Thoughts on r/comics?

[BlueWorldComics]

I just watched this video about an "event" of sorts from the r/comics subreddit. It sounded like fun. (This person has other interesting webcomic-related videos, including this one, where you can see me in the background).

In any case, does anyone here frequent that subreddit? I saw a few familiar, popular creators posting in there, but is it worth engaging with for a small creator like me with practically no following, or is it really only for creators with large followings?

Mainly asking because I do not have a reddit account and would have to make one in order to start engaging. Not that big a deal, but is it worth it?

[AmysGames]

From what I've heard, it depends a lot on the genre. Comedy/slice of does the best. I heard from a friend who posts there that engagement is higher when there's dialogue in the first panel.

That said, Reddit is a big website. If you're not writing a comedy comic, it might be worth it to seek out some subreddits more catered to your specific niche (e.g. I've posted on r/MagicalGirls a few times).

[Kelheor]

I am posting a fantasy/slice of life comic there, it's doing okay Just as everywhere else it started underwhelming, but then it started getting some eyes on it. My comic is typically an episode of 6 panels with a complete gimmick, with some longer story arcs happening - there are many readers who appreciate it, but of suppose it's safe to say that the stand-alone episodes are doing much better, because Reddit it not exactly the place for people to follow long-format comics with tight plot. People browse, they see a short episode, they laugh, they go. Most of them probably won't try and connect this episode to another 200 episodes.
Overall it's just another place, definitely nothing bad about it, just try and post!

[Aeneas1]

I have been publishing pages of Ragnar: The Prelude to Nixvir there. This is, of course, not the first time I was on the site before: I had an account from 2018 to 2021, which I disactivated because I found the cynicism on the site far too much to bear at the time. I only returned fairly recently, about five years after I left the site, so that I could expand the audience. So far, on r/comics itself, despite a dispute I had with the mods because I wasn't posting my pages in the correct manner, it's been doing well there, with the most recent post having 1,300 views, with a grand total of 11,100 views overall.

[Caro]

I’ve been posting comics on there for just under a year and it is very useful for getting eyes on my work and I’ve made some book sales and patreon subscribers. Not a ton for how much engagement I have gotten on there vs. the numbers IG pulls in for me but its notable. I did the my end-of-the-month tally on my numbers across socials and saw that this month on Reddit I got around 5.8mil views but only around 400 clickthroughs from Reddit to my Patreon so… not great conversion compared to IG where this month I got just under 4mil views with more than 5x the clickthrough rate.

I will also add that its most useful for short form comics but that is open to genre. I mostly draw comedy strips that are pretty “set up, punchline” and that is the norm and what is expected but my best performing posts have been short form kind of sad/real life/not humor of short form comics.

It is Reddit though and some of the types of commenters can be exhausting but it is just the internet and you gotta learn to co-exist with the negativity to kinda do anything anymore. If you can figure out how to protect your peace its not bad.

Overall, fun community (with the exception of some
bad egg commenters), good way to get eyes on your work if you are interested in making short form work, but the audience isn’t super sticky for me— this could also be a JUST a me thing. I’m sure other folks have better retention.

[jwabeasley]

I used to post my pages there, it got some eyes, but I stopped after a year or so, and instead I only post my joke pages, which do decently. One of my joke pages made it to r/all and gave me a huge early boost.

Recently, r/comics has gotten a bit dominated by highly sexualized comics, which I don't really enjoy, but it is still best at slice of life family style one off comics with repeating characters. Posting times are also a big deal there, but I'm not an expert on that.

If you can tell a complete joke in 6 panels or less, and your art is eye catching, it's a good place to be.

I'm planning on running an event/contest of sorts that involves r/comics later this summer (July)! I hope the other members of this forum will be on board with that sort of thing.

[BlueWorldComics]

Thanks for the responses. As I'm getting back into content creation, I'm trying to see if I'm leaving any views on the table.

My comic is a weekly, 4-panel comic strip. Although it tells a longer narrative, with full arcs completely over multiple weeks (sometimes a couple months), each comic is meant to give you a decent enough chunk of the story to stand alone as a single episode.