Well, I consider myself a Tapas veteran and I must admit that from 2016 I kind of fled the Tapas scene as I saw that I would never reach that front page.
I focused on Steemit (now Hive) a blogging site powered by a blockchain that had almost no comics and gave crypto currency rewards back to contributors. It felt more rewarding and achievable honestly.
I recently adapted to blogging platform specifically for comics and novels so if anyone wants to give it a try it's https://inkito.io
For the moment I chose to mix new comics and trendy comics on the front page to give a chance to everyone. I'm sure that I'll encounter similar issues than Tapas once I get more users.
There must be a way to tackle this issue in a fair way! I'll try to figure it out.