For me at least, it's one of the most off putting things in comic forums, the thinly veiled attempts at promoting comics. I'm cool when people come up and say 'Hey, I'm new here and this is my comic'. No problem there. I've even found some of my regular reads that way, but when it's 'casually' mentioned... uuuugh... it feels slimy.
That's okay. I can totally understand. When this is what you love it feels like all you have so of course you will do your best to try and promote it. I understand what you were saying.
To be honest, I still live at home with my folks while working almost full time (these sf bay area rent prices) and whenever I create some new art I show them it as soon as possible and they usually get annoyed by it 
Oh yeah. There's a time and place to mention your comic. If you are showing off new pages or if you participate in a "review my comic and I'll review yours" type of thread, then yeah go for it!
@kurapikasuki Wow...some people eh?
@Michelle Agreed. For example my comic Life of an Aspie deals with Asperger's Syndrome so if someone on the forums made a thread about autism, it would make sense in context to talk about LoaA.
it should be remembered that some people don't do art for a hobby but for a living so promotion of the comic leads to commissions needed to pay bills and such boring things as living.
Yes, but promotion works best when it is delivered to a receptive audience. Over-promoting and spamming your comic has the reverse effect of people avoiding it because it's constantly shoved in their faces at unwanted times.
I agree that it can get annoying and that people tend to do it in the wrong threads, but just like any other creator they wish to have an audience and I'm my opinion that's okay. I mean this is a website about indie comics after all. The only time when I have a problem with advertising is if people do it on my profile, private message, or in my series comments.
This! I have no problem with people promoting their stuff on the forum, but yeah, when they use my comic's comments to promote (if I haven't asked for people to suggest comics) is more off-putting to me :B
I'm all for promoting. I mean it's 90% of the work and other is actually making the comic.
There's a time and a place for promoting, I don't think pushing it in a conversation is one of them (maybe in the right context)
Also, people like that probably don't know the best places to promote either.
I find the most annoying people do to promote is, when they send you message to talk, and they just talk about their comic.
Hey it might be great, but I'm not invested enough in you to give a damn. Bad as it sounds.
Go where your target is man
i was seriously w8 for a comment like " yeah man people who promote their work like that are so lame , id never post my"insert the name of the comic" comic like that .what a bunch of weirdoos
I only try to promote on a post that has to do with promoting your comic. Going on random threads is just attention seeking and really horrible. At least it isn't as bad as commenting on someone's piece of work and going "wow, nice. Here's my comic: please check it outtt!!! XD"
I may only mention something that's similar or related to my comic (without providing a link to mine), only if the other creator is a good friend of mine and we have already read each other's works (and even then, I try not to go on that long about it). If it's someone I don't really know, but there's some kind of funny similarity I may want to point out, I would PM them so it wouldn't seem like a public promotion (and for such a thing, I wouldn't be doing it to have someone read my comic in return. I've once commented in a PM to someone how eerily similar our comic themes seemed, and we had a good laugh about it).
I really find that the best place to promote is twitter though. If other people like your promotions enough, they'll respond with likes, follows, and most importantly, retweets (which really helps if they have a lot of followers). It's separate enough from tapastic, that you don't have to feel as weird or invasive about just mentioning your comic, but even still on a platform like that, you have to avoid being spammy. I just think you can be a little more open, especially when it comes to comic chats like #ComicBookHour and #WebComicChat.
THIS IS ME AAAAAAAAA
btw have u read my comic3 ;;;;;;;;^)
(I never really took it as sad or desperate, people just want other people to see their work since it's something they pour a lot of time and heart into. They just wanna share it with people and seeing their views spike after dropping a link is always a good feeling. tbh the only place it's REALLY not welcome is when it's promoted in someone else's comics' comment section. Other than that it's pretty useless to get mad at people promoting their comics on a comic forum.....)
I find the most annoying people do to promote is, when they send you message to talk, and they just talk about their comic. Hey it might be great, but I'm not invested enough in you to give a damn. Bad as it sounds.
^ This is one of the many reasons why I've never been able to make any close friends on this site. All of my private messages eventually morph from small conversations into advertisements and I feel like I'm being denied a normal human interaction.
At least it isn't as bad as commenting on someone's piece of work and going "wow, nice. Here's my comic: please check it outtt!!! XD"
^ THIS HAPPENS TO ME! OMFG! The worst I've ever had of this billboard behavior was when someone went into my comments and kept trying to convince my readers that his work was just like mine and to go check it out. And I'm like sitting there thinking "This is my life now? This is my ACTUAL life now?"
Ahaha! sure is a compelling thread. If you guys like meta-commentary on webcomic communities, you should totally read my webcomic!3 It totally has something3 or whatever3 relevant to the topic3 being discussed! For instance, in that it's a webcomic!3
But yeah, I sort of figure there's a line of good taste? Attention on tapastic can result in ad revenue, there's money on the line, I understand that a lot of people GO to the forums specifically to promote and there's nothing wrong with that. The stuff I'm seeing about folks shamelessly stumping in comments sections is a bit more shocking though.
...
Ok, I gotta say, this thread a little bitter. The tapastic community is known for being very friendly and open but lately, a fair few threads like this have been popping up that make me very uncomfortable. I can understand sometimes something grinds your gears and you need to vent, I've been guilty of that too but I can't see how this is constructive or help the community. It is rather a hostile approach to curbing activities in the community you disapprove of by making people feel uncomfortable to 'step out of line' .
All I can say is that Iwould never casually mention my comic: https://tapastic.com/series/magicadvisor like that... 
I know I'm probably stating the obvious here, but Tapastic and its forums are directly entirely at webcomics. Reading webcomics and creating webcomics and pretty much anything related to that. It's pretty much the sole purpose of this website. So yes, you are going to get people shamelessly plugging their comic and talking about their comic and bugging you about their comic and dropping links about their comic and ZOMG check out my comic!! Some etiquette might be appreciated, but name dropping their comic isn't a bad thing. If someone is sabotaging your thread or the comment section in your comic, fine call them out on it. But stop whining about something that the website encourages. If you don't want your conversation about pizza to turn into a conversation about someones pizza loving character don't post your pizza conversation on a forum about comics. =_=
You might not have said pathetic but I could see "the desperation is sad and hilarious" being interpreted as such.
It can be a problem if people are spamming links to their comics in every thread without engaging with the community, but it's healthy for people to want to share the thing they worked hard on. I know when I was in college I always felt awkward about sharing links to my comic because I thought it seemed needy, but I'm so glad I've gotten over that because it helped me gain readers and make friends in the comic community. Spam is bad, but talking about your comic on a comic forum is normal.
