?
I genuinely don't know.

Any and all feedback is welcome,
and if you post your own series below, I'll gladly give my opinions on it.

I'm not looking for pity subscribers or attention.
I just want to know why I'm failing.

Thank you for reading this.

  • created

    Dec '20

  • last reply

    Dec '20
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Beuliji
Dec '20

For starters, I think your synopsis needs a bit of work.

When Natsumi and Fuyumi Yukihana set out into the world, they never expected to have a price on their heads.

Armed with control over the elements and alongside an expanding team of eccentric allies, the mercenary clan Raikiri set out to push their limits to keep their freedom.

By price do you mean bounty? What caused them to get the bounty in the first place? These are like two different synopsis for different stories, how am I supposed to know that Natsumi and Fuyumi are in the mercenary clan? It doesn't really draw me in, and does not give enough context towards the story you're creating.

The art, I find detailed, but a bit outdated? It's not bad, but it reminds me of Dragon Ball Z and that was created in the 80s-90s. In other words, the art may not appeal to the current mass. I mean you don't have to change it, after all ONE who wrote ONE-PUNCH MAN did not have the best drawing ability, but was still able to convey the actions through his drawing. For his comic not too many people are speaking at the same time maybe one or two people on the same panel, for yours there are a lot of people speaking, you even have the enemies speaking on the same panel as your main characters. You should try to avoid small talk and only say the most important things.

Towards your thumbnail, it's really hard to make out the title of your comic, maybe you can add a bit of shading? Or make have a metallic shine to make it stand out?

I believe there's too much going on in your comic; it jumps from scene to scene without leading into any proper transitions. There's too many enemies with personalities that are not fleshed out. It feels as though they were created just to be cannon fodder for your main characters—a throwaway character. Is there a main big boss they should be worried about?

Maybe remove the 15+ age on your synopsis and add that into the beginning of your first chapter. I mean theres not much of a point, we've all seen DRAGON BALL Z at some point in our lives? Rorouni Kenshin? Inuyasha? Demon Slayer...etc.

Wish you and your comic future luck :sparkles:

Rai_Muffin
Dec '20

Thanks for the advice.

But should I start over, or work from where I’m at?

Beuliji
Dec '20

Starting over doesn't guarantee success. This is a difficult question, but if it were me, I would continue on with my comic, and try some new tricks here and there.

Or you could create a trial comic that only needs 5-10 or so chapters—not wasting your hardwork or effort, something small to try and see what people are interested in, if it gains more viewers you can continue it.

By continuing it, I mean creating a full blown series, you can even use the same concept you're doing right now.

darthmongoose
Dec '20

All right, let's see what we can do here...

There are a bunch of factors at play in why people might not be picking this up. Some of them are easier to do something about than others, so I'll just list them all and possible solutions.

  • Action is one of the harder categories to build a following in on Tapas. Most of the audience here are primarily into more Romantic, Slice-of-Life type content, so by choosing Action, you're already going to be hit with a double standard. As a fellow Action comic creator on this platform, all I can say is, firstly, don't compare your sub numbers with people in genres like Fantasy, BL or Romance and feel bad; it's natural that you'll have fewer readers for a comic of comparable quality, and second, be sure to plug the crap out of your comic on the forums, social media etc. The good thing about Action is that because it's a smaller genre with lower readership, you need comparatively few likes to start climbing up those "Popular" rankings, and the audience aren't spoiled for choice so much are more saturated categories.
    As an extra note, I do definitely think a comic this can build an audience here with some effort, because the style, influences and tone aren't so far from my own comic, which has had a staff pick and is over 700 subs.

  • Black and White makes it harder to build an audience than colour. Simply switching to colour would probably increase the number of people who pick up the comic because it's easier to make it look polished and finished, tends to make the art more readable, is more comfortable for light-sensitive readers and is more eyecatching.

  • Your cover has a pretty cool shounen manga layout, but the white background isn't quite working with the characters because their designs have so much white on them and rather fine outlines. I can see what you're going for, like the covers of Bleach and Naruto, which feature the characters in dynamic poses on a clean white BG, but try this one simple change: Make the background something other than white, maybe like orange (because it's a colour not present on the character designs) so we can see those wings really pop and read the dynamic silhouettes of the characters.

  • The series logotype is a bit unpolished looking with the inconsistent line weight and the weird ketchup and mustard colour combo. It's not an awful design, but it'd probably look better if you redrew it with more consistent line weight, maybe tried making it gold and silver and added a little bevel on there for a metallic look, something like that. A professional looking cover is really important on Tapas because you're competing with pros for eyeballs.

  • The page layouts and pacing improve later, but the beginning feels a bit rushed and crammed in. There's this flashback opening, which doesn't even get the equivalent of a full page, then there's this... almost-cover thing like a banner, then it goes immediately into the gorilla guy without an establishing shot or space to breathe.
    Rather than redoing the entire comic, I'd suggest one simple change: Spread out that flashback opening a little more, so it's got more breathing room, and add a bit of padding between that, the cover/banner thing and the start of the story proper. It'll just make the comic feel so much smoother and less confusing for new readers.

Overall, I'd say that while the art has improved, I don't know if I'd advise starting over. Maybe at most, sprucing up the panelling on the earliest pages might be enough.

malwdark
Dec '20

The resume looks interesting but the drawing style doesn't seem to fit, specially if its a 15+ story.

Edit: I agree with Darthmongoose, my webcomic is action too and it grows really slowly (about 2 followers per month).
Here it is, is you want to check:

ninjashira
Dec '20

I personally believe that starting over almost never accomplishes what people hope it to. I agree that coloring your pages could be a smart idea if you want to go with color, but if you're finally happy with your pages and your story, don't lose that momentum now by going back and redoing things. A lot of people here have given you some great advice for how to spruce some things up with your presentation, I would definitely try to incorporate some of that, and just ride the momentum of you liking where your story is going.

revisionstudios
Dec '20

The short answer? Don't reboot it. You said yourself that this is a recurring problem for you, where you scrap it all the time. If you keep starting it over it'll never get finished. It's better to finish something and move on than to regurgitate the same ideas and try to make it work several times. Sometimes the stuff we make won't be a hit, and that's okay--it's very seldom that someone gets a big break from their first or even fifth series. If all you've been doing for a decade is working on this one series and you keep throwing away your progress, but also refuse to move onto something fresher, you're just shooting yourself in the foot. Complete this one, then take what you learned from it and apply it to your next project.

You can even just put it down right now, do something else that's shorter to experiment and hone your skills, then come back to it. Your progress on it doesn't have to be linear.

One practical thing you kind of messed up on was uploading with such huge episodes, though. Most people post 1 page at a time, MAYBE 2-3 pages if it's a long form. Uploading like this meant that your comic got VERY limited visibility. Every time your series updates, it gets put to the front of the new/fresh section, which makes it easier to discover. You have 18 episodes right now... so that means 18 chances for people to catch your comic. If you had posted 2 pages at a time? You'd have like 200 episodes, and 200 chances to get your work in front of people. So whenever you upload again, I would make sure you do it in smaller chunks.

From here on out, I'm going to be a little more picky on the actual quality of the work. It is not intended to be harsh, but it may come off that way. You don't have to read on if you don't want to.

Summary

The art, while not the most important thing, is making it difficult for me to read this comic. The linework is so thin and you don't vary any of your lines between character or background that it's just difficult to parse what's happening. I find myself having to stare at a panel to figure out what's going on. Later you add in blacks and grays, which help a LOT, but I think you would do well to work on making your lineart more discernable by adding bolder lines, varying widths, etc.

I want to really encourage you to learn anatomy. There's nothing wrong with stylizing, but right now there isn't much form or solidity to your characters, and the only way to achieve that is learning how the skeleton, muscles, and fat distribution works. Everyone looks maybe 14 and it's hard to take seriously. Eventually you'll also want to focus on foreshortening, perspective, motion, etc. but for now, I think anatomy and varying your shapes will be more important. (The lack of forehead on your characters super bugs me :sob: )

You have this tendency to use cliche motion, too--and I don't mean this in the writing sense, I mean visually. Your expressions look like they're pasted on rather than a part of the face, and your action shots look like the pose was picked because it's "cool", not because it's functional.

I will ALWAYS plug this tutorial on expressions from Tracy Butler. Read through it! I'm seeing a lot of "generi-expressions" from you.
https://www.lackadaisy.com/exhibit.php?exhibitid=3331

She's also a great study point to see how much those foundational skills really shine through stylized work. You can tell she knows what she's doing!

As for the writing... disclaimer, I only had time to read the first two chapters, so this may not reflect your later work as well.

While it's good to throw your reader into the world to some extent and not over explain, I feel like I'm missing important context on what kind of world this is. You have little snippets of character flashbacks, but they're randomly placed and don't actually tell me much. There are some things that I see and think, "are they trying to imply X with this line of dialogue?", but it's never quite clear enough (or I don't have enough information) to make the call on whether it's intentional or not. I still have no idea if the different fantasy races have different social standings, are segregated, or are more rare or common than others either.

It's important to be upfront at least with some details for the main cast so we know their situation before they get into the plot. Establish their normal so when the narrative breaks it, it has an impact.

You're using a lot of low hanging fruit when it comes to comedy and the character writing. The tone of the beginning with the ape siblings was really goofy, but the way you framed the action implied you still wanted me to take it seriously? You can mesh humor with a serious tone, but it needs a more deft hand than that. It might be better to focus on one or the other before tackling a combination of both. As for the dialogue, it was smooth in a lot of areas but then they'd randomly say a stock phrase that came off like, "this is what you're supposed to say in this moment", rather than part of a conversation.

The impression I get overall is that the ideas aren't bad, but you don't have the skill to execute it well in either arena (art or writing).

And knowing all that? I STILL don't think you should reboot. Don't waste your time. Focus on improving your craft and have fun, don't sweat the readership. This comic likely won't get a huge following right now, and I know that hurts. But as long as you focus on yourself and keep moving forward, you'll get to a point where your work will grab people.

You will only improve by studying, putting in the work, and finishing a lot of things. Keep going, and don't look back.

Rai_Muffin
Dec '20

Huge thanks to everyone for your advice.

Honestly, hearing the ways I was screwing up really helps.
I think I know the angle I need to take now.

I really appreciate you taking the time to help me out.
I honestly can't thank you enough.

ble
Dec '20

Well, i can only tell my own story, dunno how useful it will be.

I rebooted my first comic 3 times. The first time because the drawings look like crap and weren't sure if the story was good. Then the second version I did, i felt the art was TOO detailed, that i wouldn't be able to do that on a weekly basis, so then I thought after TWO YEARS with this story/comic, i was ready with the third reboot and i put it on webtoons/tapas, etc. The result after my third reebot? zero subscribers, likes or comments.

That's when i learned to never marry a story, and instead, just scratch that one comic and try doing other comics until i made some that people seemed to respond (at least got two comics with over 1k subs on webtoon). I had to try different things and even had to change genres, as my first comic was action shounen inspired, and got nothing, when i switch to do romance girls love stories is what seems to be working for me now.

But well....that's my story, maybe your comic will have a different outcome, who knows.