Webcomic Visibility (Why do comics get 0 interaction!?)

It's hard. As somebody who has managed to scrape a modest following (not enough that it pays my bills or anything, but enough that my comic makes a bit of money on the side) the one thing I'll say about modern webcomics is that they're not like old webcomics at all.

Old Webcomics were like... you could pretty much upload something about any subject and in any style, and so long as it looked half decent, had a few good jokes or a nice concept or atmosphere, looked good on a monitor, you might get some following if you did a few banner swaps on websites, and if you had about 2000 readers, your webcomic would probably pay your rent.

Modern webcomics are a brutal, crushing attention economy where your comic needs a brand, it needs to launch right out the gate with professional-level polished art and presentation and a really strong story hook established in the first few pages, it needs to be marketed regularly and to the right people and with promotional assets that look well-designed and... It's hard.

The drawing itself isn't bad, but the contrast throughout your comic (even on the cover) is way too low; there are a lot of really similar dark tones and half the panels I can't actually see what's happening (like this episode16. I literally cannot see what's happening). I think you need to calibrate your monitor brightness, maybe getting help from a friend, or comparing on a phone set to "auto brightness". This lack of readability would immediately put me off reading your comic, and overall it makes it look more amateurish than your drawing skill ought to.

Your hand written text (and honestly, I'm sorry, but a lot of the inking on the art) looks sloppy and rushed like you just left the pen stabilisation on too high, and didn't press undo and redo parts that came out floppy looking or not clearly defining a shape; just left them. Or like there'll be a tail left where you lifted the stylus but you didn't take the care to just quickly rub it out with an eraser to neaten it up. If you're going to present something to the public that represents the best you can do, it needs to actually be the best you can do, and that means going back and carefully making sure it looks tidy.

Webcomics are really competitive, so if you want to compete, you're going to have to raise your game, because the people who are earning money are putting in a lot more effort than you into making their comics easy to read, making their presentation look tidy and finished, giving their comics a clear brand identity and publicising it widely and regularly. It's hard work and tiring, but that's the honest truth of what's required to build an audience, and it goes double if you're outside of popular genres like Romance or Isekai Fantasy (and going for a Homestuck style thing, but where people actually have to leave the comic and go to youtube for certain parts is going to be a really hard sell, you're going to need to basically work twice as hard to sell this as a more accessible comic that doesn't ask readers to do things like that).

I'd strongly recommend you spend a bit of time sorting out the contrast balance of your comic, learning how to make speech bubbles that aren't just the default oval tool, sorting out the panel spacing, reading books or tutorials on typography and just generally looking at all these little "attention to detail" things about comic creation. Your actual drawing is fine, but your sloppy presentation is bringing the whole thing down, which if you want an audience in such a competitive medium, you just can't get away with these days.

I say the following with a complete relatability to your feelings: it's the art.

I've been in the business of commissioning art and trying to make a living on it for over two decades, and during most of that my art frankly wasn't good enough to draw the attention/interested/following that I needed to establish myself.

These days the art is probably decent enough, but I'm such a social hermit that my lack of skills in social media stunts my ability to promote my work and I still really don't have much following (nor would I know what to do with it).

But you're at the point where the art just needs a lot of work in order to get interest. Most people, being very honest, will not even bother to read the story at all because the art is simply not of the quality to get their attention. They'll glance at the first page, note the art, and leave abruptly.

It's a crappy thing but it's the truth.

You need to go hard into learning a lot of the basics. Learn composition, color theory, and most importantly, learn anatomy. You'll get a lot better at your work and people will be more willing to give it a chance.

Well, people already gave great points, so I won't extend, but... this is how the game is, now. Lots of high quality pro stories being released everyday, more than anyone can realistically read. Competiton is insane and brutal. If you want attention you'll have to step up your game. A lot.

Tbh I think their drawing skill is pretty lacking. I don't mean to insult the OP, we've all been there. But there's a seriously poor understanding of basic anatomy, even down to facial symmetry. I honestly feel that's the biggest issue here. Most of the panels don't show a full body (or even 2/3rd body) at any point and usually that's to avoid trying to draw anatomy at all. But it's really off-putting to most readers.

They really really need to work on the basics before touching color theory or light sources.

Edit: Just look at the hand and face in the top three panels of the most recent episode. The fingers are weird mushed noodles and the face has this melting pizza shape.

I think in terms of actionable steps, yes, improving anatomy is a good idea... but also that if we can't even see what's happening due to the comic being so dark and murky, it won't make a difference, hence I'd advise fixing that first.

Getting better at anatomy and stuff is a long road. A couple of quick wins to improve the presentation won't do OP any harm, and might be a bit of a confidence boost.

When I look at things like this:

Yes, there's room for improvement, but the proportions and faces really aren't that bad when OP puts in the effort. On most of the pages, the main issue seems to be a lack of effort, time or attention spent compared to stuff like this. A bit of work learning to apply volumes to anatomical drawing would certainly help give these characters a bit more depth and stuff, but to me the issue is "this person can draw, but needs to actually apply those skills instead of hiding everything in the dark."

So my personal feeling is if we turn on the lights so OP can't hide their scruffy drawing in the dark... and if the better accessibility means more people are looking at the comic... it might help push them to draw to the top end of their abilities more and want to improve to impress that audience?

I do think the issue is that the anatomical issues are being hidden in the dark, yeah. I just feel they may be a wee bit overconfident in their art given their original post so I feel like adding that firm groundness of the work needed in the basics is really important. I think we often don't realize how bad our anatomy can be until we've gotten a good bit better, then we look back and cringe (or I certainly do, lol).

I'm not familiar with Drew Gooden, but I do watch a lot of Twitch -- it seems to be the overall opinion that Twitch is hard to grow on, requires a very specific skillset, and it is a very hard job/place to showcase one's work. Many popular people have tried it out and bounced right off!

IMO, it's a great comparison as both webcomics and Twitch streaming are oversaturated, but glamorized, and often take place on platforms where discoverability isn't super great. However, I'm also of the opinion that if your stuff's really good, it will eventually be hard for people not to find it. Eventually.

Other people have already weighed in with the art style of your comic, so I'll skip that part and say that it's cool you've been banging away at what can be a very unrewarding pursuit for 6 years. I know many, many people quit way before that. I guess the thing I'd say is that rather than try to fix an old project, sometimes it's good to move on to a new one -- with all that you've learned. Maybe a reboot, maybe something entirely new. Especially if you're staring down burnout and multiple redraws, it can be good to take a soul break.

Thanks for the video, btw! I'm going to give it a watch

Honestly, when it comes to comic-making (and art in general) the best thing I learned to do is to compare. Not to stay in the vacuum of your own "I am drawing the best way I can!", but looking at the comics/artworks I consider the best at the moment and ask myself if I am any close to them. If I don't feel I am, I'm adjusting my current course ("I wanna draw better action poses/cooler lighting/better paneling") and proceed. Repeat after a week/month/half a year depending on your satisfaction with the result.

Generally, it's understanding the shape and structure of the human body and being able to portray it believably through art work. It doesn't particularly mean you have to know how draw realistically, though that does help, it just means being able to draw a believable figure in three dimensional space. If anatomy seems too daunting or too obscure of a concept, then I would recommend looking for tutorials (videos, graphics, etc.) that go over how to construct figures from 3D shapes and go from there.

Darthmongoose and everyone already gave such tips, but here's a tiny one that might make a big difference - if it's not stylistic choice, I recommend capitalizing "One(s)" in the title and URL. There's lots of little things that roll up into a big ball of unintentional first impressions that come before art and writing - and a title that feels unprofessional is the first one.

That's the thing too, there are cool comics out there that aren't the most advanced in the fundamentals, but they hit it off with things like polished marketing, contrast, color choice, solid pacing, and that surpasses what an artist might think is the best way to improve. A comic creator (and novel creators considering how much we've got on tapas now, too) needs to wear a couple dozen hats and invest on them as time and patience allows.

Many folks already mentioned art as a key variable for a solid first impression......

But i will suggest an alternative that can work if you are struggling with time:

Maybe you can save some money and hire an artist. I did that for one of my comics that required a more detailed art style i can't currently pull off......

Of course, before any commitment, make sure the person you choose has the skills, discipline and integrity for the job, and save some cash to pay upfront. Is hard to convince someone to go on percentages of future profits.

Most of the folks i've hired and worked with are people i know enough to trust.....Met some of them here in Tapas.....

Personally i don't choose the same artist for all projects, it depends a lot of the skills and art style i need for that project.

Another important thing to mention if you wanna hire an artist is that communication is key. Make sure to be clear on what you want. For comics i do a sketch that is clear and legible and send some notes for details i consider important.

Hope this helps!

i know it is hard to build an audiance, heck im in the same boat, i know im not the best artist around and there are people way better then me,and so on but i do keep trying my best,what i think holds alot back is how the landscape is for webcomics, alot of the more popular titles seem to be more of the romance genre, so for alot of other genres like scifi /fantasy its much harder to get attention