Several people were rather baffled when I first approached them. A good few just never responded to my invitation. I was ready for that to be quite common, and made sure to do something for a friend of a friend to have as an example before approaching complete strangers. My plan was always to try to work out how I could somehow overdeliver with the first work-in-progress, the idea that even if I seemed a little sketchy, hopefully my music wouldn't
I'm really glad that I managed to boost interest in your work! You did definitely exploit it as content, and a starting point for fan interactions more than many.
I wouldn't say it's my "eye" that's to blame, so much as the playing field itself, though. Scroll by fresh on Tapas and every screen has 10 works on it. Roughly two of those will have a 5-figure+ number of likes. A good few will have several thousand. Of the ones that remain, most will be only recently started. Does this mean that long-lasting comics get popular? Or that comics that don't reward the creator early on don't last?
The optimist in me says it's "both but mostly the latter". Though I didn't use it much, I checked webtoon for the purposes of this little side-investigation (I was starting to publish my own comic when I started Yukon, so I had my reasons) - it's a similar story. So many times I added comics with one or two updates to my library thinking "damn I look forward to doing this one in a couple of months", only for it to never update again.
I was looking for comics I deemed 'underrated'. This wasn't the same as comics that could be said to have gone 'under-rewarded', but there's an almost perfect overlap. 'Underrated' is personal to me, and is a smaller group, partially based on where I felt my strengths lay at the time. @ar-ninetysix is right - I composed so much over lockdown at times I definitely did miss my 'Yukon fix' of orchestrated/electronic music with a rising "superhero" chord progression .
'Under-rewarded', however, is pretty objective. We can measure it - it's just any comic that goes a long time without some 'concrete' appreciation, and by 'concrete' I mean something you can come back to, that isn't just some abstract thing like a 'like'. Immediately you'll notice that in this definition is one assumption: "goes a long time".
There aren't nearly as many comics in this position as one might expect. Like I say, sorting by new, it's mostly comics that have either just started, or are really quite successful.
Only one creator I worked with gave up on their comic during 2020 - I have no basis to say whether or not them missing my messages with my WIPs in for several months had anything to do with this, but it was an odd coincidence that those two things befell the same person. I would also add that if Yukon can be said to have provided 'rewards' to 'under-rewarded comics', these were not simply 'concrete' rewards, but 'surprising' ones, and a large chunk of their value came from that surprise, hence why I've taken to referring to them as 'gifts' from time to time.
I can't claim to have 'saved' any comic artists from quitting. Under-rewarded comics are the comics that go on to be successful - my 'eye' for a comic that's likely to gather attention from readers is only as good at spotting "up and coming comic talent" from lineups of under-rewarded comics as it is at spotting kids who will go to Oxford out of lineups of white British private high school children whose parents pay for extra music lessons. (But, thank you for the compliment nonetheless )
On the contrary, I believe this reflects primarily on my own biases. From what glimpses of offline lives I got from the people I worked with, under-rewarded comic creators also unanimously seemed to be in a position in their offline lives that supported and accommodated their craft: making a comic and doing art had long been a "way of life" for all of them. I would often pick this up through authors' notes and other links, and choose those artists on the basis of people I figured I'd like to work with.
I feel like this is an alright way to go about such things - strangers having a miserable time starting comics and giving up is bad, and I totally relate - everyone goes through phases of wanting to give up - but I'm not some superhero who can fix that. If my efforts were to go towards that goal (they weren't... I just wanted to make some friends, good music, and have a bit of fun), they were best assigned wherever my actual motivations (friends, good music etc.) chose to put them, so that when I finished (just now) I would feel motivated to do more again in the future (I do).
The optimist in me wants to make the case that making the prospect of tangible 'reward' a likely enough prospect for a large chunk of the world's under-rewarded webcomic creators is not an unreasonable goal. And, by making it a talked-about prospect the retention of creators, and overall number of under-rewarded creators would naturally increase as creators naturally came to find community in the search for the rewards that seemed likely or achievable, meaning more comics in the world for people to enjoy.
When I first discovered the webcomic creating community I thought "wow this community is so nice and supportive I want to compose music for these people". Yukon answered my question as to why it was so supportive: the community that exists does so because we're the few who stuck with our comics and so we know what being unsupported feels like, and so seek reassurance in each other.
But, I get ahead of myself, and this is now a very long way off your original point sorry
Collaborations and music+visuals ftw though. I don't know where I'd be without those. Also, you were the only person to nominate anyone. While I enjoyed combing through the fresh tab, sourcing comics through the contacts of other artists built some small community around the project, so I completely agree - more emphasis on nominations is definitely something I'd love to do.
I'm so proud to have worked with everyone I worked with honestly I don't think I could avoid shouting people out tbh.
Also, thank you for listening! It is a lot of comics in there - it took me a year to read them all, so I should know!