00:00:01.56

Delphina

Hello and welcome to Miranda, where we talk anything and everything webcomics. Today we're going to be talking about webcomic platforms. I'm Delphina, I use she, her pronouns, and I make the webcomics Sombulus.

00:00:14.91

Miranda

I'm Miranda. I use she, her pronouns, and I make the webcomics into the swell and slow drip.

00:00:21.85

Bob

And I'm Bob, i use any pronouns, and I make the webcomics into the smoke and demon of the underground.

00:00:29.14

Delphina

Okay, so depending on the scope and needs of your webcomic project, a webcomic platform can be a great addition or alternative to an independent website. Many platforms have come and gone across the years, but today in 2026, the most well-known options are Webtoon, Tapas, and Comic Fury. And there can be a lot of confusion about what webcomic platforms can and can't do for your project. So we're going to dig into what they're all about and what you can expect when you use them. And there's kind of three main categories that we're going to tackle here because webcomic platforms are a host, webcomic platforms are a way to reach an audience, and sometimes they are also a publisher or like a

00:01:18.14

Delphina

source of income, right? So, we're going jump into these one at a time because it's really interesting to to dissect like what they are, what they do. Independent sites aren't necessarily for everyone, depending on on what you're doing. So questions for the group regarding hosting. Like, what can you expect out of Webtoon, Tapas, or Comic Fury um as a host? Just in your experience of, like, how how you upload pages or or whatever. um I'll throw it to you, Miranda.

00:01:54.50

Miranda

I tried Webtoon originally. I think that's where I first attempted a webcomic back in like the first few iterations of comics. And it's definitely pretty easy to upload. It's all built in, there's not a lot of customization. You're pretty much, you upload your pages and you can maybe add an author comment. And that's about all you got to do. That's all about all you can do, at least in my experience. And the same kind of goes for Tapas is it's very, you upload your pages, And you maybe add an author comment, you maybe add a title to the the episode. And you can do thumbnails on both of these. So if you want to like make a special thumbnail for your episode, you can. But it definitely is very easy because it is very limited. So there's not a lot to think about, which is great when you're new to this and trying to just get your comic posted for people to read.

00:03:09.35

Miranda

Comic Fury it is very easy to upload. It is a very kind of straightforward site, but I think there's a lot more customization down the line. But really, all three of them are very easy to upload.

00:03:28.02

Miranda

You wanna make sure you're formatting your pages correctly. Webtoon resizes, if I'm correct, or they size it down to fit.

00:03:39.41

Delphina

Yeah, yeah.

00:03:39.70

Miranda

ah Yeah, so you wanna make sure that you are sizing it correctly. If you're trusting the platform to resize it for you, it might not turn out great. You just wanna make sure you're kind of formatting things per the specs that they need. ComicFury, pretty much sticks with whatever format you, with whatever sizing. And so you have to pay more attention to how big of a file you're uploading.

00:04:12.34

Miranda

But generally, it's pretty straightforward on all counts. Here's your file, upload, and ta-da, it's there. at least from my experience. What about you, Bob? What's your experience with those?

00:04:29.53

Bob

Well, I agree with everything you said about Webtoon and Tapas because I have posted on both of those sites pretty extensively. Tapas, I think, since it was called Tapastic back in like 2014. These platforms have been around for like a very long time. And Webtoon was also around, you know, way back in the day. One of the things a lot of people don't know about it is that

00:04:55.99

Bob

it is a but kind of massive international corporation. And ,so it came to the US, but it is a much bigger entity than either of the other two. Line is the owner.

00:05:14.81

Bob

And so I've been posting on and off on Webtoon since 2018. I say on and off because,

00:05:27.61

Bob

I didn't really love it enough to continue posting on it a lot, but I still, you know, I have a lot of opinions, but I will say, I definitely agree with you on the elements of customization in that there really isn't much.

00:05:42.36

Bob

There's not much opportunity on either WebTune or Tapas

00:05:51.83

Bob

for customizing the way your pages appear to readers. It's very, I mean, these are primarily apps and people primarily read on their phones, which I think is actually true no matter whether you have an independent site or any other hosting site, most of your readers in this day and age are going to be reading on their phones.

00:06:15.06

Bob

But Tapas and Webtoon are just, they were in the phone space before most other sites. And so that's something to keep in mind. There's a common misconception that you are expected to post your comic in vertical scroll format on both of these platforms. You don't have to, you can post single pages. The only thing I would say is,

00:06:35.51

Bob

make sure that your text is legible at phone size. And that's, again, that is true even if you're on an independent site, but readers on these platforms, you know, they want to be able to see the text easily. And Webtoon, you know, they will shrink your page down to like 800 pixels wide. I think Tapas it's like 940 or something like that. You do have to make like a little thumbnail for every page you post.

00:07:03.60

Bob

I personally find that kind of tedious because it's yeah it's kind of a pain.

00:07:07.48

Miranda

Mm-hmm.

00:07:09.97

Bob

But it's, you know, it's just a little bit of marketing so that people can see, get a little glimpse into the page or the episode before they click onto it. There are no extras pages, like no character page, no about page. And the other thing is that a million other comics are going to be promoted on your page while someone is reading your comic. And that's also true of search SEO. Like if someone does like an internet search for the name of your comic and your primary ah page is Webtoon or Tapas

00:07:47.17

Bob

it'll lead the reader to that page, but at the same time, it will lead them to a whole lot of other comics. So that is kind of the thing to keep in mind, which is that you don't necessarily have control over what other what other comics are showing on your page while people are reading your comic, both in terms of like, you might not you might not approve of some of the other things and and also just that it is taking eyes away from your work a lot of the time.

00:08:15.58

Bob

The other thing about Webtoon is that they don't even allow hyperlinks in like your author comment. Tapas does. Tapas, would say, is a little bit more creator friendly. Webtoon is really trying to push people to do more, like creators to do more like on the app, through the app, which can be difficult if you work on a computer or if you work like on like ah just a larger, different type of device

00:08:45.36

Bob

than where they want you to post. But I will say for Tapas specifically, scheduling, queuing episodes and looking at metrics, it's all actually very nice, very streamlined, very easy to navigate. And you can get a good idea of, you know you get all your notifications, who's liking and commenting. And like I do like the interface and the ease of posting, especially for Tapas. I think that it's actually very nice.

00:09:20.57

Miranda

Tapas does have a lot more analytics, doesn't it? It's been so long since I posted there.

00:09:29.50

Bob

Yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah.

00:09:30.85

Miranda

a lot more like here is how your page is doing how your comic as a whole is doing like broken down a lot better than webtoons was we all know webtoons has uh struggled to say the least on the analytic side of things um especially for like canvas people

00:09:55.70

Bob

Also, like, on that note, one thing that I forgot to mention is that

00:10:04.12

Bob

Tapas makes it a little bit easier also to promote outside projects you have. So for example, if you have a Kickstarter running or if you have a Patreon, it's a little easier for you to mention it on Tapas because for one thing, you can mention it in your author comment with, you can include a link. But Webtoon, they have strict guidelines and actually...

00:10:29.46

Bob

Both sites have some guidelines in terms of what, like you can't do like a standalone episode that's just like promoting your Kickstarter. And Webtoon has further like content guidelines.

00:10:47.70

Bob

Like if you have something that you wanted to post on Patreon because Webtoons guidelines are very strict, like they have rules about whether or not you can promote that or like how you promote it, depending on what the content is. And readers on those platforms, oftentimes they don't go down and actually read your author comment. So like you oftentimes will have to make an entire graphic and put it like in your actual episode saying like, oh, hey, here's my Kickstarter whatever. And it's just, it is extra work. So it's just a little harder on those platforms to promote those outside projects.

00:11:24.28

Miranda

And even if you add like the whole, i remember adding all the extra stuff at the end to like, here's my author comment, read it. You still can't put hyperlinks or anything like that into it.

00:11:35.00

Miranda

It's crazy how big of a difference it would be to just be able to link something, to leave the app, but also they don't want you to leave the apps.

00:11:45.35

Miranda

So it makes sense that they wouldn't have that, even if it's annoying as a creator.

00:11:50.51

Delphina

Yeah, that's the big thing. Webtoon and Tapas, they are corporations. They are businesses who are trying to market you as the product basically. So they do have different restrictions. They do have different content things. I know adult content can have a harder time there regarding censorship, regarding like being taken down sometimes and you're not necessarily sure why. So if you're making the kind of content that might be against those guidelines, you might have a harder time there and might have more restrictions placed on you. So it's always important. And I think the author comment, too, speaks to UI design. Right. Like.

00:12:39.61

Delphina

How do you structure the page? How are people able to scroll through the app? And what does the app emphasize for you? They get to make all the calls there. So just getting familiar with both systems, reading, you know being a reader, maybe posting a couple pages on each one to see what's gonna happen in terms of presentation. Might give you more insight into if you have a preference of one versus the other and then yeah the Comic Fury stuff is a little more freeform I know they do have scroll view, things that you can activate on your site. So if you want to emulate that sort of reader experience where people just keep going and going down the pages, you can do that for readers. And they generally try to put a lot of options in there. They've been building it over several years. So that's nice, um but it can be a little overwhelming. um So yeah. All things to consider, all things to think about.

00:13:52.50

Bob

Does Comic Fury have like metrics that it shows you or like stats?

00:13:58.23

Miranda

It does. It has visitor statistics. And it kind of approaches it like a website. So if you have any website statistic trackers, it shows like page views.

00:14:13.14

Miranda

So you can't really tell if they're actually reading or liking. But they also show subscribers. There is a subscribe option and a rating option. and the massive number of visitors that a website would tell you about. So it's both useful and a lot of information, but also is everyone that but that's visiting your site actually visiting the site? What are they actually doing when they're there? So there are statistics. How useful they are is...

00:14:51.26

Miranda

debatable but maybe maybe you find your visitor count more useful than I do personally

00:14:59.46

Delphina

Yeah. um

00:15:01.55

Bob

That is very interesting. I just wasn't sure how it worked. I've never used it, so

00:15:06.81

Delphina

It's an interesting little platform. And it is run by one guy who built it, like I think at a high school or something like that. And it's been running it all these years. So he's been pretty receptive to um reader feedback and creator feedback and putting in different features over the years. So that's always nice.

00:15:28.72

Miranda

Yeah, we should also probably mention that all of these platforms are free to post on. Like we probably should have said that at the beginning.

00:15:34.25

Delphina

Yeah, yeah.

00:15:35.96

Bob

Oh yeah.

00:15:37.27

Bob

Yeah. Big selling point. Yes.

00:15:39.32

Miranda

These are all free places to host your webcomic for you, which makes them even better.

00:15:48.85

Delphina

I don't know about paid ones. Are there places where you have to pay?

00:15:51.19

Miranda

I mean, maybe. I don't know.

00:15:53.66

Bob

I mean, your own independent.

00:15:53.69

Miranda

Like websites. Yeah, websites.

00:15:55.80

Bob

Yeah.

00:15:55.93

Miranda

Your own website you have to pay.

00:15:56.00

Delphina

Yeah, okay. Yeah, you.

00:15:57.73

Miranda

So.

00:16:02.17

Miranda

Yeah.

00:16:02.87

Bob

Yeah.

00:16:02.90

Miranda

So a free alternative to having your own website.

00:16:07.94

Miranda

So, yeah, they're good in addition to a website for reasons we'll get into. But also, if you don't want to pay for a website right now, these are places you can post and get your comic online now today.

00:16:19.00

Delphina

Yeah.

00:16:22.49

Bob

Yeah.

00:16:22.17

Delphina

Yeah. I think even as a person who has web space, who pays for web space, I appreciate having a place where like,

00:16:30.33

Delphina

This is not my main comic. I don't want to make an entire website for this comic. We're not going to be updating it very much. Maybe it's just like a gag a day thing. I had done some shark comics and they weren't my main focus, but they were a thing that I was doing for a time. And so I did find that Webtoon was a nice place to put a project like that so if you're thinking more smaller term projects or projects where you're not exactly sure how much investment you personally have and making the site just to post 10 comics would be a weird distribution of work then maybe that's what you want to do

00:17:16.38

Bob

Yeah, I think the main appeal of, in terms of hosting for these platforms is that it is so much easier and also cheaper to get onto them than setting up your own independent site, especially if it is, like you said, like the shark comic, something that is

00:17:33.59

Bob

not your primary thing that you're doing outside of your day job or whatever. If it's like a little small project or if it's something that you just want to test out and you don't want to put in this major investment, the time investment and the cost investment of setting up an independent website, setting up independent websites, it just...

00:17:51.54

Bob

becomes more and more complex over the years because there are more regulations, there are more expectations in the tech. Like my website, Demon of the Underground right now, it's like, oh, well, I can't update it to PHP 8 because the entire theme doesn't work on PHP 8.

00:18:07.06

Bob

So it's still like, like I have to redo the entire website.

00:18:08.12

Delphina

Oh, WordPress.

00:18:10.10

Bob

And so, these are the things that when you have your independent website, maintenance over the years can be very difficult and you don't have to worry about that type of maintenance with any of these other platforms.

00:18:21.18

Miranda

Yes, they maintain themselves. you just put your stuff on there and it will take care of it for you

00:18:28.25

Delphina

Absolutely. A plus in their favor. So let's move on to audience. What can you expect out of a platform audience wise? B ecause it is a different sort of animal platform. trying to get people to come to your self-hosted homepage for your comic. And even if you have one of those, you might choose for audience reasons to reach out other places. So what what are the expectations there?

00:19:01.27

Miranda

I feel like the special perk, just generally, of a webcomic platform as opposed to a personal website is the built-in community that's already there. And that comes with any of these three. Webtoons, Tapas, and Comic Fury all have some sort of built-in audience

00:19:22.61

Miranda

And system of finding other comics when you're in the app or the website itself. And, Webtoon especially, it is a huge app. There are so many comics.

00:19:42.86

Miranda

There's been talk over the years of how hard it is to get your comic found on Webtoon because it is so oversaturated. And even sometimes if you search for the specific, like if you know a specific webcomic you're looking for, sometimes even the search for that webcomic can be really hard.

00:20:00.31

Miranda

on Webtoons because they really push certain of their certain comics over others and so you might have to dig to find what exactly you're looking for but in terms of people stumbling on or just finding your comic or just browsing and having a huge audience and readers of readers that could access your comic without any extra promotion of any kind. Webtoons is huge for that because there are so many users that are on the app. So you have a huge pool of people that could potentially stumble on your comic.

00:20:41.41

Miranda

Tapas is a lot more the same and Comic Fury, probably not as huge of a pool, but another great thing Tapas and Comic Fury have in common is forums. There's different forums that you can go to and write and like post blogs, talk about your comic within these forums. So you have the original pool of users that are on these sites and might find your webcomic just from stumbling across it, looking through the genres,

00:21:15.58

Miranda

things like that. But in addition to that, you have forums that you can go and see people posting about things, posting their art. I know Tapas especially , I see a lot of like creator help or like art shares, or both reader and creator side of things. So it's easy to kind of make yourself known to the massive amount of users by going and posting in forums instead of just hoping your web comic gets found.

00:21:51.35

Miranda

But I feel like with either of these, you so you select which genre your comic is, and then you're auto sorted into this. So if people are looking through Tapas or Webtoon or ComicTree and finding these genres, your web to your webcomic will be listed within that. So there's a lot of ease of, well, not ease per se, but there is a built in audience already on all of these platforms. So it does take a little bit out of the load off of having to self promo drive people to your website. and things like that, that you would normally have to do if you just had a private website.

00:22:40.34

Miranda

There's not a built-in audience that is always going to your website, unlike these other three platforms.

00:22:53.21

Delphina

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like when I grew up and I was using the Internet, there was

“oh, I'm going to check this site every day. oh I'm going to check the site every day” because there were only four sites.

00:23:05.42

Delphina

Right. You're just like, OK, this is manageable.

00:23:07.06

Bob

Yeah.

00:23:10.33

Delphina

It's not manageable anymore. And especially with social media taking up a lot of time. It's just like, man, that sounds really appealing right now. Just having some people who are going to log into Webtoon every day and they have a chance of seeing what I'm posting.

00:23:26.87

Delphina

So that's nice.

00:23:30.38

Miranda

it's a very passive audience fishing. You just have to put your net out there, your net being your comic, and there are fish. Inevitably at least one of them will swim into your net without you having to do much.

00:23:50.10

Delphina

Yay, fish. We'll throw it to Bob. What do you think about audiences? What can you expect from platforms audience-wise?

00:24:00.06

Bob

Well, I agree also with what both of you said, first of all. That's very much the experience that I've had. And I think it's one of the main reasons why people tend to gravitate toward these platforms instead of, you know, going over the hurdle of an independent site because they do have these built-in audiences. Now, personally, I am a huge fan of having an independent site as your main hub and then mirroring your comic on every other platform that you have the energy to keep up with.

00:24:31.42

Bob

That's my preferred strategy because then you reach different types of people and you can experiment with different types of ah audiences and see where your work actually does hit. Because the thing about sites with built-in audiences is that that built-in audience has a particular character and a particular flavor and they like particular types of work. So what works with the built-in audience of Comic Fury might not appeal as much to Webtoons' built-in audience. One of the things that I have observed is that, you know, Webtoons is probably best if you are doing comics for a younger audience or for all ages. They have, I think, more of those readers than either of the other two platforms. And that's also part of why their content restrictions are so...

00:25:20.67

Bob

untenable sometimes is because everything has to be appropriate for everyone. And Tapas is very, very heavy on romance.

00:25:32.25

Bob

Both Webtoon and Tapas also skew more toward manga style. You know, those works tend to do better there. Again, this is not to say that you have to do romance. People would always complain about how oh there's so much BL on Tapas, nothing else does well. And that's a little bit of an exaggeration. Like, yeah, BL probably and romance.

00:25:56.54

Bob

does the best, but that's actually true of almost every platform and industry, including traditional publishing. Romance always does better than every other genre. It's just that you don't see the metrics in traditional publishing.

00:26:09.05

Bob

But what I was told by a marketer at the publisher of my last books was that essentially romance novels pay for all the other books to be made. So that is one of the interesting things about the nature of publishing genres.

00:26:31.26

Miranda

That also tracks if you think about all the romance authors that like, you know, are romance authors like in traditional publishing because they have so many of them.

00:26:41.85

Miranda

There are so many of that and everyone reads all like the people that read these read all of them. So thinking of that, it does make sense that all of these platforms would have a big focus on romance as a whole. So yeah.

00:26:59.16

Miranda

Yeah, that's just an interesting comparison.

00:26:59.26

Bob

Yeah, exactly.

00:27:01.72

Miranda

That’d never that never clicked in my head. Yeah.

00:27:05.18

Bob

Yeah it's just like, I see people, you know, get even a little bitter about the numbers that romance pieces are bringing in. And if you're not writing romance, you just, you can't feel that angry competitiveness toward a different genre because the genres just aren't comparable. Like different genres have different built-in audiences. So it's best, you know, if you want to get an idea of how well your piece and your ah genre would work on a particular platform, you really need to seek out what are the other ah comics on the platform that are similar to yours and how well are they doing? And also you just try it out. I mean, it's free and it's low barrier to entry. So just trying it out and seeing that's probably the best and easiest way to to see.

=

00:28:04.54

Miranda

Well, on that note, though, these platforms are so big for romance, they are oversaturated with romance. So there is tons of it on there, but readers only have a finite amount of reading time. So if you're just the one romance in the sea of all the other romances, you might not stand out as much unless you have some other hook. But that's for different episode. So the benefit, if you're like if you're not a romance comic, don't be intimidated by these sites, because within the genre, like if you're doing a mystery and action, within these other genres besides romance, the pool of comics on these sites is comparably smaller. So you have the opportunity to stand out more. So just because you're not a romance comic does not mean you will not find a place on these platforms.

00:29:04.66

Miranda

So don't let that scare you away from them.

00:29:07.54

Bob

Yeah, exactly. That is very true. I mean, because oversaturation has its own set of challenges. That's why also li ke, I don't like it when people say that it's like, oh, it's so easy for all the romance authors. They just get all these views automatically. It's like, no, it's not easy, give people their due. Everyone, works for what they get.

00:29:28.98

Bob

One other big thing to keep in mind with Webtoon and Tapas specifically. I want to dive a little bit into the history of these platforms because Webtoon, the way it started out and the way it still is, is that you kind of have two sides of it. There is the Webtoon originals and then there's Webtoon canvas. And the difference is the originals, they are exclusive contracts. Most of the time they're exclusive contracts, but there is a contract.

00:30:14.33

Bob

And the person who's making the the comic is paid by Webtoon and paid. We'll get into the pay ah element of it later, but they're paid to post and they have to keep a particular schedule. And those comics get the most promotion on the website because they are the core or the core of the platform.

00:30:36.63

Bob

And the canvas side is independent comics by independent creators. They don't get paid. They might be part of a non-exclusive ah pay program, but generally speaking, they don't get paid to post on the platform. And they get little bits of promotion by the platform here and there. So they don't get as many views, as many like organic views from the platform. So that's how Webtoon was. Tapas was not originally like that, but Tapas now is also like that. They have their original side and they have their independent side and they have been shifting over the years more and more toward

00:31:20.44

Bob

heavily favoring and promoting the original side, which makes sense because I mean, these people are, you know, they signed a contract, they are exclusive, they should get what their work is worth for their contract. But t hat also means that if you are an independent creator on that platform, you're not going to get as many views. And that just wasn't always the case, especially for Tapas. It used to very heavily favor independent comics and treat them all very well. And that's one of the things to keep in mind here.

00:31:48.50

Bob

is that platforms change over the years. And when they have a built-in audience, they have full control over the audience and they have control over how much of their audience they give to you. And if you decide you don't wanna post on the platform anymore, it's very, very difficult to take your audience with you to another place. Like if you have an independent website, you can set up a newsletter and get people's email addresses and then you can just email them if you have to change your URL or something like that. It is just more challenging on these apps that own your audience and that through their algorithms decide whether or not you get views. Now, what I will say is both of these sites,

00:32:36.89

Bob

These days, I would say you get very, very few views as a newer comic unless you are featured in some way in part of like a staff collection, like up and coming on Webtoon or like Tapas does very regular

00:32:55.58

Bob

promotions of, you know, large groups of comics, on an almost daily basis. And so there can be times where you're getting almost no views and then you get featured and your views just skyrocket. and your subscribers skyrocket. And you know it's very nice that they do these features, but the thing to keep in mind is that you have very little control over whether or not you get promoted. And that's just the nature of having someone else kind of owning your audience.

00:33:28.15

Delphina

I've also seen things, I don't know how they typically go, but I've seen like cross promotion events on Webtoon and Tapas where a group of comic creators will get together and do a group project. Like here's all our characters having a Christmas party or here's all our characters doing things and they'll make one big mega episode. So that you can kind of see, here's some things that are similar in genre to my comic. They are also on the same platform so you can subscribe to them very easily if this is appealing to you. I've seen some of that as ways to get around the fact that Tapas or Webtoon won't promote everything.

00:34:12.82

Miranda

First off, those are always so fun to see. There's a couple of comics I follow that do that pretty regularly, but, that's another comparison. I feel like that is like the Webtoon version of a web ring sort of thing.

00:34:35.00

Miranda

And that brings up Comic Fury. Comic Fury you can do things like web rings and um you can link to other comics and other comics can link to you because you have an independent url even if it is like so and so comic at ComicFury.com. You have that URL and you can post people's banners on your site. You can advertise for other people and therefore other people can advertise for you. And so there's a lot more ability to kind of get yourself out there beyond just the platform itself. With Comic Fury sites you have a lot of freedom in customizing your site. You can customize it a lot

00:35:43.19

Miranda

And treat it very much like your own private website because you can do the HTML, you can do CSS. You have a lot of flexibility there. And so you have a lot of marketing options that come with your own actual custom website. Because you have a URL, you have the ability to add links. I know a lot of people have like a page on their website of like here are comics I like so that they can kind of share the love with other creators and hopefully the love comes back. I think that is less of a feature um for audience and hosting and stuff than in Webtoons and Tapas. I feel like the Webtoon and Tapas ecosystem is very self-contained and it's very hard to get out of that or send people out of that in any way because a lot of these are on apps and they're staying in the app. They don't wanna go to an extra website.

00:36:53.56

Miranda

So ComicFury has that advantage over the other two.

00:37:00.02

Bob

That does bring up a really good point, though, which is the element of community just in general. And i think like it does sound like Comic Fury has that benefit of helping you build community with other creators in a way that I think Webtoon and Tapas, it's not that they don't have it, it's just that they don't necessarily have it as much through the app itself, you'd have to like go to their discord or go to like their forums and, you know, meet creators through other venues and you don't have as many opportunities for cross promotion. But I do think

00:37:37.94

Bob

One of the nice things about all three of these is kind of the of built-in commenting culture. Because when you have an independent site and you're starting from nothing, if you don't have an audience already, it can be really difficult to encourage people to use your comment space for the first time and to develop that community where people are dropping in every week and actually replying and and talking to each other in the comments section. And I think that both Webtoon and Tapas do have a certain element of commenting culture. They have different vibes. Webtoon, you know, you can get some kind of immature comments on Webtoon, but you also, in my experience, I also get a lot of really, really thoughtful comments on Webtoon. And, you know, every once in while, you'll get someone who's a little snarky about like they had to wait too long for the episode or the episode was too short. But the last time that happened to me, all the other commenters downvoted that person into oblivion. So, you know, Webtoon has a lot of a reputation for having kind of a toxic comments section. But there are ways that you can set the tone for your comments section. And Tapas, I find it is a more mature readership and I get very nice. I appreciate everyone who comments on that site. And I just think that it's, you know, it's a good community of people who appreciate comics there.

00:39:02.74

Miranda

That's refreshing to hear. I feel like everyone always shares the horror stories of like Webtoons and Tapa's comment system. So it's nice to hear a positive experience and know that there are people that will appreciate and positively comment the way that people do on websites. I feel like these apps have such a low barrier of reader entry, if that's what I want to say.

00:39:32.86

Miranda

And so it's so easy to toss a comment and not really think about it. That's kind of the downfall of the internet and social media is people don't think before they comment. So It's nice to know that there are good commenters on all of these platforms.

00:39:54.68

Delphina

Yeah, I think it's definitely true. There's no sense vilifying like any particular grouping of audiences and they're all going to be different. um I think one thing to remember, too, is that sometimes the audience is talking to themselves or they're talking like, hey, I'm watching a TV show.

00:40:15.66

Delphina

If you're watching a TV show, you can say whatever you want. And the creators of the TV show aren't going to hear you because that's not how TVs work. And I feel like sometimes when I'm seeing people complain about the comments they're getting on Webtoon or Tapas, it's because of this mentality of, I am a viewer and I am saying what is on my mind. And I'm calling this character stupid because I don't approve of what they're doing right now. But in this context, the author can actually catch up and read that and maybe you feel kind of bad about that. Maybe not be so, you know, like, gosh, wow, you didn't need to share that with me. That was kind of discouraging. So I feel like sometimes that's the vibe.

00:41:03.96

Bob

Yeah, it's also worth reminding yourself, especially on Webtoon, that sometimes the person commenting on your work is literally 12 years old. And you just have to remember that sometimes. Like this comment could have been written by a 12-year-old. You know, just let it wash over you. It's okay.

00:41:19.10

Delphina

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. um So moving on, there is a reputation for both Tapas and Webtoon. I don't know about Comic Fury. I don't think it has that kind of vibe, but definitely Webtoon and Tapas have publisher income opportunities and people will start posting there with the hopes that they will be able to make, if not a living, then maybe just a little pocket change. What can you expect there? Is that a reasonable expectation or what else would you have to consider if you were seriously pursuing one of these platforms for being published or getting an income?

00:42:16.50

Miranda

We have a separate episode all about managing your expectations. And I think that is a very important thing to keep in mind when you are posting about this. Because I know when I first started WebComics and started posting on Webtoons, I had the dream of I'm going to be an original because you see all of these success stories of the originals taking off and you think, oh, they're making tons of money. And I feel like a really good example of this is Lore Olympus, which is a really great comic. It took off.

00:42:51.88

Miranda

It is like being made into a TV show. It's like the biggest comic that Webtoon has. And you see that, oh, they started on Webtoon. So that could be me too. And the,

00:43:07.83

Miranda

The possibility is definitely there, but at this point ,these platforms are so oversaturated that it's not a guaranteed thing. And just manage your expectations going into this because it is like any publishing opportunity. You have to work for it. There sadly is a sense of luck and

00:43:37.78

Miranda

timing with these sorts of things. You have to get in at the right moment and then you'll be the one that takes off. It's not solely reliant on what you can do. There are factors outside of your realm of control that do come into play with any platform like this. You can work as hard as you want it's not going to be there's no guarantee of anything. As far as like the taking off and

00:44:14.01

Miranda

it being the original and going off from there. I think one thing a lot of people are probably pretty familiar with is all the contests that Webtoons runs. Those are pretty much a guaranteed “if you win this contest, you will get the green light from us and be an original series. And therefore, get some sort of payment, for winning this contest and to continue your comic. So that is like probably the most straightforward way you could make this happen for yourself. And so there's a very clear path when it comes to any of these competitions. So that's something, if that is something you are interested and

00:45:04.41

Miranda

can do then by all means do it and best of luck we'll try to vote for you sort of thing. But I think, and Bob can speak to this more I know, but there's besides the like taking off and getting the exclusive contracts with webtoon and tapas, Comic Fury doesn't have that option, you also can do ads and stuff. Some sort of paid option that doesn't require you to be an exclusive comic with them. Bob will talk more about that. yeah.

00:45:54.26

Miranda

Comic Fury, though, it's created by one guy and he's not going to suddenly become a publisher for you. So you kind of lose that expectation of “this is going to take off and be helped by the platform owner to become the next big thing”. So you don't have that expectation going in. Where you can

00:46:19.80

Miranda

expect and work for a bit more of monetization is you can set up ads on your site, whether you want to use a real ad system, like I think Google has some sort of ad platform you can. There's also a really great tool called ComicAd, right? Is that?

00:46:38.91

Delphina

Yeah.

00:46:38.58

Bob

I love ComicAd.

00:46:39.51

Miranda

Yeah.

00:46:39.81

Delphina

Yeah.

00:46:39.95

Miranda

Yeah.

00:46:40.20

Delphina

It used to be Project Wonderful.

00:46:42.20

Delphina

It was the thing, but Comic-Ad has kind of taken over its spirit.

00:46:46.39

Miranda

Okay, yeah. So, ComicAd you can go and purchase and trade ad space on different webcomics. So, you make your little ad banner or your little icon. There's a lot of different size options and other comics do the same. And you can trade ad space, you can buy ad space. And it kind of is like a self-sustaining system of getting ads and getting viewers to your site. Because you can also sell ad space and that income will pay for ads on other sites. You put a little bit of money in to start and then it kind of just keeps itself going. And the plus about that is it's other webcomics. And typically like if someone's reading a webcomic on one site, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that they would see the ad for your comic, especially if you're

00:47:49.38

Miranda

catering to, oh, this webcomic is the same genre as me. I'm going to put an ad on their site because then you're targeting your own ads towards readers that would actually be interested in what you're creating.

00:48:08.82

Miranda

So it's a great option. And then the whole fact that you can do links, you can do your own advertisements, like personally, you can have a Ko-Fi pop up on your site, if you want like the little donate now or tip me button.

00:48:23.19

Miranda

So there's a lot of ease expanding to external income. The website itself, and the platform itself doesn't have income opportunities. You have to, but you have the tools and the ability to add them to your site for yourself.

00:48:42.62

Miranda

Unlike Tapas and Webtoons, at least from what I know of them.

00:48:52.22

Delphina

That's true. And I think part of the appeal, like we were talking about, is that, if you don't want to try to think about these things, you don't have to think about these things. All of these platforms are free, so they're not going to cost you any money. But they're probably also...

00:49:14.39

Delphina

not going to make you any like Comic Fury especially isn't going to make you any money unless you make some moves to that effect. And ComicAd in my experience like i have comic ads on my site. I’ll make like 10 cents a month 20 cents a month.

00:49:23.03

Miranda

Yes.

00:49:38.31

Delphina

Don’t come into it like freshly with no audience expecting like, “oh yeah i'm gonna make a livable wage on this” like no that's not gonna happen but to Miranda's point like this is enough to to put ads on other people's site and so as a audience growing mechanism I can get ads on sites that, you know, the creator doesn't know me, the creator doesn't like have any reason to trade spots with me or or whatever.

00:50:09.95

Delphina

But you know, I can do it essentially for free because I've earned a little money, you know, just enough on my site to put it into this other stuff.

00:50:23.13

Miranda

And alot of the external monetization that comes with a website or Comic Fury is very much what you put into it, you'll potentially get out of it. I feel like in webcomics in general, there's very few opportunities for passive income with the webcomic itself. Unless you have a really great ad system happening, but then...

00:50:50.78

Miranda

that might deter readers because no one likes ads on their website. So.

00:50:55.41

Delphina

Yeah, we have a whole other episode about banner ads too.

00:50:58.86

Delphina

But I do want to like circle back around to the Webtoon and Tapas thing because that is pretty unique in that it's it's not impossible to make money just from making your webcomic like if you meet certain criteria or something and I know Bob has a little more experience with that too, if you want to share.

00:51:20.31

Bob

Oh, yeah. Well, I do want to say, first of all, that the nice thing about Comic Fury, like even though they are not the ones to pay you, is that they do give you every opportunity to set up those other revenue streams for yourself, like your Patreon, your Kickstarter, your so on.

00:51:37.02

Bob

They give you the space to promote that. And you basically treat it the same way you treat an independent website. Now, the thing with Webtoon and Tapas...

00:51:43.24

Miranda

Mm-hmm.

00:51:45.56

Bob

is they do play an actual publisher role, like the actual definitional publisher. So there are two different buckets when it comes to making money on those platforms. There are your your contracts,

00:52:03.19

Bob

and your kind of passive income. And like even within the contracts, there are your exclusive contracts or your, you know, original contracts and then some other contract opportunities that I'll mention. So I will say, first of all, I don't have personal experience with exclusive contracts on either Webtoon or Tapas. And part of the reason why I don't have that experience is because I wouldn't.

00:52:32.34

Bob

And the reason I wouldn't is because what I know is typical of these contracts is that they can be a little what I feel is exploitative. So,

00:52:43.86

Bob

I tend to favor contracts that are creator owned. That is like your typical publishing contract with a publisher like Penguin Random House, like Harper Collins, like Macmillan, like your big five. My graphic novel is a creator owned contract with Holiday House. Now, the the terms of the contract you can expect from Tapas and Webtoon, they are a little more in line with like your Marvel and DC type contracts, which is they pay you an amount,

00:53:18.49

Bob

that isn't royalties. They pay you to actually make the thing. The other publishers I mentioned with the creator-owned contracts, they pay you royalties. So if your book doesn't sell, you don't really make anything other than your advance. These other Marvel, DC, Tapas, Webtoon, they pay you to actually make your comic. But the trade-off is that they will usually ask for the rights to your intellectual property.

00:53:44.41

Bob

And that to me is a deal breaker. It's not to everyone. I'm not telling you what you should or shouldn't do. But for me, my personal nightmare is that someone buys the rights to my intellectual property, to my story, to my characters, the contract falls apart, and then I don't get to make the comic anymore because I can't make it with them and I can't take it to someone else. So if you are negotiating a contract, that's something to keep in mind. Typically, these companies deal with unagented creators. I would say if you can get an agent to help you or an entertainment lawyer to help you, it is a good idea because these companies, particularly Webtoon,

00:54:27.10

Bob

they can pay what in a lot of areas is a living wage. And that's not, I mean, it's not like most people are getting rich, you know, in the comics field, most people are not getting rich, but to even get a living wage in comics, it's really challenging. And, you know, it's something that you have to work really hard to get. So I can understand why it's so appealing. But I just say, like, if you are looking for an exclusive contract, just protect yourself, protect your rights. I've seen a lot of people leave these contracts on bad terms and lose a lot. But there are also those Lore Olympus stories where people do very, very well. So just just protect yourself, get expert advice.

00:55:10.42

Bob

The thing about the exclusives is that, like I mentioned before, they get promoted above and beyond everything else. But still, you don't have control over how much a publisher promotes you. And it's almost, almost universally true that most creators feel that their publisher does not promote them enough. So that's something to keep in mind. No matter what your publishing situation is,

00:55:37.62

Bob

it will always fall back on you to promote yourself. Even if you have a publisher, especially as the years pass, they do less and less to promote their creators. So you just kind of always have to have that expectation that you kind of have to do your own promotion.

00:55:53.02

Bob

Now, switching gears back into the side of the non-exclusive contracts and the other money-making opportunities, This is an area where I have experience on both sites. I will say that Webtoons paid programs used to be a lot more generous than they are now. Now it's, again, like so many comics on the platform, so much oversaturation and the programs just aren't as generous. But like back in 2018, I was like, I maybe had like eight, like I've gotten like 8,000 subscribers in a month, which is like, mean, not in a month, no, in a year. um

00:56:34.05

Miranda

I was gonna say a month.

00:56:34.20

Bob

Which, yeah, no, in a month, that would have been impressive.

00:56:35.70

Miranda

That's fantastic.

00:56:37.11

Bob

Then, yeah, no, about 8,000 subscribers in a year.

00:56:37.08

Miranda

yeah

00:56:41.50

Bob

And , you know, it's good. It's not like top tiers. It's not like I was super unbelievably popular on the platform, but I was doing well. And their paid program at the time, it was a Patreon integration where you would meet thresholds for views and and for subscribers too, maybe, and I was making something like just from Webtoon, not even from my own independent Patreon, which was my main focus. But the Webtoon aspect with only 8,000 subscribers, I was getting like 300 or 400 a month, dollars, US dollars. And that's like very generous.

00:57:22.52

Bob

The platform, the ah the programs are not as generous anymore. I currently am not doing paid programs with Webtoon because I don't post there frequently enough. But that old program is no longer available. And the reason I mentioned that is that it's important to understand that these other programs, they are always subject to change, especially if it's not...

00:57:49.27

Bob

a contract, if it's not something where you signed an agreement for a set amount of time, you can expect them to change the terms or to change the thresholds at any time. And that is what happened with Webtoon was they changed the thresholds. And I was like, okay, I'm out. I'm not doing this anymore.

00:58:14.58

Bob

So in terms of Webtoons’ other smaller money making opportunities right now, they have ad revenue, they have super likes, which I don't know too much about that one because I just, I'm a Patreon person. I don't want to split up my audience too much. But what I understand is that it is kind of like,

00:58:33.24

Bob

If you have an absolutely massive audience, you could make maybe some decent money from it. But if you have an absolutely massive audience, you can make money in a whole lot of ways. So that's just always the case. The thing about their ad program to keep in mind is that ad programs always have even higher content restrictions because then you also have to... abide by the advertiser's terms. So you just have to be even more on the ball with, you know, making sure that your content is appropriate for this audience, for that audience. That wasn't a headache that I really wanted. So I don't do ads on,

00:59:18.28

Bob

Webtoon. I do ads on Tapas and I also get donations of ink, which is their kind of like in-app currency. My readers are very sweet. You know, this is just, basically your readers deciding to tip you every now and then. And for me, it's, you know, again, if you have an absolutely massive audience on these platforms, I know people who do very, very well just through ink donations.

00:59:44.06

Bob

For me, I send most of that to Patreon, but it's a nice amount of pocket change that I get from Tapas where it's like, you know, I can, you know, get some takeout or go to a restaurant every now and then with the money.

00:59:58.38

Bob

So it's not nothing, but it's not like life changing.

01:00:01.73

Miranda

That's definitely nothing to sneeze at, like, or sniff at.

01:00:03.90

Bob

Yeah, no, I yeah, I like good sandwich.

01:00:05.11

Miranda

Yeah, like that sounds great. Yeah.

01:00:07.67

Bob

I really like a good sandwich every now and then. So yeah. But the other thing that I have experience with on TAPUS is they're, they have non-exclusive contract programs to, ah what's going on right now in the year 2026, again, subject to change at any time. They have a creator bonus program, which is where you get paid for views and they have an early access program, which is that, you know, you like people can pay to read your episode or your page early.

01:00:39.38

Bob

And I did the creator bonus program, a bunch of, you know, my contact was six months and then my point person who chose me and a bunch of other staff got laid off. So, you know, creator bonus program is looking a little iffy right now, but the tricky thing about that is, you know,

01:00:57.18

Bob

this this company determines whether or not you get views and then you get paid for views. So it is a very one-sided relationship there where you were kind of at the mercy of this platform. I am fortunate I did get paid. You know, I did make some decent money on it. It wasn't like, again, nothing life-changing, but even more sandwiches, like lots of sandwiches.

01:01:21.24

Bob

But, you know, not not like rent money, not like mortgage money. And then early access, I...

01:01:26.75

Miranda

Sandwich money, very, very important distinction.

01:01:27.67

Bob

Yes, sandwich money.

01:01:30.71

Bob

Yes, yes. And then the early access program I was invited to, but then I asked some questions and they just never got back to me. So it's like a lot of these platforms behind the scenes, you know when there are layoffs, when there's turnover, when there's ownership changes, there can be a lot of chaos behind the scenes and then you get caught in the middle of it. So that is another thing to keep in mind. So I can't speak as much to the early access program, but from what I understand, it is another kind of

01:02:02.69

Bob

sandwich money situation. Again, unless you have a massive, massive audience, in which case you can make money in many, many different ways. So yeah, that's my experience with the paid programs.

01:02:15.41

Delphina

Yeah, this is great to hear, though, because I think a lot of it they keep purposely transparent and it's changing all the time. And I really appreciate that we've addressed that like, yeah, the rules are going to change depending on where the company wants to go. And so being flexible in that regard and making sure that you can still cover yourself financially if something doesn't go in your favor is probably a good idea.

01:02:46.97

Bob

Yeah, like one of the things I always say is that, you know, if you want to make a lot of money on these platforms that kind of offer these pocket change opportunities, you really kind of have to go all in on the platform. And then it's the question of like, is it worth it to go all in? Is this the right platform to go all in on? And it is risky when it's a type of platform where you can't take your audience with you when you leave. So the thing that I typically say is, you know, consider, is this the place where when you post your work, you just feel like you found your people? Like, ah do you just feel so gratified when you post on this platform? Does this really feel like your home? And,

01:03:26.26

Bob

And if so, then maybe it's worth the gamble? And if not, then, you know, just accept the sandwich money and have fun with it. And, you know, if you know if money is a big deal to you there, you know, explore every avenue you can and just see what works for you.

01:03:42.49

Miranda

Again, the great thing about all of these platforms is they are free and they do expand your audience, even if it's just a little bit. A little bit can make a difference. And with webcomics, put them everywhere. Everyone deserves to see your webcomic.

01:04:00.09

Delphina

I think so too.

01:04:13.08

Delphina

So I think that's a chicken salad, Caesar sandwich or wrap.

01:04:24.51

Miranda

yes.

01:04:25.11

Delphina

Okay.

01:04:25.42

Miranda

With sandwich money, paid sandwich money.

01:04:26.33

Bob

We can afford a sandwich.

01:04:27.95

Miranda

Yeah.

01:04:28.31

Delphina

We can afford the sandwich.

01:04:28.52

Bob

I see.

01:04:29.70

Delphina

We don't have to go with the wrap today, but that's, ah that's all we got for you today. um I've been Delfina and you can find my webcomic at sombulus.com.

01:04:41.97

Miranda

I'm Miranda and you can find my work at MirandaCakes.art.

01:04:46.90

Bob

And I'm Bob, and you can find my works at intothesmokecomic.com and demonoftheunderground.com.

01:04:55.61

Miranda

When you said the 940 pixels from Tapas, I like had flashbacks to resizing all of my pages to like 940.

01:04:55.97

Delphina

I'm good.

01:05:03.14

Delphina

It's so much.

01:05:03.25

Miranda

I was like, yep, that's the number. That is the number.