#hosted site

[genericpuff]

Tbh at this point you should just make your own webcomic app/website because it would probably be 100 times better than whatever going on with webtoon right now.

hahaha it wouldn't tho, sorry 💀

Here's the fundamental issue with webcomic platforms that a lot of people just don't realize (and why they're so difficult to run successfully):

Storage costs are incredibly expensive, it's why so many sites have limitations on file sizes / page sizes / etc. because all of those images and site info have to be stored somewhere, which costs $$$.

Maintenance costs are expensive and get more so as you grow, you need people who are capable of fixing bugs ASAP and managing the servers and site itself

Financially speaking, webcomics are in a state of high supply, low demand. Loads of artists are willing to create their passion projects, but getting people to read them and pay for them is a whole other issue. Demand is high in the general sense that once people get attached to a webtoon they'll demand more, but many people aren't actually willing to go looking for new stuff to read and depend more on what sites feed them (and what they already like). There are a lot of comics to go around and thus a lot of competition with a limited audience of people willing to actually pay for them.

Trying to build a new platform from the ground up is incredibly difficult and a majority of sites fail within their first year. Not only do you have to convince artists to take a chance on your platform, you have to convince readers to come. Readers won't come if there isn't work on the platform to read, but artists won't come if they don't think the site will be worth it due to low traffic numbers. This is why the artists with large followings who are willing to take chances on the smaller sites are crucial, but that's only if you can convince them to use the site in favor of (or alongside) whatever platform they're using already where the majority of their audience lies. For many creators it's just not worth the time, energy, or risk.

Even if you find short-term success, in the long-term there are always going to be profit margins to maintain. The more users you pull in, the more storage is used by incoming artists, the more you have to spend on storage and server maintenance costs, and that means either taking the risk at crowdfunding (ex. ComicFury) or having to resort to outsider investments (ex. Tapas). Look at SmackJeeves, it used to be a titan in the independent webcomic hosting community, until it folded over to a buyout by NHN and then was pretty much immediately shuttered due to NHN basically turning it into a manwha scanlation site and driving away its entire userbase. And if you don't get bought out and try your hand at crowdfunding, you may just wind up living on a lifeline that could cut out at any moment, like what happened to Inkblazers (fun fact, the death of Inkblazers was what kicked off the cultural shift in Tapas around 2015-16 when all of IB's users migrated over and brought their work with them which was more aimed towards the BL and romancee drama community, rather than the comedy / gag-a-day culture that Tapas had made itself known for... now you deadass can't tell Tapas apart from a lot of scanlation sites because it got bought out by Kakao and kept putting all of its eggs into the isekai/romance drama basket.)

Right now the mindset in which artists and readers are operating is that they're trying way, way too hard to find a "one size fits all" site. Readers want a place where they can find all their favorite webtoons without much effort, artists wants a place where they can post to an audience of thousands, and both sides want a community that will feel tight-knit. But the reality is that you can't really have all three of those things, not on one site. Something always winds up having to be sacrificed - if a site grows big enough, it'll have to start seeking more funding while also cutting costs which will result in features becoming paywall'd, intrusive ads, creators losing their freedom, and/or outsider support which often results in the platform losing its core identity and alienating its tight-knit community.

If I had to describe what I'm talking about in a "pick one" graphic, it would look something like this:

(*note: this is mostly based on my own observations from using all of these sites at some point or another, they're not necessarily entirely accurate to the statistical performance of each site, I can only glean so much from experience and traffic trackers LMAO that said I did ask some comic pals for input and they were very helpful in helping me adjust it with their own takes <3).

The homogenization of the Internet has really whipped people into submission for the "big sites" that offer "everything", but that's never been the Internet, it relies on being multi-faceted and offering different spaces for different purposes. And we're seeing that ideology falter through the enshittification of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. where users are at odds with the platforms because the platforms are gutting features in an attempt to satisfy shareholders whom without the platforms would not exist. Like, most of us aren't paying money to use social media sites / comic platform sites, so where else are they gonna make the necessary funds to keep these sites running? Selling ad space and locking features behind paywalls.

And this is especially true for a lot of budding sites that don't have the audience to support them via crowdfunding but also don't have the leverage to ask for investments - so unless they get really REALLY lucky in EITHER of those departments, they're gonna be operating at a loss, and even once they do achieve either of those things there are gonna be issues in the site's longevity, whether it be dying from lack of growing crowdfunding support or dying from shareholder meddling.

So what can we do?

We can learn how to take our independence back. We don't have to stop using these big platforms altogether as they do have things to offer in their own way, particularly their large audience sizes and dipping into other demographics that might not be reachable from certain sites - but we gotta learn that no single site is going to satisfy every wish we have and we have to be willing to learn the skills necessary to running our own spaces again. Pick up HTML/CSS, get to know other people who know HTML/CSS if you can't grasp it (it's me, I can't grasp it LOL), be willing to take a chance on those "smaller sites" and don't write them off entirely as spaces that can be beneficial to you just because they don't have large numbers or because they don't offer rewards programs. And if you have a really polished piece of work in your hands, look into agencies and publishing houses that specialize in indie comics / graphic novels, don't settle for the first Originals contract that gets sent your way.

For the last decade corporations have been convincing us that our worth is tied to the eyes we can bring to them. Instead of serving ourselves, we've begun serving the big guys, insisting that it has to be worth something eventually and that it'll "payoff" simply by the virtue of gambler's fallacy. Ask yourself what site is right for you and your work rather than asking yourself if your work is good enough for them. Most of us are broke trying to make it work on these sites anyways, may as well be broke and fulfilled by posting in places that actually suit us and our work if we can. Don't define your success by what sites like Webtoons are enforcing - that definition only benefits them, not you.

[wordpressdotcom]

It's time to transfer those domains you have with Google. First million on us. https://bit.ly/3KOdZpZ

[og-elias]

I simply think that if a company decides to remove a show from their platform entirely, they should have to give the rights and the digital copy of that show back to the creators. The fact that the creators of Infinity Train, OKKO, and Mao Mao have no access to the work they put so much money and effort into is completely absurd.

[wistfulvulpine]

For @merlintarotfest

3 Fyodor Pavlov Tarot + 1 The Citadel Oracle:

Knight of Wands - Ace of Swords - The Chariot - The Hunter

Also on AO3 for the Collection

[anachronism-ahitzine]

Zine live now! Google Drive [Link] Raw files [Link]

[evidence-of-the-unknown]

[ID: A scene with Murphy, a pale woman with wild hair, standing at a payphone. She is holding the phone to her ear, looking distressed. The background has a simple silhouette of an empty desert landscape. Evidence of the Unknown is written in the upper left corner.]

Murphy Nye is obsessed with finding proof of alien life, so much so that she’s isolated herself in the process. 

When a real alien shipwreck practically falls at her feet, she has to re-evaluate not just her expectations of the alien, but her relationships with other humans. The fate of both their worlds may be at stake, after all.

Evidence of the Unknown is a new science fiction webcomic series, publishing one page a week starting next week! New updates will be both on tumblr and other sites as I get them set up!

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Is Welcome Home website already open or it moved? I try to open it but it only give me a error or something like that.

its Gone! she was taken out back and shot <3

[andthendk]

❤️‍🔥‘23 Damirae Smxtweek (no theme)❤️‍🔥

@damirae-sauce-week

So....long time no see 🌶️🌶️?? it's been a while since I've done straight up spice spice 😂 IT GETS WEIRD REAL FAST FOR ME OKAY?? That being said, reminders -

❤️‍🔥Tap link at your own discretion, you have been warned this is NSFW+

❤️‍🔥Again, RESPONSIBLE viewing only

❤️‍🔥All characters depicted as adults, hence the longer hair and different physique

🔽🔽🔽🔽

link

welp! see y'all nasties on the other side of hell

haha jk enjoy 🩷

[transfem-kirito-truther]

Okay, I NEED to know where you got that hotsprings Kirito image from...

Like, how are we supposed to see that as anything other than 'shes a girl'? Shes covering her chest and everything!!

okay so. I’m fairly certain it’s for one of the apps since it has the same ratio as the other app renders? There were a few other renders of other characters in the same situation so that’s how I decided it was official art. This is the most of the set I could find ^^

Other than that, I don’t know. Sorry!!

[jukemaid]

imagine destroying your entire online community rep and years of personal dev work bc you got mad at a teenager

[bonefall]

Hi Bones! In light of Everything happening on tumblr (Trans debacle, vaguing about pulling the plug, midjourney), what are the plans for this blog's future? Not even just like immediately, more of a 'if tumblr one day just stopped existing, where should we look' sorta thing?

Head's up: blog is a little slow because I got bowled over by a depressive episode (I'm fine, this is my normal) + studying for some exams.

But I'm watching the fire with my fuzzy pajamas and a cup of coffee, backing up my drafts, downloading an updated archive (you can do this in your blog settings), and if the hammer explodes the car I will go to Cohost.

[wordpressdotcom]

It’s time to transfer those domains you have with Google. First million on us, while it lasts. https://bit.ly/469owUY

[chloefraazers]

nil + being somft™ with aloy | Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) & Horizon Forbidden West (2022)

[genericpuff]

on the closure of MochaJump, and why we're our own worst enemies in this industry.

"MochaJump? What was that?" is probably your first question, and I'm gonna simply respond with, "Exactly."

MochaJump was a small startup platform made by /u/nunojay2 and a second site engineer (whose name I am not informed of) on reddit. It wasn't anything extraordinary, just a startup site that aimed to offer a more viable alternative to Webtoons and Tapas, with a focus on offering equal visibility to creators, focused recommendation algorithms, loosened restrictions on NSFW content, and bigger cuts for creators on their generated revenue.

Of course, such promises are a tall order, but the creator did their best to host regular discussions with creators in art and webtoon communities to get feedback on what creators really wanted out of their platforms, and they researched what they would need to make in order to keep the site afloat (it came out pretty low at $2 per user per month). Hopes were high and the site launched with a small but eager userbase.

It stayed small. The site shut down in November 2022, just 6 months after launching in May 2022.

Now, I'm not gonna sit here on some soapbox and blame anyone for the site closing down. I unfortunately didn't get much chance to use the site myself so there's surely more I could have done on my own part to help it gain traction. But this is a regular occurrence for start-ups like this, especially in an industry that's as notoriously unprofitable as webcomics. We've seen titans such as SmackJeeves and Inkblazers fall, and MochaJump was merely an infant by comparison.

But it makes me think of how we view and treat these startups as a whole. How we as readers and creators alike have become so trained to exclusively use corporate platforms like Webtoons and Tapas on the promise of "bigger gains". Unlike these bigger companies, platforms like MochaJump depend on building a strong userbase as quickly as possible, and need to find ways to generate revenue to keep things running, otherwise it's only a matter of time before they close down. They don't have a massive conglomerate like Naver or Kakao to pad their pockets through their failures. They don't have the money or reach to inject themselves into society through bus terminal ads and convention sponsorships. They don't have the investors to sink money into their platform until it becomes profitable in return.

So we don't use them. Readers don't use them because we don't see the point in using a platform that has no content... and thus creators don't use them because we don't see the point in publishing our content on a platform with no userbase. Creators seek a place that's "tight knit" and "easy to get seen", but will only post to places that come pre-loaded with massive audiences; because it's not enough anymore to have a couple hundred followers, we're in 2023 now, in the year of consumer bloat, where we expect to now pull in thousands if not millions to be considered a "success". And readers seek a place that offers high-quality high-amount content at the tip of their fingertips, but don't want to pay for the access to these works, and in the case of apps like WT, have given up in trying to support these creators through the platforms themselves because they know that those artists they want to support will likely never see a dime.

The fact of this problem is simple, yet many people seem to ignore it - we cannot expect to have a platform that is tight knit, profitable, and sustainable. These places do not exist, not so long as we continue to raise the bar on what makes a "successful" subscriber count, not so long as we continue to patronize platforms that exploit their artists and writers, and not so long as we keep chasing the dragon of "what these websites used to be". These platforms never used to 'be' anything, they merely existed in one point of time that is now long gone, when owning a smartphone was a luxury and not a need, when online video content wasn't being tethered together by ads, and when the Internet wasn't owned and entirely managed by the same three corporations, the likes of which we haven't seen since cable TV.

Platforms like Tapas and Webtoons are - besides unsustainable - unable to exist and profit in the way they do without undercutting someone along the way. Whether it's underpaying their creators, undercutting their communities, or underexposing the works that have been buried, someone will get the shit hand in the deal and that someone is usually ALWAYS someone who will rarely ever stand to gain anything in the long run from using these platforms despite their issues. The 1% got theirs, and the 10% are barely getting by, while the remaining 89% are pushing onwards, because they have faith in the systemic online enshittification that demands conformity to a single formula for "success".

We are our own worst enemies in this industry. Webcomics are one of the few online mediums that still truly belong to the people - anyone can make them, anyone can find joy in them, but we're letting platforms like Webtoons and Tapas and all the other massive corporate apps rob us of that joy and accessibility in the pursuit of "success" and profiting. Webtoons was never the sole way to profit off this medium and yet I still see people every day who underestimate the existence of legitimate publishing houses and self-publishing, who think that publishing on Webtoons and landing an Originals deal is the only way to find success in this industry. This is meant to be the era of creators, of self-starting and self-actualization, and yet we're still handing all of that control over to corporations that only seek to exploit our art, bodies, and labor, while convincing ourselves that this will somehow all be worth it. We stick with Webtoons, despite the numerous controversies it's been involved in and the lack of support it's given even its own hired creators. We stick with Tapas, despite the undercutting of its most core components such as its community and the outlier genres it used to be known for hosting. We find new ways to justify using platforms that are steadily going downhill - Patreon, Twitter/X, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook - because we've been convinced that these are the routes to success, so if we acknowledge their failures, then "success" can no longer exist.

Because we need to pay rent. Because we need to eat. Because we need to survive. Because it's a lot more complicated than just "stepping away". Because the startups just don't have any of the surface level potential for us to immediately identify and get on board with, so we don't give them a chance.

I realize this post got very existential and depressing. I've been creating comics for well over a decade now, largely unnoticed, and I've fallen victim to these same limiting mindsets that we have to stick to one way, one "formula" for success - a formula that changes with the wind and only works for those who get in on the ground floor. It's been slowly killing me from the very beginning, robbing me of my joy to create, of my reason to even do this in the first place - to tell and share stories with others, to express myself creatively, to live my life surrounded by art and stories and creations made by and for others. It's made me tired and miserable, and I can tell it's done the same to those who have shared that boat with me.

But there's one silver lining I can always be sure of, and it's one I was reminded of after realizing I was still in the MochaJump Discord, with one announcement post that I hadn't yet read.

Webcomics are one of the few online mediums that still truly belong to the people. Corporations are trying their hardest to take that power away. Let's not continue to let them.

If you want to help sustain, patronize, and contribute to the growth of sites that are still being operated by small teams (or even one man armies), please, consider checking out the following websites, some of which serve as platforms or publishers, others which operate as link directories for independent sites run by creators.

ComicFury GlobalComix TopWebcomics The Webcomic List The Webcomic Library Hiveworks SpiderForest SmackJeeves Archive Inkblot.art And whoever wants to use the GitHub source code used for MochaJump (RIP)

Let's do our part to decentralize webcomics again. We may not be able to leave the platforms that weakly sustain us, but we can still support those that strengthen and support us.

[gifsbymel]

host your gif packs on google sites

Since I received a question from an anon about how I upload my gifs to the google site, you can find the answer here. This is my first tutorial, and english is not my native language, but I hope it will be understandable and sorry if I wrote something wrong in english. I hope it's understandable and good luck, feel free to write if you have any questions and I'll try to help.

First of all, I always create the gif pack page on tumblr, it's easier to see the code there, it's easier for me to change things, because there is more space. And there I can see if everything is okay. However, it is important that there is a few code that works here, but not on the google site. When I find everything in perfect, I copy the code of the gif page and paste it to the google site page.

So I always open the google site page (You must log in with your gmail account to be able to use it.) : https://sites.google.com

When you open it, it will be a blank page, but there will be that colored plus sign at the bottom right. You can create a new page with it. I already have several, I tried to organize things there.

4. If you click on the plus sign, it brings up this, I don't usually change anything here. In the right-hand bar, there is "pages" (marked in green in the picture), you have to select it.

5. If you have selected the pages menu, you will see a plus sign again in the lower right corner. Click on it and select "full page embed". (I circled it in red in the second picture)

6. If you selected this, it will ask you to name the page. Enter the name you want. I usually include the name of the actor/actress + the name of the series and the episode in various formats. (Since I create the page both here and on the tumblr page, sometimes I copy the name given on the tumblr page.) When you press done, you will see what is in the second picture.

7. If you move the mouse over the part marked in green, i.e. on the name of the created page, 3 small dots will appear on the far right. Click on it and select "hide from navigation". If this was the case, then the small sign will be crossed out in front of the page name in the right side bar and there will be no menu bar at the top of the displayed page. After that, all that's left is to paste the code of the gif page, i.e. the gifs. You have to click on the "Add Embed" , which is in the middle and can be clearly seen in the picture. And choose "Embed code" and copy the cod / gif link here. [second picture]

8. I have marked on the picture where you can find after this, the edit button [in red], if you want to delete the page [in blue], or if you would like to preview it. [with purple color in the picture]

9. If you find everything OK, then all that's left is to press the "publish" button in the upper right corner. The previous picture shows where you can find it. Then it will ask you to enter a name for your web adress. Name it whatever you want, think of it as the name of a main tumblr page where you can always create gif packs. This only needs to be entered once, unless you want several main pages, as I have several (as can be seen in the very first picture). Eg: I named the current one gifsbymel2024.

10. I marked the paper clip / chain (?) icon in green on the picture, you have to click on it and then the link of the created page will pop up and you can share it with whoever you want.

11. If you always want to upload a new gif pack to your page after that, all you have to do is open the Google site page, select your page from the already created "recent sites" section and then go to the "pages" tab on the right side and repeat the steps as before featured. Only the name of the "recent site" will be omitted if you add the gif packs to an existing one.

[bluefuecoco]

i love watching tutorials on emulating because most of them are like "Remember, you have to get your roms from dumping the files yourself [wink nudge]"

but one i saw the other day said like "You'll just have to find them mysteriously. And once you stumble across these forbidden relics--"