I get it, especially when it's something that got you through hard times. It always triggers my depression when my novel doesn't preform well, but I like your series, and I found it easy to grow attached to it. You got this.

Having read through up to where you're at now, I like the concept you've created, and the artist you've found is incredible, but, and I'm going to be honest here - the grammatical errors in the writing are an issue. I felt my attention sliding away the more I read, which is common when the writing has grammatical problems. Until you can get that sorted, it will limit your readership. Grammar is one of those things which needs to be perfect in order to hook a larger audience beyond other hobbyists.

I'd encourage you to find an editor with solid writing skills, to tidy the grammar in your script. That, or run it through Grammarly. (Less ideal, but it'll still help.) Then, have your artist go back and retroactively change the pages you've released so far with the grammatical fixes. Between the art and the fantasy/dream story, you have something with potential; get the grammar fixed, and I think you'll find it easier to attract readers.

Also, while the Tapas forums are great for promo initially, there are a finite number of people here. You will need to promote your comic further afield if your audience is to continue to grow.

I know this can be hard to hear, but hopefully it helps you do the things necessary to grow your comic once again. You definitely shouldn't give up! Your first project will always be a bumpy ride, because you're still learning. Embrace that, stick at it, and the lessons you learn now will improve everything you do in the future!

Losing subs is never easy. It feels really frustrating, so you have my sympathy!

I do have a feeling for what may be the cause, but you said this thread is mainly to vent, so I don't want to come in and start critiquing if you're not feeling in a healthy head space. Feel free to hit me up if you'd like me to talk it through. I will say this though; it's not that the concept, writing or art are bad. The world building in particular is very rich and I can see a huge amount of thought and effort were put into this comic. I think the problems all stem from pacing, and I can understand how it would be hard to pace what seems like a comic with a lot of depth and from the perspective of a writer rather than the artist. You definitely shouldn't give up after this one false start

I feel your pain. Been in a similar situation a few months ago, when my story went from the somewhat fast-paced prologue + chapter 1 to the much slower chapter 2, in which a new character was being introduced and there was lots of talking. The talking was necessary to bring the story forward, although I do realize that, with only one page a week being published, it made everything look A LOT slower than before. It also didn't help that, during that time, I also started to lose followers instead of getting new ones. Eventually, however, I also realized that:

-A bunch of the followers I lost were just people who subbed expecting me to subscribe back (no, I wasn't participating in "sub4sub" threads). The fun thing was that they barely even interacted with my story (no comments, no likes, NOTHING) and never ever mentioned the fact that they would have liked me to subscribe back, yet for some reason got all pissed off because I wasn't subscribing back and eventually unsubbed from my comic XD once I realized that, I honestly stopped caring. I want people to subscribe because they LIKE the story, not because they want something in exchange. If they subscribe expecting that and aren't even clear about their intentions... their loss XD
-Fantasy is an extremely overcrowded genre. Now more than ever. You're constantly competing against premium series which get constantly promoted on the front page, and even if you make it to the "popular" section... you either have to be in the first two/three rows or people are never gonna notice you. What I did what switching to a less crowded genre: first it was "Mystery"... it granted me a pretty stable place in the "popular" section, but since it's a section nobody seems to care about, I got zero new followers. Now I moved again to the Horror section... I'm still not making big numbers, but I got 2-3 new readers since I made the switch, so perhaps that could work as my new home, lol. I suggest you also try switching your "main" genre to something different.
-As @kaydreamer said, the number of people here is finite. The Tapas forums are a good place to meet fellow creators and talk about comics, but the great majority of Tapas users is not on the forums and probably doesn't even know they exist (I didn't either, when I was just a reader). You definitely need to build an audience elsewhere, using social media, getting real life friends to subscribe or whatever. It's not easy and it takes time, but it definitely helps.

That said, I'll make sure to check your comic! The art is cool and the story seems intriguing

Let me give you some advice. Don't bother with sub for sub. I personally am against sub for sub because it's shallow and yeah people generally aren't going to stay so why waste your time there? You want people who are going to stick around and be interested in your story, and that will only happen if they themselves make the determination of being interested.

There are millions of people on earth and only a very small portion are probably even seeing your comic. This is of course the problem that all artists/writers/creatives face. We shout into the void and hope that someone will see, but in reality the chance of that is small. But that doesn't mean that it's not a possibility at all. You have to be persistent and when something isn't working, try different methods. If you have a budget you can try some paid advertising. There are people out there that will read and be interested in your comic, they just haven't seen it yet.

@Kaydreamer said it best: the art is fantastic and the story has potential despite being in an over saturated genre, but the grammar is definitely going to send a lot of readers away. I personally have stopped reading webcomics where the grammar wasn't good because it's hard to follow and it breaks my immersion. So I agree that having some way to fix the grammar would be a good start.

We're both italians and I also went through the frustration of english speakers telling me to check my grammar but I couldn't do more on my own. At the time, I was working on a game, a visual novel, and went on the Renpy lemmasoft forum searching for help. There, I found many native english speakers willing to help me for free with the editing. You could try something like that. They mainly check videogames but you can see if you're able to find a volunteer for your comic. I'll leave you the link:

https://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewforum.php?f=581

(Than again, to be honest I've seen a lot of garbage - with way worse english than yours - getting success just because it was extremely angsty and kawaii)

(by the way, maybe it was because I was half asleep but I didn't saw any mistakes in your comic, hahahah)

A final suggestion: have you tried publishing your comic on other platforms? Like webtoon, smackjeeves and the like? Try all of them maybe you'll find your ideal audience elsewhere. Your comic looks nice and promising!

I second trying to publish on a different platform! I've mentioned this a few times already, but my comic stats are actually a lot higher on both ComicFury (where I got double the views) and Webtoon (where I got more readers) than they ever were on Tapas, so trying out different platforms might definitely help!

Also, as for finding people who can help you with the grammar... have you considered LangCorrect1? Mind you, I don't use the site (always meant to, never got around to it... I'm Italian too, btw! XD) so I'm not sure how it works exactly/what the community is like on there, but from what I can understand, you write a post in the language you want to learn on there and native speakers can correct you. In exchange, you can correct other people's writings in Italian

Yeah, I perfectly understand your point, I'm on the same boat as you. Unfortunately it's very hard to get people to notice your series and get interested in it. Sometimes I sit down and ask myself: "what am I doing this for?" and then realize that, in the end, I'm just doing it for myself and I might as well give up on it.

The only thing that keeps me going is the fact that creating a series makes me happy and I always try to be confident that it'll attract more people one day.
My main problem is...I really suck at promoting and keeping the series engaging. I don't have much time to work on it and I don't have the right means to push the series either.

In any case, I'm sure it might take some time for you, but your comic will eventually pick up the pace and attract more viewers. The artstyle is really good and the story also has an interesting premise. People should wait a bit longer and let the events unravel a bit further .

A couple of my subs didn't even know what my main protagonist's name was (even though its in the f***ing description and first panel of ep1). Go figure.
Do it for yourself not anyone else.
A single complete stranger reading you and your artists work is an achievement in itself (Webcomics are oversaturated and beyond competitive) just because people unsub or you don't get as many as other works isn't really a reflection on what you are doing.
Try to distance yourself from the stats (biggest mistake is obsessing on the stats)..and focus on what you enjoy.
Its your baby.
Simple as.

I really honestly don't think the grammar is the main issue with this series. I've seen plenty of comics and even novels on Tapas with absolutely awful grammar, some of them even premium series, with big followings. Yes, fixing it would certainly give the comic a boost in professionalism and aid readability, but I'm not sure that alone is the cause of the low subs.

The thing I immediately identified when trying to read this comic as the biggest issue was there's too much telling and not enough showing, which is a really common issue when the writer is the lead on a project and the artist is working off the writer's script.
The comic's scenes go like: Storybook telling the reader a story about something that may or may not have happened (or might be just a metaphor), then it transitions into a mother and child telling the audience that the child can't go into the city, then it goes into a kitchen scene telling the reader there's some kind of deeper plot going on, and then we go to this scene where the military guy monologues, telling the audience a huge infodump.
There's an obvious issue here: Nobody has really done anything on-panel, it's all been people talking about things that have been done. Because of that, the story isn't engaging, in spite of the great art and worldbuilding. Jumping to another character when we've barely just met the character who is probably meant to be the protagonist (the kid) before really getting a handle on what the story is makes it really hard to be emotionally invested.
The comic badly needs a focal point; a character whose emotional journey we can follow, and it needs to have that character do stuff.

Understand that the lore is important, but what needs to be stated is some readers don’t care about that especially at first when actually reading a story.

Yeah it’s important, yes it needs to be said, and again I agree that it’s essential to the story but most readers don’t care about that in comparison to being attached to a actual character first.

And yes, I understand the comic is meant as a anthology for the Real story that comes after but even that aside; you have to write a story for this comic first and that involves character. Readers just don’t care, sadly enough, that the story your writing isn’t really the main story; they sign up for a story first and that involves having a character the audience can follow especially in fantasy stories like this that involves a lot of different fundamentals that aren’t based in our reality.

While I understand as a creator it’s hard to think like a reader when viewing our own work, the way readers think and view works are vastly different than what we want them to think. A struggle I deal with and try to learn and improve on a daily basis

Again the art is great and for me I love how you world built with the scene with child and his mother; but just take into account those certain reader hiccups that could possibly be a issue being depicted in the comic so far

Never said it was lore dump garbage and see you’re getting upset over it, which wasn’t the intention; was just giving feedback that a reader could possibly have issues with when first reading and picking up the series at a passerby glance.

And no need for the caps lock

This thread is just people giving feedback that could be issues and problems, everyone is just trying to help in some way. I’ll end that there though, good luck with your series Fedriz

Hi, mind if I step in for a minute? I've read the posts, your story, and your responses, so I hope I got a good idea of the situation.

Before I came on tapas a creator, I have been a reader for a way longer time. I've read novels and comics and not just on tapas. Also, read on Webtoon and even Wattpad (which I do not recommend). I have read my fair share of works and here is my opinion:

I understand that you need your time to explain the story, introduce the main characters and all, but here's the thing: readers won't give you that time. Myself included. No matter if it's part of the prologue or not, if it is lengthy and doesn't "hook" the readers, they will drop it. I trust you know what you're doing, it's quite interesting (your story) but I look at it from a writer's point of view. Not the reader's view.

What I see (as a reader) are pictures and a bunch of letters and words. When I (as a reader) read a story, I want to know what it is about. Immediately. Maybe if I'm in the correct mood I will give you two or three more chapters, but if I don't know it by then, I will drop it. Simple as that. Stupid, frustrating but there is nothing you can do about it. No one can, unfortunately...

Now, here's my idea on how to help you.
Of course, I don't know what kind of story it will be, but if I'm correct, the further you get into the story, the better readers will understand, because more information will be given. So, maybe (hopefully) it gets better you upload more chapters. You can even take a break to build up a buffer if you need it.

Second, you can also ask the readers in the description of your comic something like: Yo, I know this seems lengthy at first, but I promise it's a good story. Or something similar. Whatever you like.

I have done this in my novel where I break the 4th wall. People were often confused and were like what's going on, so I said in my description: Disclaimer: High levels of sassiness and 4th wall breaking. Read at your own risk! Make it part of your story. By doing this, you prepare the readers already for what is to come.

So, to summarize:
1. Add more chapters. Take a break if needed!
2. Add a sentence to your description, informing and preparing the readers for what's to come.

I hope this helps! And good luck on here!

I understand your frustration because I was once there. and looking at your series you just recently started posting in January of this year. Series don't just blow up overnight it requires time. when i started posting last year July up until now i have 1.7k subs but you can see the timeframe. patience is needed to acquire readers. also just as everyone has mentioned, you can also try other platforms as well if you haven't already done that.

Another mistake people make is they advertise like for some weeks and think they will gain something from that which is wrong. you have to keep it at. if you are paying for advertising then it has to be consistent. Advertising is something that you have to keep doing. not done for a short period of time.

the artwork is good, very pleasant to look at. however, I did see a reader mention that she was confused. i can see what a reader will be confused about because i myself couldn't quite follow and that right there is an instant kill.
I'm sorry i can't speak too much on the editing aspect of this because I'm an artist and not too experienced with this part however i would suggest you maybe get someone that can look over your dialog to see what can be done better. just my two cents i hope it helps.

To state a contrary opinion/encouragement, that you've only been uploading for 2 months and are already at 70 subscribers is actually quite good It might not be the hugest number, sure, but that's much higher and much faster than many other creators reach with their first series on this platform.

For example, I reached the 70 subscriber point at month... 7, according to my dashboard, and even I felt as though my comic was over-performing compared to other new creators

I unfortunately don't have time to read right now as my work day is about to start (others have offered story feedback already anyways), but taking a quick flip through your comic, the artist that you have puts out really solid and eye-catching work! I'm sure if you keep at it, you'll continue to find more readers. Don't let 1 or 2 slow weeks get you down~ On these hosting sites often promotion and getting eyes on your comic in the first place is the hardest fight. Sometimes if you upload and get washed off of the "Fresh" list too fast and don't hit trending your comic may just be invisible for a week.