Webcomic Community - Past & Present

[Merryweatherey]

The webcomic community has changed a lot over the years. How about we take a moment to sit down, relax, and talk about what we miss about the old webcomic community, what we don't miss, what is better today, and what we're looking forward to in the future?

Back in the day, there were many small webcomic platforms everywhere, and the popular comics all seemed to have their own dedicated websites. You would have places like Smackjeeves which was notorious for the amount of drama it inspired, and places like Snafu-Comics which only allowed a few hand picked creators to post on it. Webcomic platforms didn't make enough money to be able to pay staff, so a lot of the time there were volunteer community moderators which only brought about drama and accusations of unfair treatment, since some of these volunteer mods would have their own webcomics on the site as well.

Right now we're in a sort of Webcomic Community 2.0. The older platforms don't get as much traction as they used to, since the majority of consumers and creators have moved to either Tapas or LINEWebtoon, which are both websites that sprung up from Korean investments (based on how I understand it.)

I really enjoy these new platforms. It's a lot more professionally handled than it used to be in the past, and with the influx of mobile readers, and the general growth of the internet as a whole, means there is more people reading webcomics than ever before.

But is there anything you miss from the old webcomic community? I'd love to hear!

[joe_galindez]

I have fond memories about how new and raw everything was. Back then there were so few webcomics, you had time to follow one as the artist's skills developed and the Internet itself became more polished. You could start at the beginning of an archive, when everything was still amateurish, and then watch the comic surpass anything in the Sunday papers.

Nowadays there are so many comics you kind of have to insist on a minimum level of quality. Production values are way up but you miss out on the artist's origin story.

[LordVincent]

Haha honestly no, I miss none of the old. I feel like everything is just getting better in the art community at large online for everyday that passes. Since there is more space for more creators and more people "making it", it means the ones who are popular have less power and space to be total assholes to the smaller creators (since they then run the risk of being called out by other big creators).

When there's fewer popular people and fewer options available, it's easier for said people to create a small tight-knit "elite community", and basically gang up against any competition or criticism they face. It creates a whole lot of corruption and I am glad to see it gradually die down. Even happier to see it being replaced with a more open platform system where more people have the chance to grow their voice and audience.

[UrMom]

If missing the simple days when all I had to worry about was high school, and nothing else counts. Other than that, nah, there wasn't anything super memorable about the past webcomic community... aside from all the really bad bl on Smackjeeves. I feel the community has only improved with more groups/sites/events being made to cater to webcomics, followed by an ever growing audience. As well as more creators being able to monetize their work via Kickstarter, Patreon, Indiegogo, and the like. Also webcomics is becoming a major outlet for good representation of marginalized groups, and the community has been a growing hub for people within those groups.

[joe_galindez]

I hear you on the open platform system. It's just that I really like to see things visibly improving. I enjoy progress pics and training montages. One episode of American Restoration almost brought me to tears.

I give self-taught artists a hard time, but more than a decade ago there was still a new-frontier vibe to the webcomics scene. A lot of the comics started out crudely but some of them got better. And a few of them got a whole lot better.

These aren't all from that era, but they're the top three titles I think of when someone says "art evolution."

http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Acrobat/4817295/

http://www.blasternation.com/comic/1-one-day-in-the-life-of-matthew-palmer

http://www.zebragirl.thecomicseries.com/comics/1/