Deciding on a Home for my Comics

There are many many many different hosting websites for webcomics out there, and making sense of it all is going to be difficult, and so I'm going to collate my research here, and hopefully find an answer to the question 'where shall I put my comics for you to enjoy?'

Initially, I simply looked into webcomic hosting sites such as Tapas and Webtoons (which I'll get into more later) what hadn't crossed my mind until I read this article by Things in Squares, was the possibility of sharing the pages of my comic on social media such as Reddit, Instagram and Facebook. I had always planned to share updates on my social media, but not necessarily the actual pages. This would allow my respective audiences on each platform access to my art without having to annoyingly follow a link onto a site that they may have a hard time using (I've certainly struggled to navigate some of these sites, and I'm supposed to be from the internet generation), plus it would share my work in many different places for more people to enjoy! So there is still some rumination on the social media aspect of comics - especially since I know little to nothing about Reddit, I hadn't even made an account until two weeks ago.

Tumblr and DeviantArt were also strong suggestions from others on the interwebs. However, I am of the understanding that these two sites, in particular, are flooded with users who are not exactly forgiving, and so I'd rather simply sidestep them altogether. Especially since, once again, I find them both hard to navigate.

Now for the sites that are specifically for hosting webcomics.

ComicFury

ComicFury is one that I've only heard of recently, as someone I know has switched from a different hosting site to here. I'm lead to believe that it's a relatively small platform, however you are featured on their site whenever you update your comic which seems like a mega pro to me! However, due to first impressions of the home screen, I wasn't filled with confidence that the majority of comics on there were going to be very good simply because of the web design. Upon closer inspection, each comic is provided with their own home page which is 100% customisable, great!

Another pro to this site is the forums (and how easily accessible they are) that they host which provide useful information for new members and creators - I had to search for a bit to find the forums on the other sites.

Tapas

I have used Tapas more than any other platform to read comics, but by golly do I have difficulty using it! If I've realised anything over the past few days it's that I'm an internet granny comparative everyone else. Tapas sports a big audience and they do have a 'fresh' tab, however, I've seen reviews of people being lost to the ether on there, despite the community being supportive. This was the platform I had planned to use before I decided to do some research.

Webtoons

I'm lead to believe that Webtoon hosts regular competitions although I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out where. If you become popular enough, I also believe they can recruit you as a paid contributor, however, a possibly hindering point was that most of the popular comics there seem to originate from Asia and are translated, so we can expect a very specific aesthetic from works that do well. I think we can safely rule off webtoons, for now, it seems like a 'later on in my career' option.

A universal thing that I noticed while scrolling through some comics on each site is that they all seem to be catered to reading on a phone (i.e. the panels mostly seem to take up an entire width of a page, with simple layouts and minimal detailing) which is a very reasonable thing to consider, however, I've not considered it at all - I've always had the intention of printing comics as books eventually - so I ask another question, is this even the right thing for me at all? Only more research will tell.

One last thing to consider would be to upload pages to this site. The major downside to this would be the minuscule chance of people stumbling upon my work through outside sources, and the best thing for me right now is exposure.

Leaving this for now, I'm torn between ComicFury and Tapas. ComicFury provides an individual site for each comic's creator and letting people know that you're hosted by them is optional, they even provide you with links so that your audience can share your work on other social media sites. It has a much more homely feel to it. Tapas is a big powerful beast compared to ComicFury, its branding is much more crisp, but it's obvious that it would be easy to get lost in such a big community plus there's no 100% customisable page. I also, personally, find it much harder to navigate.

If you have any suggestions or useful insights, please let me know!

Mort