Why continue a story when you don’t have viewers?

I agree with you wholeheartedly on that! And I think Tales From Swipe City is very underrated, I am a subscriber and am very much enjoying the ride so far btw xD!

Writing and drawings comics is something I got heavily in to back in highschool while I was dealing with a number of health issues. I was too ill to really get out and do things back then so reading and creating webcomics was my only real outlet. It has been a mega stress relief component in my life overall and I think if you're passionate about something, you would want keep at it for the sake of wanting to do it I guess.

Making comics is something I also enjoy. When i took a l break from it for a month for personal reasons I always felt like something was missing. I draw because i like to and it gives my life meaning. There will always be at least one reader who follows your work no matter how popular or underrated it is. You have to socialize with other comic artist and general artists. My new years's resolution for this year is advertise smarter not harder. Meaning being more social with other artists, doing art trades and seeking art opportunities outside of comics.

when this happen, when this question came back, when we become victim about the "need 2 be celeb" "demon"... i, or u if u acept this idea, we have to go back to the origin and ask "why i draw?"
i draw to express myself, sometime to live or live-again some good emotions or to exorcise some bad feelings. its not for others. it's for me.
none like? amen! it's quite sad, but the fuel/reason about why i draw it s the wish to draw my emotion, NOT the will to be famous or got viewers. imho this answer ll destroy that stupid question in a moment.

i mean... everybody love be liked, no doubt. and it s damn "effective". when we learn this feeling, when we learn to be apreciated ...its damn good!!! but this feeling (be apreciated) too many times blackout the original "why to draw" and here u are.

pursue the way to own many viewers its ok, but it must not be the main reason to draw.

last thing:
this problem it very complicated.
it's not easy give all the reasons or help, but this imho its a good start to save ourself.

I think I can offer a perspective from the other side of things... as someone who DID give up when my comics didn't get any subscribers... twice.

And it basically just came down to... making comics isn't my passion. Sure, I love drawing, and at one point in my life drawing comics really helped me, but that was years ago. And if I'm being honest, the only reason I started drawing comics again was because I found this site and I thought it would be easy to become "famous" (and maybe make money).

My passion is writing, and I'll continue to do that even if I never become famous, just because I love it. If you're really feeling discouraged maybe you need to take a step back and really think about why you're doing this. Is it because you truly love it? Then you'll persevere, and you'll get better, and hopefully one day you'll have a lot of viewers. If it's just to be famous or to make a living with it, then maybe that's something you need to consider.

Also, I thought this subject was addressed brilliantly by a youtuber:

"All art does have an audience, even if it's just an audience of 1. You. If you worry too much about getting a huge following you may not feel as fulfilled by your art as you could. And if that's all you care about then even your audience of 1 won't enjoy the finished product." (Magicturtle643, "Art Doesn't Need an Audience!")

My comic is quite random, so I understand if I don't have many viewers or subscribers reading it. But I still have fun making it, and that's pretty much all the motivation I need for making comics

That and forcing my friends to read it whenever a new episode comes out XD

I keep doing it because i know i'll get better. writing and drawing is something that i have decided that i am going to do. I think everyone, and i do mean everybody who writes or does comics has feelings like these. I'm like the most ridiculously motivated person that i know! But in the end it will be those people who keep pushing on no matter what that become successful, there's work involved yeah, you might have to change a few things, but you'll have kept going.

It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.
- Confucius ,

Just remember: everyone is famous to 14 people on the Internet. If you're there, then you're doing fairly well. If you want it to get better, my take on it is you need a sizeable chunk of material (let's say, 50 pages or more), and effort put into advertising, attending cons, and social media presence. I have been working on my comic for 2.5 years now, and I have something like 70 viewers here on Tapastic. Is it worth the effort? You tell me. One thing I know - when I reach a good number of pages, I plan to dump some cash into advertising, but before then, I have to sit tight and keep working to improve my craft. I think there's a reason all the famous cartoonists have balding heads.

I think, it's more "If to stop" question, rather than "why continue". I've had the same doubts not a long ago (actually, when introduced my comic here, on Tapastic) and there's the answer I gave myself -

Ok, Lizard, you faced the horrible truth - your comic, probably, isn't great. People see it and walk away. And it's time to consider, what is your comic to you. Is it just a Hobby? Are you doing it for your own amusement, and it's no different from a papercrafts or glueing models? But if you concerned with readership, it's probably not just to kill some time. So, Is it a business? You hope to have some kind of income from cartooning, so you invest into your comic - time, knowledge, actual money (domain, server space, promotion, maybe printing costs) and you want to get something out of your investment. And when you see that you don't have what it takes to go (semi)professional - possibly you should stop. Unless - you consider your comic as a School. Your comic might become your very own Center for Cartoon Studies (or Kubert school - depends what kind of comics you are into). You still investing time, money and effort. But the knowledge and experience is what you get in return. And then you should stop only if you don't wanna learn.

I still want to learn a new things, and I like my character and I believe in it's potential - so I choose to carry on. =)

It's frustrating putting time and work into something and feeling like there's no payoff, yeah, but for me I love writing, I love art. I wanted to write something that would grow into the kind of thing I really wanted to read when I was younger, or really needed to hear when I was younger. Even if 1 or 2 people are the only ones who takes something away from my stuff even if it's just a chuckle, I'm alright.

When you want to quit, remember why you started. Tends to help me.

I know this will sound harsh but... you just started your comic less than a week ago. If this is all that it takes to discourage you, understanding that there are thousands of comics here, established, competing for the same viewers, then maybe you should stop now.

It's too early in the game for you to make such a call, unless your heart isn't in it.

@sophiejantak said it differently but if it's a struggle for you now, stop before you are too disappointed.

I know that this is not the advise that you want. You'd probably rather have me have pity for you and encourage you to keep at it. I usually do for other creators, but not for someone who has like just a few pages and has been around less than a week.

If it had been a year and you were in such a situation, my reaction would be different. But you haven't even started...

You have a distinctive voice but you don't seem to have the patience to let it develop.

I don't think any creator should look at any project is the one that is going to get them where they want to be. BUT there are so many comics that I could tell had a slow start that grew into something amazing. Basically I know that if I get tired of laboring away with one story or comic that I can shift my energy to another. I think a lot of people get too invested in their series and don't allow them to grow the way they should and get stuck in a rut.

I've made a lot of strides with my art since starting my comic, but I am constantly frustrated that my comic doesn't have any real substance (it's a gag a day of sorts) I continue It mostly at this point because it's a challenge and all that I have time for.

Well the hardest part of making anything is starting. However if you're past that, the second hardest part in creating is just sticking with it, even if your number count is low.

For if you don't start, you can never find out where you are, and you can never improve. And you can never improve if you don't keep moving forward.

My art used to look like this:

Just a total train wreck looking back on it. I didn't know how bad I was until I got better, and I didn't get better until I kept going.
Now I make stuff like this:

So if you persevere, you will find yourself getting better if you put enough effort in getting better.
I'm not anywhere close to perfect, but at least I can spot where I need improvement.

Tip: I had to post links to every site I'm on. Hoping they would click on it and give it a chance.

When I first started drawing I was just drawing for fun. Then my friends use to read my comic or looked through my sketch book and told me to try art galleries and cons.

But I felt my art wasn't good enough (still am). But after a while from reading manga I've found sites of webcomic done by odinary people like me.

So I decided to make a comic to, for the first few days I only got a few view before I started to get readers. And seeing new subscribers suprises me because that means that there are people out there who enjoy my work

Personally, I don't really worry about subscribers. I tend to create for myself.
I would want to share it with others. Give them a different perspective, without forcing them to subscribe or whatsoever. If they want to, then okay.
If they don't want to, then okay.

But it is important to communicate with your readers no matter what.

It sounds gumpy but I do it for my characters more than anyone. Like I have a huge story and world to create, simply to get it out my head. If I was my only reader I'd still enjoy reading it myself. Back before the internet was a thing I'd draw huge comics as a kid and only be able to share them with a couple of my school friends. These days I'm spoiled. But I appreciate it all.

OCD gotta finish it or it will always be in my mind haunting me.

When I was little I used to draw whole boxes of comic pages without feeling the need for anyone at all to see them. I just enjoyed making them and I enjoyed reading them back to myself later, and because I was a kid I had no expectation that they'd be anything more than that. I'd really love to get back into that mindset.

I started Captain Ufo1 for training, among other things. I started my career as a comic book artist, then the world economic crisis hit, a lot of small comics I worked for closed, so I had to start doing something else to pay my bills. I've never been happy with that, especially when I discovered how much of my art skills went down the toilet simply because I stopped using them. So I decided to start a webcomicto keep myself trained, and that's what kept me going even through the fisrt months, when no one cared about our series. Also, I'd hate to leave the story unfinished.

To add to what people are saying here about success doesn't come early --- I have never had many followers and I went to some marketing panels when I was at a con to see if there was something I could be doing differently. Most of the panelists said that it took them over a decade of dedicated work before they really started seeing results.

In my opinion, first you need to really take some time for yourself to figure out what you want. This doesn't happen quickly. I mean over the course of a few weeks or months just keep it in the back of your head that you are trying to figure out what you truly want and what you would like to get in return for all of your hard work. Do you want fame and acceptance? Are you doing it for financial purposes? Want your story to be heard? Or like others have mentioned, is it just therapeutic for you?

Once you are absolutely sure what you want, define some very clear and detailed goals. I want 1000 subscribers, or 100,000 likes, or I want my comic to earn me 50K per year, or I want 10,000 people to view every comic I post. Just make sure it is very clear. This will make it easier to identify steps you need to take towards achieving your goal.

Having a clear understanding of your wants and having a clear goal to work towards should give you all the motivation you need. For me, I'm just getting started and have no followers and little traffic to my website. But I'm hungry and will keep going as long as I need to until all of my goals are reached.

Good luck to you!!!

For me I follow my sensei Kubo Tite's statement during an interview that even though people don't enjoy your work that you should keep on doing what you enjoy

Because man,i have an artistic flow,i want people to see my story, even if it's just one person,i wanna share my imagination with the world man.

Why continue my story?... Because I do it for myself. Any readers I get is a bonus, simple as that.

Success can be a very relative thing. I once heard someone said that first you have to be successful at your craft, then loads people will chase you down the street while they try to rip your clothes off.
Can only speak for myself (and voice my own subjective opinions), but the main reason I started making comics is because it is lots of fun. The most satisfying part of it is simply making the thing. And then try to make something better the next time. In my opinion making something you really love to work on will always be beneficial. Rather than making something to suit other peoples taste. Then you will really put yourself into the thing, and maybe come up with something very distinctive and personal. Or maybe even something completely new. That is often what makes me remember a comic or a piece of art. It can really show and add to the finished work. In the comics that have had the biggest impact on me it looks like the artist had a great time when he/she did it (Moebius' Airtight Garage is a great example). It is hard, hard work. And it takes lots and lots of time. But that seems to be the case with most things that are worth doing. Have been posting art online for 6 years (3 years of posting comics) and it hasn't actually been like strapping myself to a giant booster rocket. Have been on tumblr since 2011 and are only pushing 300 followers now 5 years later. But it is slowly growing. And I know there are at least a few people out there that enjoy it.

Also, I know very well if I'm not allowed to draw I turn into a grumpy little gnome.

Sometimes its' because friends may run into your comics time-to-time and would enjoy watching them. Other times, its because you have a full-fledged story that it would be devastating for you to just cancel despite not having an audience. It is possible to become a fan of your own work, and having the passion to finish it is like a dream-come-true, regardless of who sees it or not.

For me its all for objective why you draw, 15 years ago when I was still new to comic, I draw for fun and self-satisfy. I got lots of idea and I want it to be in visual, so that's why I draw. That time, there's no people to read them and even there's but quite a few. Eventually when your drawing skill improve, reader will grow and some of them will get in touch you and interact. Your fanbase will grow as well as your drawing skills.