The fate of Smackjeeves... repeated?

[jurinova]

Now, some of you may remember (I hope) that Smackjeeves was once a very popular online comic hosting site with a forum and a lively community.

They they got bought by a bigger comic site. They rebuild the entire site, closed the forums and brought in a whole bunch of comics published by their new owner. Unsurprisingly, the new comics got the biggest promotional space and the small time creators and their comics were pushed to the sides. Of course, what followed was a massive exodus from Smackjeeves by the community creators and readers, and not long after that Smackjeeves was closed for good.

Now... I don't want to sound like a pessimist but the recent changes in Tapas have got me worried. I'm not saying I have my bags packed just yet, but the similarities to what I've witnessed happen before do make me wonder if maybe Tapas is in danger.

Mostly I just feel sad that these type of changes keep happening and online comic communities are becoming more and more rare. I don't want the Webtoons type of hosting site to become the standard where none of the creators communicate with each other and we're all just trying to desperately gather new readers. My opinion is that communities are what makes online comics so special and help create a supportive environment, and without that even Tapas would feel empty.

[Legendofgenii]

This is my fear too.

Hopefully haven’t hopped from one sinking ship to another.

[Shomin]

For those who wish to know the history of it, do check out:

r/HobbyDrama - [Webcomics] The Impending Death of Smack Jeeves

[vothnthorvaldson]

Yeah, same story again.
Although I'm even more worried, because knowledge of previous fails is probably what makes Tapas more careful in its approach, keeping many people asleep and unaware of the situation.
I'm very worried this time there won't be an exodus, because people are led to think everything is ok, and are slowly more and more accepting of restrictions and lack of visibility on Tapas.
So, in my opinion Tapas is already dead, there is no worrying to do anymore on that side; what I'm more worried about is where to go and with who.

[Shomin]

The main question about Tapas's fate is...
The business nature really against the Kakao's major platforms, which is Webtoons.
Normally when a company take over a smaller business, if it is in direct competitive with the major business, they may try to kill it to make the main business stronger.

But that might not be true when it comes to entertainment business.
Like Disney taking over Pixar.
But it still depends, as during that time, one of Pixar's owner is a legendary level business man. (yeah, Steve Jobs, you like him or hate him, he is still a good negotiator.)

What is unique about Tapas, I guess is the novel and fiction section. The time Kakao took over Tapas, the deal is also done with Radish. So I believe their aim must be at the texts. It still depends on what's their business direction. Are they feeding users with their ideal "money making" contents or they want to develop this as a platform and earn from the community of readers and creators.

As my pov, the later, earn from community business model sounds more promising than blatantly feed us their ideal stories created by their M division studios. And they will have better development future if Tapas grew as a platform instead of a product.

However, the business directors of Kakao might not want to focus to make Tapas a platform. They might want to help their M division to gain profit from their products. Therefore, all those premiums are getting more advertised. And they for sure won't shy away from using some popular community ideas into their own stories.

So those are just my thoughts and analysis on the future of Tapas. We all should have prepared for the worst to come. After all, Kakao is still a business entity, and they need to make money and write reports to their shareholders. Else it doesn't make sense to keep the community alive.

[GumshoeComix]

yea I've been worried about this, i've already seen a mass of people leaving Tapas. And even I'm actively looking for other places to post (that isn't webtoons)
Friend told me about Dillyhub so I'm gonna check it out later. If not I might go see if DrunkDuck is still active. Cause focusing solely on my actual site is just asking for death.

[mcarrowolga]

ComicFury is also a great place. It lets you modify your site's look as you see fit, you get your own home in the web instead of a faceless standard page aggregators like Tapas and Webtoons offer.
You can even add ComicAd banners to your CF site and earn money from your work right away.

[Awesomeness_Studios]

Hmm I kinda see the concerns here, though the big difference here is pro series taking the space from small creators. From what I've seen, independant creators have only gotten more publicity after the deal with Kakao (Community Tab, Tapas Community Discord, and the forums still being here). I will mention, big stuff sells, but many premium series are made by community creators too. I think Tapas wants to serve both kinds of content equally.

I will admit, I am a moderator on that Discord server, so of course my opinion is gonna be biased. I do wanna mention one thing however: Tapas is not only a story sharing site but a publisher too, and thus we can only expect that they will do more and more big business moves like this. I doubt they'll try to intentionally harm us since the team seems to really care about creators, but they are a business so yeah bad things are possible.

[darthmongoose]

I'm kinda with @Awesomeness_Studios on this one. There have been a bunch of big recent improvements to visibility for independent creators on Tapas that to me are quite optimistic trends. Tapas emailed a bunch of us around summer/autumn and asked for banners to use to advertise our comics, and then proceeded to actually use them both on the feed and then on the new "community tab" on the app, which is a whole space dedicated to free to read comics. They've also added a bunch of independent series to "Wait for Free", like not even massive ones with 10k+ subs either, and they've made the popular free to read action series, Animal Heads, a Tapas Premium Exclusive.

They've honestly been doing way more recently for community creators than they have in a while. I've been very critical of Tapas over the past year and a half or so for lack of visibility for community creators, and I'm actually really pleased with the recent changes. Seeing comics and novels by people I know from the community get some sort of feature has become practically a weekly occurrence recently and I love it. I got two features myself in the second half of this year after about a year long dry spell and it was great.

I'm not personally convinced this is a retread of Smackjeeves, when a big part of that tragic downfall was that the site rapidly tried to modernise to match newer webcomic trends and made a lot of older series, designed in the older webcomic format, pretty much unreadable or even completely broken (mine was basically unreadable), and in doing so destroyed their unique selling point of being the biggest old style page-by-page customisable webcomic host. To me, at this point, Tapas' big selling points over Webtoon are still the nicer UI, the great contract for original creators they do take on as premiums, far better interaction with readers and being more LGBTQ+ friendly. None of those have changed and the community visibility has actually improved recently, so personally I'm happy to keep it as my "main mirror".

By all means, host your comic on multiple platforms; that's just good sense! And yes, don't treat platforms like your friends. They are, at best, friendly business partners or service providers. Still, I don't personally get the sense Tapas is in massive trouble right now.

[Zugaikotsu]

Nah, no way that is happening. Smackjeeves was already screwed,while Tapas has been prepparing for this Kakao metamorphosis for a while. Also these villainesses comics sell well, and even if they dont, Tapas is more interested in ancillary rights.

If "free" creators fleed there wouldnt have major losses for them. Unfortunately, gatekeeping webcomics is becoming the norm, more and more. Our generation loves the comunity and the "artsy" part of webcomics cause many of us are creators as well but there is a new wave of readers who just want to get their good time reading and loooooove those colorful ultra long comics with homogenous art (and willing to throw coins for them). Even I LMAO.

[Shomin]

Ah, but there's another question on your point though. If i'm a pure reader, i do not see Tapas as my main source of free manga/comic/manhwa and novels. Probably some might understand what i mean. Not gonna name those platform here to alarm the Kakao's troops.

But I do get what you mean. They may grow some successful premium products into celebrity status, like they did it with a celebrity grade webcomic on webtoons that is so popular until crazy fans who are not common readers came flooding the platform with money, they may attract more pure readers without any sligth interests on community works, yet still able to profit. And then, that is the time when the power dynamic changes. Where Tapas will be like a studio focus platform, where indie authors are here just for the view traction, or they may grow completely killing off the indie space. We shall continue to panic then... lol

[vothnthorvaldson]

Ah yes, I think there was a little bit of a misunderstanding, and I may have contributed to it with my message. I do not think Tapas is going to shut down or completely dwindle. They'll probably do well with their import comic clones, maybe not as well as they expect because of competition, but they will manage if they keep their selection of clonal comics very up to date to the trends.

What I meant is Tapas is already gone for the community creators. No amounts of small gesture will compensate the gradual loss of the forum, and even worse, the forceful push toward the censored (and extremely buggy) app.

What may happen is that the few recent efforts of Taps for the community will encourage a few bigger community creators to make comics that fits Tapas demands more and more perfectly, and these few ones may do well; but all the diversity, free spirit, thought provokingness and experimental aspects of the community comics will not survive imo.

I hope people will refuse that and leave. But I personally know how it's complicated. My comic is on hiatus right now because I don't know what to do; and I'm just a beginner amateur who do not care about numbers or visibility. I can imagine how difficult it can be for more involved persons.

[Zugaikotsu]

Ah, but there's another question on your point though. If i'm a pure reader, i do not see Tapas as my main source of free manga/comic/manhwa and novels. Probably some might understand what i mean. Not gonna name those platform here to alarm the Kakao's troops.

Exactly! As someone who's 'inside the fence', working with a smaller publisher, the competition is insane. I think that is also why they are investing so hard in villainess ruffles romance stories. They want to build a brand to get the loyalty of this audience. There is much more offer than demand.

Where Tapas will be like a studio focus platform, where indie authors are here just for the view traction, or they may grow completely killing off the indie space.

It already is. Not only Tapas, but all of them. Studios are a great deal for publishers. They are cheaper, faster and inhumane. If an artist gets ill, it wont mess with schedules because they can be easily replaced.

What may happen is that the few recent efforts of Taps for the community will encourage a few bigger community creators to make comics that fits Tapas demands more and more perfectly, and these few ones may do well; but all the diversity, free spirit, thought provokingness and experimental aspects of the community comics will not survive imo.

Again, it's already like that. Who's 'inside' the... er... industry knows it, but it's better to keep it subtile to save faces.

Since I've signed a contract I had to change a loooooooot if initial ideas of my stories, to generate profit. And now I'm swinging between 3 comics and a novel (besides Patreon) to not put all my eggs in a single basket. I took this year away to plan the most that I could about plot, characters, etc., because now I'm focusing solely on pay per view content. Since I'm a single man I can't deal with weekly open serials, like on Webtoon, and have some space to rest (this year I had to treat the beginning of arthrosis) and heal. Even if you get to be an original, the competition is wilder than in Canvas. They prioritize the studios and the behemoths like Tower Of God, True Beauty, etc., and you better go promote yourself around the interwebs if you want your story to grow.

Oh! And also they apparently will cut the PV rewards for Canvas... let the hunger games begin!

Being paid per view, at least for me, the audience is smaller but the profits are larger. I can have some more space to plan a round plot, and readers will pay more attention to details, as they are putting their money in it. I can make 70, 100 chapters to close it, and the platform might sell it in bundles, make promotions, etc. I've had months of hiatus and there was still money coming in. However, piracy is rampant. I don't even google my series anymore. Even the novel was already stolen with less than 6 chapters out.

The gatekeeping for paid comics is insane, tho...

TBH the whole webcomics comunity became an industry, a huge, cutthroat one. And man, things changed so fast... I started it just to force myself to study how to make faster art and now I need to see those stories as a business bro, researching what I can learn with trends, seeing how to conciliate my creative urges with 'sellable' points, and trying to keep audience engaged in every single chapter, because the competition is unforgiving.

If you want to keep being original, quirky, diverse, with a non manga style, etc., you'd better publish on twitter, instagram, reddit, etc., unless you don't mind talking to the walls. I don't want to sound alarmist, but if you want to address an issue you gotta know it exists, first.

[vothnthorvaldson]

Well, I'll be even more pessimist actually. Reddit, insta, twitter etc are only for super fast consumption. Not a good place either for anything that needs time to read, needs space to exist.
I don't think there is any place with even a bit of traffic for any long form, mildly difficult to digest stories.
But I don't think accepting it 'because it's like that' is healthy either.
Same with the aggressive push towards apps vs mobile sites, the difficulties to generate revenue even organically as soon as your content is not sfw etc etc. It is facts, does not mean we need to accept it.

[Zugaikotsu]

If you have a suggestion to reverse it, I would love to hear it. Not to be cynical or 'gotcha', but because I really can't see how to break this wave. It was easier to me to find my way to flow as best as I can.

[vothnthorvaldson]

No short term suggestion. I think all we can do is inform the most people possible and support (emotionally and financially) the few who painstakingly manage to work outside the system...

[Llyrel]

I don't think there is any place with even a bit of traffic for any long form, mildly difficult to digest stories.

I'd... dare to argue that ComicFury is such a place, though, at least as far as comics go. yes, the amount of users on there is far smaller compared to bigger platforms, but the lack of an app (and as such not having to deal with Apple's ridiculous censorship), lack of corporate products and equal opportunities for everyone to be seen (the home page shows comics that have just been updated by default, not popular ones) make it the perfect place for anyone whose content doesn't fit the extremely strict style preferences of the two major platforms.

Granted, since it's WAY smaller you can't really expect your comic to blow up on there like it would on other platforms after a staff recommendation, buuuut... readers DO check that place. And with ComicAd, you can make far more money than with Tapas ad revenue.

That said, I definitely agree that supporting smaller, non-mainstream creators and spreading the word about their work is definitely one of the best ways to help them grow!

[vothnthorvaldson]

True, probably the best option; I'm starting to settle there actually, but I've not been active enough yet to have a full idea and decide if it's going to be my main place to post. But a good candidate indeed

[vothnthorvaldson]

Well, looks like I went to CF and uploaded the last few pages i was putting off uploading for months!
Thanks for mentioning the site, good thing done today thanks to you

[Llyrel]

Yay, glad that helped! And congrats on posting