Jun 2022
14 / 55
Jun 2022
Aug 2022
Lady_T_Musings
Jun '22

Color me personal shoot.

As the one-person team on my starship webcomic (which many of us are) that does the writing, editing, storyboarding, cleaning, inking, coloring, dialogue, and word bubbles for my comic there are no failsafe co-pilots that can carry on my work if I get burned out, sick, or you know drop out of existence. That would be a wrap (save for the black box that details my thoughts on the courses my comic should chart, it wouldn't be the same, but it would be something I guess). I have to be the one taking care of myself if I wanna make it to my destination beyond the stars to planet completed comic with an intact vessel bc there are other places I wanna explore in the comic galaxy. Running ragged to get to the first stop will only make me want to give up or realize I literally can't go any further bc I didn't take proper care of myself and my vessel and became permanently damaged (every time I see carpal tunnel and tendonitis I get a cold sweat).

Space metaphor aside, It's just awful to see brilliant creators breaking their backs, losing relationships, and being in poor health to appease folks who drag them for not churning out pages fast enough, or having long enough updates. Then once they do deliver you find out they aren't even getting paid enough to make a living off of, and are rarely given the proper support to be creating at the output levels they have been.

Like I'm glad folks like what's being made, but like go touch some grass and get some chill. :V. We're people too.

EverydayWonderlander
Jun '22

Yeah... It seems quite unattainable. There's nothing wrong with prefering scroll format or the ~WT Style~ as a reader, but it's seriously concerning for artists.

I was worried that I was a remnant of the Old Internet when I was shocked and surprised to see huge 20+ panel updates in webcomics. There needs to be a shift in readers, where we see artists as people again. Especially if we're not paying for their work.

RedLenai
Jun '22

Well... a lot of people have the bad habit of not pre-making their series and not have a nice amount of chapters ready before posting. No wonder why many cannot keep a steady schedule of posting once a week if you have literally no space to breath especially if you have another work or are studying. Still, I believe in Webtoon they encourage weekly updates, but if you make longer episodes to post bi-weekly or once a month.

I want to mention as well that, at least from some info I've gathered from a few OG Webtoon artists's from Webtoon Spanish is that, once you become an Original you have to redraw your series or at least retouch a few episodes, but the thing is that you actually have a whole year or even more time to work on the series before the re-launch and serialization. So it's not that in all cases are editors and artists being overworked to finish a chapter to update the series each week.

Webtoon has a brand, therefore I understand why they'll tell people what kind of stories they want to see, however this results on most of their content to being pretty vanilla, even very cliché but it's easy to consume, still, you won't find much stuff that would blow your mind. They encourage you to post your series in canvas, and even if it's a popular series with good traffic, nice incomes with the revenue program or whatever, they may contact you but if your story, after analyzing it properly with their team, is not profitable on their standards they'll just tell you to continue working on your story, if you become way more popular than what you already are they may come to contact you again.

powerplantanimations
Jun '22

I guess I'll only use Webtoons to just promote merchandise but like... Webtoons isn't as engaging as Tapas and the features just turn me off.

Also I'm contemplating if Webtoons is worth it with these horror stories.

Can I say to readers on Webtoons to just read my material on Tapas? Do I get into trouble? I dunno.

@AlydaB Heads up btw because I know you read over there, I might just stick to Tapas. : /

bronte448
Jun '22

Webtoons should realize that people are humans and not computers! Have mercy.

bulgariansumoRegular
Jun '22

Oooh, this reminds me of popular advice on another site that I'm on, which is to post a chapter every day for years if you can. To me, that sounds bonkers. You'd either have to break your back writing constantly, or spend years building up a backlog long enough to satiate readers, and in that time, who knows what may happen? Your material might not be fresh anymore. The place you were planning to publish on might no even exist!

With webcomics, it's even worse, because if you're working alone, that means having to draw and write enough material for your weekly update all by yourself. If you have a team, that means you have to be super coordinated and not have any hiccups in your personal lives.

It's inhumane, really.

It's really messed up that these kinds of sites foster an environment where hobbyists and people who are trying to make a living are competing with each other. On one hand, people who are trying to earn money are going to put waaaaaay more effort into trying to make their work professional and marketable. I don't think it's unfair that those people are more likely to be seen. The problem comes when platforms are so saturated that hobbyists have to be just as competitive in order to be seen at all. Gaining an audience isn't a right or a given, but I'd estimate that a lot of hobbyists post online so that someone else might read their work.

On the flipside, if a hobbyist does manage to get famous, that kind of spits in the faces of the people who need the views/likes/feedback to translate into money to survive.

Stargazer31
Jun '22
1

I only do about 2 pages a week, but I'm the only writer, editor, sketch artist, line artist, layout designer, colour artist, advertising person and merch designer for my comic, so I can't do any more.

Caro
Jun '22
1

I’m lucky in that I was able to do the amount if work required of me on my own when I did do a comic for WT but I do not think its something I would do again and its simply not worth the amount of time, stress, and the potential demand to stretch out something longer than it needs to be.

I definitely prefer the way I earn my living now. Its much looser and my income directly correlates with however much I can hustle and is not a mostly fixed monthly income.

But also the demands from readers being just as high for people who aren’t even getting paid is wild. I remember I just had to stop reading comments completely over there.

MalonTheArtist
Jun '22

I agree completely! The amount of time and dedication that goes into creating something you love, is ridiculously down sided and downplayed by the fact that right now you are not making any money. And to make matters worse, it's like you're being demanded or forced to work harder away to produce more.

So I agree that webtoons standards can be ridiculous, especially to a creator who loves what they do and just want their hard work to be noticed. This is why most people give up or just lose interest in their comic. But I think that maybe, just maybe somewhere down the line all the hard work is recognized and you end up completely satisfied with what your doing and feel like it's not all for nothing.

And it's best to not get overwhelmed by the overall process and not get sidetracked by pressure, even though this is very complicated!

VibrantFoxRegular
Jun '22

i think theres a lot to be said but i really do think it also boils down to capitalism and the way art and comics have been comodified because like someone else said years ago it was normal for indie comics to publish with far less content or less frequently but as its come into the mainstream and big companies are really getting involved the landscape and expectations have changed drastically not to mention the expectations that readers have developed as a consequence of this so even they demand "more content, more often" because some of them are consuming media at a much faster rate than before

thats why its not so much a matter of oversaturation in the comics sphere but rather that publishing landscapes have changed among a lot of other things

and this reply honestly got a lot longer than i had intended but i really have strong opinions about it because as someone who wants to start publishing again i worry for what itd mean for me as well as other creators when we have to deal with things like this and what it means for those who may join in the future. it just really sucks the more you look at it

hell i think on the flip you can see how its sort of bred this near workaholic mindset where if you're not keeping up with the standard you're failing and then pushing that onto each other so yeah I've got beef with regards to all this :sob:

BoomerZ
Jun '22

I'm going to go in a different direction here. Yes I understand you want your comic to be "art". With that definition comes all the problems with it. The hard work, long hours, under appreciated masses, and the problem of no one caring as much as you do. But remember, your art is just some else's product. Be that some one is a website that publishes it down to the reader that just wants to be entertained. You knew getting into it this was the demands to be popular. Back in the day comic artists gave up a lot to get in the industry, and even after that they drew multiple comics a month. And after all that, we remember a handful of them by name. The big stars like McFarlane, Lee, Liefield... the rest fall off into nothing. That is the way for being an artist. Do the best you can, better than you did yesterday, is all you can hope for. Then hopefully you get an audience and make some money. And BLW, our industry is no different than singers, bands, or other artist out there. It's just the way it is.

Shanny8
Jun '22
1
bronte448

CREATORS should [also] realize that they are not computers. At some point- especially if Webtoon isn't PAYING you to churn out these episodes on a weekly basis- you as the creator, need to peel back your production.

I was posting on both platforms(Tapas & Webtoon) and after this last injury riddled hiatus, I am NOT in the place where I want to keep further wrecking my body at that pace for likes & views. If I put out one page/episode every 2-3 weeks, then so be it...I'm pretty much like right now I can't and dont live off my earnings as a comic creator because it is NOT sustainable. I want to, but I'm not going to toil and wreck myself for an insane number of years when the [comics/webcomics] industry as a whole refuse to compensate and/or value creators; if I'm going to create, I'm going to do it in a manner that benefits ME.

@bronte448 I'm not attacking you, and I apologize if this looked like I was...I'm just...I get in stages where I really become disgusted with the way these webcomic hosting site/models work.

VibrantFoxRegular
Jun '22
BoomerZ

my only rebuttal is that just because thats the way things are doesnt make it okay and that goes for all industries and a hell of a lot of things outside of media but this isnt about stuff like that

art may be perceived as a product but its still a luxury theres labor and knowledge and skill that goes into it do to just say "this is how things are, deal with it" accomplishes nothing. sometimes you have to rock the boat and personally i hope to high heaven that more folks do

why else would there be workers unions or the animation guild? to ensure that the working environments are fair and healthy. breaking you back for next to nothing isnt a good thing and thats precisely the reason more folks are being vocal about it

and i wanna make clear that this isnt directed at you in specific but more at this kind of mindset because by just going with the flow it perpetuates this unhealthy working style

@Shanny8 covers some of my emotions on this perfectly because the way things are right now truly arent sustainable much less is any of it worth it especially when it comes to injuries folks have sustained as a consequence of all this overworking. Like ive seen folks my age if not younger talking about carpal tunnel, RSIs, back problems and a bunch of other thing and it doesntneven go into folks working themselves to literal death in these industries so yeah its just not worth "going with the flow" or "just dealing with it" :\

NickRowler
Jun '22
BoomerZ

Why did you pick Liefield???? Like different strokes for different folks but he is a bit infamous and not really liked.

Anyone who doesn't know who this is, he drew this.

image.png640x860 811 KB

Also I hope by Lee you don't mean Stan Lee, because he wasn't an artist.

BoomerZ
Jun '22
NickRowler

BY dismissing Liefield you dismiss his cultural impact on the comic world. And Lee could be Jim or Jay.

NickRowler
Jun '22
bronte448

Stan Lee is famous as a writer. I think people often forget about Jack Kirby who was the artist of a lot of the original Marvel comics.

gabriellabalagna
Jun '22

I just want to add that the number of panels in one episode is often too much for me when reading other people's comics.

I sometimes find myself tiring of so much scrolling and checking to see how much more is left to keep reading. Long episodes can feel like such a drag and the panels look too similar or sketchy.

I've counted before and some episodes seriously have 70-90 panels! To me, that's just way too overwhelming for one episode.

TheLemmaLlama
Jun '22
1
VibrantFox

I'm pro-boat-rocking, but it's also like ... I don't think we need the boat? I can't really bring myself to get up in arms about this. I feel like what @BoomerZ is getting at here is: if you want to make art, make art. Just don't complain about people treating it as a product.

How you react to it is up to you, You can continue at your own pace and not cave to the pressure to work long, hard hours, but then you don't get to complain about your work going unseen and people getting bored and leaving because you're too slow. Or you can throw yourself into the rat race and hope to place well, and I guess betray your fellow artists by contributing to raising the output standards. But the choice has always been ours.

I get that it can be hard to resist the pressure, but I can sympathize more with someone who's like "how do I deal with the pressure to push myself to an unhealthy degree to meet readers' expectations, help" than someone who's like "audiences these days are so entitled, we as webcomic makers are doomed to slavery, and that's terrible" ^^;

Shanny8
Jun '22
BoomerZ

Not gonna dismiss Liefeld for his impact on the industry and such, but as things begun to settle & unravel- the bottom line is dude isn't the best artist; he caught fire when the industry was shifting its perimeters...by more people looking at what [Jim] Lee was doing and how aesthetically sound most of his work was, it made it easier to dissect Liefeld's stuff. There was a period where Liefeld was trying to refine his stuff and get better, and then it seemed he just said "f**k it" & went back to being lazy about his work, as well as bitching & barking at folks on Twitter.