Tapastic Awards?

[PotooGryphon]

Awesome! I love these inputs!

Maybe Most Beloved Comic Character could be another category?

We definitely need to acknowledge the awesome readers on the site. They help make this site awesome! X3

I love the swag prize idea! I'd totally be down for some Tapastic stuff and a feature.

I'm starting to get pumped for dis! XD

[hierogriff]

Maybe Most Beloved Comic Character could be another category?

I love that category omg

[keii4ii]

In addition to having awards for artists, I think it'd be cool to award non-creator community members, to encourage and reward your superfans. i.e: "Most clever comments," "most prolific commentor" or "#1 tapastic superuser!"

OOOH that is an awesome idea! Not sure what constitutes superuser, but comments that are clever and/or insightful deserve recognition.

Most Artistically Improved SeriesMost Well Written SeriesGives the Most Laughs Series

The latter two categories are just "best writing" and "best comedy" worded differently, though, and I think we should stay away from best ___ types. The difference comes not just from the choice of words, but also from what the judges/voters focus on when they make their picks.

The only cases where I'd support best ____ type of a category are 1) reader awards, and 2) objective criteria categories. For example, something like the most reliable updater, which would go to the comic with the highest # of episodes without any missed or late updates ever. That's objective and leaves no room for bitter disagreements.

[hierogriff]

something like the most reliable updater, which would go to the comic with the highest # of episodes without any missed or late updates ever. That's objective and leaves no room for bitter disagreements.

But that would exclude a lot of people... I feel like everyone should have a chance at these awards

[hierogriff]

whoops, looks like I can't undelete that last post?

Anyway I was saying that I feel like everyone should have a shot at these awards, so stuff like most updates or most reliable updater would exclude a lot of creators!

[keii4ii]

I feel like everyone should have a shot at these awards, so stuff like most updates or most reliable updater would exclude a lot of creators!

To be fair, it would exclude my comic, too.

More importantly, that's not going to be the only category in the award. The point is to have a variety of categories so all sorts of creators, new and old, can find at least one category that applies to their work. Just because one or even most of the categories don't apply to your comic, doesn't mean you have no chance at all!

EDIT: That just made me realize one more case where I'd support best/most___ categories: if they're specific enough to encourage the voters/judges to look outside of their top favorite comics. Things like Best Use of Body Language or Most Adorable Critter/Monster Design, for example.

[PotooGryphon]

Things like Best Use of Body Language or Most Adorable Critter/Monster Design, for example.

Oh, I like those two categories!

[Banditt]

No. Absolutely no money
rewards might be a favored spot on the front page. Our a star in the corner of their icon.

[MylCreates]

1) Suggest 3 award categories

1. Most intricate world settings (is the culture showable, backgrounds taken into consideration)
2. Most relatable character or favorite character (as others have suggested)
3. Underrated/ unsupported comic of choice (comic MUST have under a certain number of subscribers, say maybe under 600?)

others for readers:

1. Most involved (how many comics do they actively comment upon and involve conversations)

2) Best process to keep things fair + community healthy.

Voters MUST be Tapastic users, to prevent contesters from getting votes from fans from other sites (unless those fans become members of Tapastic).
Again I feel that some contests have to have parameters (such as a comic can only win one contest or only comics not meeting a certain number of subscribers or having been on the site for a certain time or both can help bring light to some not so popular/known comics).

3) Should $ be involved? We've learned through experience that $ may cause more harm than good via GREED although $ has the power of word-of-mouth (Ahem...kinda what we currently see from our competitors...haha).

NoNoNo!!! No money or else it will turn into a contest of pity! I've seen too many contests like that create anger and pity. I don't want it to be something so competitive and put down because money's involved. Maybe like a tshirt or mug or something digital like what Banditt said (honestly I think exposure of a comic is the best reward):

a favored spot on the front page. Our a star in the corner of their icon.

,
(um... and off topic and speaking of tshirts, i still never got a tshirt/mug from the Tapastic October contest series... ~ Kailani)

[kazumaoboro]

so at this rate we would have to make a contest to determine the categories for the contest!XD
well i think there should be no money involved, i mean it would be a great prize, but i think we first need to make this awards at least 2 or 3 times before involving money

[keii4ii]

I've come up with a few more category ideas. My aim was to promote discovery -- to encourage people to take a look at worthy comics that they would've missed or passed up otherwise, for one reason or another.

• Most Well Researched
  Award goes to the comic creator who's REALLY done their research. It could be about anything: a "hard" sci-fi comic that makes great uses of the laws of physics instead of ignoring them. Or a historical comic that's true to history... a comic about bushmen that accurately shows you what life is like over there... or even a comic about Japanese gods (mythology research, anyone?).

• Wittiest Character
  My attempt at improving things like 'funniest' or 'most likable.' The former skews heavily toward one genre (comedy) which I want to avoid. The latter is just too open-ended. Wittiness is something that comics of ANY genre can have, so even if you're likely to pass up comedies, you might give this category a chance.

• Most Heartwarming Moment/Episode
  Alternatively, most aww-inducing moment. I don't want to say Most Heartwarming Comic because some comics are super long, and that can be intimidating to prospective new readers. But if we pick the most heartwarming EPISODE, people are more likely to actually check it out... I hope? XD In addition, this makes the category accessible to a wider variety of comics, e.g. a gritty comic with one super memorable, heartwarming scene.

• Best Fan Service
  Just for giggles. 'Best fan service' means different things to different people, so this should be interesting.

[hierogriff]

@keii4ii Great ideas!

I think it'd be cool if there were craft-centric categories could be used as a resource to teach comics. Like, if you were interested in improving your own comic's composition, you could check out the winners of the "Best use of composition and flow" award for some examples/ideas.

[minzinger]

Good stuff. Keep 'em coming. We'll do something about this.

[yuliusefferven]

3) Should $ be involved? We've learned through experience that $ may cause more harm than good via GREED although $ has the power of word-of-mouth (Ahem...kinda what we currently see from our competitors...haha).

Haha I noticed everyone running off to Line webtoons because of the $30k competition, personally, I find the idea of limiting the artist from posting their work outside of LINE silly, and doesn't stop other people from doing it for them at all. The comment and interaction system on Tapastic, as well as pretty much all the site features here are better. Despite how much I would really like to win a prize, I think in the long term I'd rather use Line as another fishing spot to lure more people to Tapastic instead . I love everything Tapastic is doing to improve support for independent creators, and I'm putting my bet down here for the long haul. I think once you guys have had time to improve the mobile app and also work on other areas of the site to improve discoverability etc Tapastic has way more potential. The comment system itself has made fun and interesting comics like my YUM possible. Without seeing how the commenting system has worked here I would never have come up with that idea. After uploading my comic on LINE which i know is a platform that they must have had plenty of time to develop and improve already, I'm more in love with Tapastic than ever.

Awards sound awesome, I love a good competition but really I have no idea how we can stack comics that are completely different in genre and style against each other, I feel bad for the judges already if there are any. However I'll think about if I can contribute to this discussion if I can.

[DoubleSea]

I imagine there would be an honorable mentions area for those comics that are still good, but didn't win the vote .

[PotooGryphon]

I completely agree! The LINE competition seems a bit much. Poor Snailord had to apologize to his readers that he can't post here because of the competition. That just seemed so absurd and wrong to me, to limit artists to exclusively post on one site. It's like LINE has hired a bunch of content creators to exclusively create for them but at the end of the competition they're only paying one artist... :/

I prefer Taps over every other site too.

[miesmud]

Coolest profile picture
Haha no,
I like the idea of categories for readers too, they ARE pretty important at Tapastic.

Maybe for creators something like
Most empathizing story?

I have no idea for readers what haven't been said yet tho....

Also maybe as an extra prize, a little crown/ hat/ star/ whatver above your profile picture, or just like the Creator and Supporter badge, a "Winner" badge. And when you mouse-over it will say what category you won

[MylCreates]

oh i like this one! I'd definitely check out the comic winners who were nominated for great composition and such to help improve my own

[MylCreates]

yeah, when i heard they wouldn't allow comics you've posted on another site I was really bummed about that. No way am I making a 4th comic to keep up for the contest when the prize is that high, I know I'd never win it anyways

[MylCreates]

I agree to the honorable mentions part definitley. There's a ton of comics out there and if it's only going to be an annual thing, then honorable mentions is a must