The Struggle of Original Comics vs Fan Comics

[CyberAxl]

I just want to say that this is in no way meant to belittle or attack anyone's comics or ideas. I just wanted to see what others thought about this subject.

It can be discouraging when you have an original idea - no matter how creative or good it might be to only see it get overshadowed by someone creating their own headcanon spin-off an established and popular franchise.

For example, my comic has an influence from Avatar the Last Airbender and just started posting it in February. I've worked hard to try to promote and engage with others to boost it. I'm sitting at about 120 subs and 1.2k views on webtoon - nothing crazy but decent. I saw that someone posted a Legend of Korra spin-off and after being up for only a week has 1.1K subs and 13.2k views.

The art is good - the story is too early to tell. It's just dishearting knowing that if I just created a spin-off from any story that my comic was influenced from I'd automatically get way more viewership from already having an established fan base.

I honestly don't mind the fan works and there are a lot of great ones! The frustration is more of people who are very lazy with it or create mediocre stories/art and still pull in big numbers solely from name association and fandoms flocking to any new content of the series they can get.

This is a similar feeling to what I've seen in people saying " If you want to be popular just make a romance or BL comic." Again this isn't bashing fan works just showing frustration. When something is original you obviously have to do everything from scratch so there's no established fans, lore, characters, backstory, etc. On the other side fan works are usually limited to a set of already established rules, character personality, expectations etc. so they have drawbacks too.

My comic Cyber Souls evolved a lot over time and started out as a Megaman Battle Network/Starforce Spin-Off. It then became its original story and idea and I love it dearly. I wanted to be able to create anything in my own way. It's just hard sometimes to see someone hopping on an already popular franchise and riding it to the instant spotlight.

I've rambled enough, i'd love to hear your thoughts- also thoughts from those who have fanworks and your own experience!

Additionally here is my shameless plug to view my comic:

Cyber Souls

[sanoan]

Yeah it's a bit disheartening to see original ideas (esp your own) gets swept under the rug from all the fan spin-off and other popular comics. Name association is a huge part of it of course as those comics have something familiar and want to see more of them canon or not. So yeah it make sense.

Does it suck? a bit but what can we do right?

Over the years, I learn to just focus on my own thing. I feel like its much better to gain fans and readers with your work, your ideas, your characters, your story and your art and not from someone else's. It will take awhile (or never) to gain the same numbers as those fan comics but those readers came and stay for you and your ideas and honestly I think I take that over fast success.

[CyberAxl]

I agree and the reasons you gave are why I decided to change from a spin-off to an original work in the first place! Plus when you hit that wall of not being motivated you know it's your story you're working for and not someone else's. Plus no back lash for tacking established characters in a direction the fandom doesn't like.

[migxmeg]

+1 The feeling of joy if someone draws one of your characters or makes a positive or protective comment about them is way better than fast subscribers/views! It wouldn't be the same if it's not your character.

[CyberAxl]

100% agree! I got my first fan art a week ago and I almost cried lol.

[N1ghtm4r3]

agreed , though fan comics get more views original ideas are better to read, you can see different take son some ideas and see new worlds, my own work has a lot of influences from well known properties but it is still my own way , plus another great thing about making your own you avoid a lot of potential legal crap.

[sanoan]

funny enough, my comic is based on a nuzlocke comic I done years back. I stopped due to school but love the story I had in mind for it. So decided to rework everything with the story, characters and take away all of the pokemon related content to make it stand on its own. Thank goodness for that as trying to draw pokemon all of the time is a huge pain.

[Rhonder]

In some ways fan works can be a double edged sword- being instantly recognized and understood on a basic level, as well as having immediate appeal to the built-in fan base is definitely nice!

But on the flip side, you also lose out on flexibility (how far you can push the characters and established rules before they stray too far from canon) and monetization options.

I've never done any public fan content (although i used to draw mostly only fan comics when I was younger just for myself xD) but I also imagine it stings if you try to transition into original work later down the line and find that lots of people were only interested because of the associated IP. I do get that feeling sometimes with fan art, at least. Get tons of likes and such on those images but then very few on your original work xD

[sanoan]

You know you're doing something right when someone wanted to do fanart for your comic lol

[rajillustration]

It absolutely is frustrating when fan work is competing in spaces with original work. Part of the reason I post on here is because there is a lot of original work and fan stuff isn't "permitted" so I don't have to compete as much as I do on other platforms.

What helps me out is recognizing that it's different demographics. the readers who want fanart generally do not transfer over to original works because they want to have fun with their fanspace with other fans talking fanstuff, and the people who want original works might read a fancomic, but they might not be in the fandom, so they probably won't get half the references or really care. So there's positive and negatives to both--fan stuff already has a built in marketing engine because the people who make the shows and movies put a lot of money into being visible and known. But there's only so far you can go with it.

[jamontoast98]

I gave your webcomic a read. Your artwork is so clean! I really like the ice guy too. I can't wait to see where it goes.

I relate to your struggle wholeheartedly. I've seen it happen with my own two comic series

World Of Fighters

My own fighting game comic with original characters and events.

FGC Moments

FGC Moments is about actual events that occured in real life. Despite having fewer chapters and me barely advertising it, it has much more subscribers/views.

As a reader I don't read fan works that much so I'm pretty indifferent to them, but I definitely see the appeal. I think it can be useful to, for example, draw fanart and then say 'if you liked this fanart, check out my OC comic!' or something

[jamontoast98]

man I want this feeling so bad lol

[Kaydreamer]

There's the same dichotomy in fanart vs original illustrations. Fanart will get you a lot of attention, but it's less about you as the artist than it is about the familiarity your audience has with the content you're creating. If you stop doing fanart for one series and transition onto another, a lot of your audience will either leave, or worse - simply stop engaging. This makes them a 'dead follower' for algorithmic purposes. It'll hurt you badly, long term.

A friend of mine on Twitter has actually experienced the worst of this. They used to make a lot of fanart, became mildly successful with it, but then transitioned onto original work. Their audience evaporated. What was left of it barely engaged. They ended up deleting their socials and coming back a year later with a new handle and no ties to their previous online presence.

It's definitely frustrating as an original content creator, having to compete with people dabbling in established fandoms with huge audiences. They're definitely 'playing on easy mode'. (Though, let's face it, getting any art, even fanart, noticed online starts at 'very hard' and ranges up to 'insanity'.) Though long-term, I think having an audience which is absolutely invested in my original work, which I'll be making forever, if much better than having a far bigger audience, which is only invested in whatever fandom I'm drawing for at the time.

[darthmongoose]

It's pretty frustrating in the Action genre. I once counted and there were 17 fan comics in the top 100 popular comics in that genre, with Steven Universe and My Hero Academia fanworks in particular occupying some quite high places. At least they only appear on desktop, not the app, so credit to Tapas for that.

I am very pro fanfic generally and also I think copyright law has really pushed things to a ridiculous extent on how long works retain copyright (mostly Disney's fault...), but I also think there need to be spaces where only IP the creator owns the rights to are allowed, or else original creators will always lose out to brand recognition and it'll be really hard for people without the resources for big publicity campaigns or powerful industry contacts to create IP. A lot of creators from marginalised backgrounds inevitably have to cave to that "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" pressure to be able to make a living off their work, and I can't blame them for that, but it's just harmful overall to anyone trying to create something new.

[surenlicious]

I've been working soley on my original content for 10 years now (July 11th is when I'll be actually celebrating the date XD). And yes, in these 10 years I can promise you the hardest thing to grow will always be original content. Unlike fandoms you have absolutely nothing to ride on, no fame, no audience nothing. It's 100% your own hard work and struggle, but its the most satisfying project I get to spent the skill on I've worked so hard for.

You'll have days where I wish you never did anything original at all, and you'll have days where you will love everything you do. The only thing I can promise you is to keep trying and keep working on what belongs utterly and completely to you and your audience is gonna come.