What killed the webcomic?>Except webcomics are alive and we-Don't lie to yourself. The stuff you see today on Twitter and Reddit is NOTHING like what we got during the wonder years of the internet like picrel.
how come Housepets! isn't shown there?
>>152408893Algorithms. Webtoons/Tapas' awful UI dominating the scene. Higher cost of living making consistent updates more difficult.
>>152408893Webtoons swallowed the whole medium. They can still get big, but since webtoons is designed with Manwha in mind everything is forced to become bastardized Manhwas.
>>152408893Well I stopped reading them when I realized that I was waiting months at a time for one chapter.
>>152408936the transformation paw webcomic?
>>152409088>transformation pawWhat?
>>152408893Authors being lazy
>>152408893Rent irl and webtoons online
>>152409136housepets had paws and transformation
>>152408893Nigger, the best webcomic is in its prime.
You're just old and like things that existed when you were young.
>>152408893It's a failed, unsustainable model, people can't afford to make webcomics any more because they would lose money doing so, and that's been demonstrated by the market for webcomics plummeting
>>152409589eh. Unsounded is a good comic but I'd hardly call it the best "webcomic".The principle indicator of a quality webcomic lies in its ability to be read in two opposing modes; individual pages as published, and the collective work as a finished product.Unsounded is a fine read, but reading individual pages is frighteningly opaque. It's impossible to remember all of the details needed to understand a single page unless you've been reading the rest; something you can't do each morning.XKCD, as one random example, is the exact opposite. Its pages are literally individual, there is no through-story to follow, only recurring themes and/or characters. Prior context is never needed.Both of those two are fine. Good, even! But they're not "ideal" for webcomics. They feel more like a graphic novel and a meme page, respectively.The best webcomics strike a balance between those two-- they can be read and enjoyed individually, but also understood better by binging the whole story. Three random examples off the top of my head:>Questionable Content>Grrl Power>Gunnerkrigg CourtEach of these strikes a balance between telling a larger story, and publishing pages that have their own setup and punchline. Not what you'd call "high art", perhaps, but that is the paradox of making a "good" webcomic. Something you can read each morning, but also something you can read all at once.
>>152409668GK represents the average webcomic author's grasp of longform storytelling in that it turned out to be all sizzle and no steak when it came to actual payoff. Universal disappointment in how the story's turning out.
>>152409668>Questionable Content>Gunnerkrigg CourtSo by this definition, does "good webcomic" just mean "shitty?"
>>152408893They tend to look like absolute shit. >>152409589This one's considered to have great art, but it's decent at best.People like to overestimate webcomics for some reason.
>>152409668Anon this might be the most asinine post in the fucking thread. Your criteria is like saying, "Oh, well Dark Knight Rises is ok, but hard to understand unless you read the whole thing. Now Family Circus? THERE'S a real comic. Making us chuckle every morning."How about you judge by something fucking sensible like whether it's funny or tells an interesting story.>>152409589Unsounded is definitely one of the better webcomics overall, but I think OP meant the ecosystem as a whole. There are fewer comics overall compared to like 10-15 years ago, let alone those of quality.To answer OP, I think it's simply because there's no sustainable business format. Most authors will use it as a springboard for a professional gig if they're successful, or segue into a different medium (ie Lackadaisy going on perma-hiatus so it can become an animation).There's also not a big aggregator equivalent to like Youtube for publishing, so a lot have to survive by word of mouth. Maybe Webtoons and Tapas, but I hear they have biases towards certain genres, namely BL in the former.Also because they're self-published without an editor, there's no filter for quality. You'd have to wade through a lot of garbage before finding anything decent, and this probably tanks their reputation as a whole in the eyes of the average reader.Inconsistent update schedules, unappealing art styles, and lack of an editorial process are also constant issues I see.
>>152409902>Maybe Webtoons and Tapas, but I hear they have biases towards certain genres, namely BL in the former.not actually that many bl on webtoons.
who makes a webcomic in current year for money
>>152411938lots of people on webtoons and independants as well
>>152408893What happened to the webcomic threads on /co/?
>>152412766They basically devolved into a shouting match between 2-3 schizos who hate each other for criticizing their comic. Sure, a bunch of authors couldn't take criticism or succumbed to attrition and gave up over the years, but /hyw/ threads have been unusable for half a decade due to two schizos spamming at each other making up 90% of the thread.
>>152408952bastardized?
>>152408893Fuuuuuuuck that image. I remember being an active webcomic reader and I have vivid memories of most of the comics on this chart.Webtoon and Tapastic REALLY threw everything off balance...
>>152408893Out of these, which would you say are the best? For me:>Sinfest>RPG World>Megatokyo>Count Your SheepYes, only the early age of Sinfest and Megatokyo are good, but their golden ages are REALLY good. Prime Sinfest almost always got a reaction out of me almost every comic strip.
>>152409668>they're not "ideal" for webcomicsthings don't have to follow your "ideal"they can just do their own thing, according to how their creator(s) see(s) fit, and you can like them or not
>>152412766There's often several up. You need to know that they're webcomics rather than traditional, as they're usually not labelled specifically as webcomics.The clue is usually that it's written by someone with something interesting to say, not yet more DC/Marvel slop (or their TV equivalents).
>>152408893we comics died things with faster dopamine release became more accessible
>>152408893a lot of these are still alive.
>>152408893Like I said before, I missed when they were earnestly shit.Also, Tats somehow would have been better off being gay. Being single at your 50's while basing your entire belief system on woman is fucking stupid. He should have gone MGTOW. Every single political beliefs that he holds justified by his obsession with the opposite sex.
>>152408893Anime, anime is the root of all evil. Jokes aside, I think the lack of originality killed webcomics, everything feels like weird fanfiction in a way, people most of the time just want to live their fantasies through the comic in a very weeby way so its not really something worth reading and btw Absolute GL is the prefect example of this Im very disappointed of Ewing, all the DBZ + JJK + woke crap is awful
>>152408952So a webtoon, a manhwua, a litrpg, and a webnovel are all the same thing?People are reading books that are written like a game so its like reading a twitch stream?
>>152408893Like half of these are still ongoing.
>>152408893There is something inherently earnest about a webcomic. It's a huge display of self expression, and that is a very vulnerable thing.When cringe became something people began to notice and fear, everyone stopped being earnest. To show any vulnerability was to open yourself to ridicule. The only webcomics that survived were the ones which were extremely ironic and tongue in cheek, because they were not vulnerable in the same way.But we live in a post-cringe society now. I think this very thread exists beccause OP and other people have stopped saying "webcomics are dead, good riddens" and have started saying "where are all the webcomics gone?"I think we're going to see a renewed interest in making earnest webcomics again.
>>152408893>The stuff you see on Twitter and Reddit-well, there's (You)r problem
All those LOL FUCKIN' VIDEOGAMES webcomics from the 2000s were awful and I'm glad 95% of them are dead.
>>152408893>4th column, 2nd row wazzat
>>152408893Can you name all of those that got animated adaptations?
>>152408893PEOPLE. DON'T. READ.
>>152420697Girls With Slingshots. It's pretty good.
>>152408893>no HussieThis thread is a psyop. OP is a falseflagging webcomic hater who thinks Newgrounds is alt-right.
>>152420160>So a webtoon, a manhwua, a litrpg, and a webnovel are all the same thing?not exactly.Webtoons are vertical scrolling comics, there's american ones too.Manhwa is korean comics, manhua is chinese comics. A lot of manhwa/manhua are webtoons style.Webnovels aren't all litrpg, but that genre of fiction is common in webnovels.A lot of manhwa/manhua are adaptations of webnovels. just like how a lot of manga sometimes adapts light novels.
>>152408893Crappy art.
I kinda want to delve into webcomics, especially stuff like Problem Sleuth, SSSS, K6BD, Unsounded, and some of the crazier shit like Unicorn Jelly.
>>152408893The internet got clustered into a handful of supersites/apps and younger audiences prefer that and even if they would have the curiosity to venture out google has changed so much that it ranks aggregator sites above independent creator sites. Webcomics also used to have less stuff to compete against because video content was less in quantity and quality and internet connection speeds were slower.And at the end of the day there isn't actually that much money to be made in webcomics. It isn't surprising that so many webcomics were made by people in college who had ample free time to dedicate to it. They would graduate and suddenly had to pay for rent and groceries and needed to get day jobs and the time left over at the end of the day wasn't enough to keep updating the webcomic. The reason Webtoon was able to take over was thanks to venture capital throwing money at creators to subsidize platform growth but they've been operating at a loss for years. iirc only the Korean and Japanese branches are profitable because the users there accept the weird coin system and will pay for it. That approach hasn't worked out in the West, readers won't pay for coins but they haven't found alternative monetization models that work. Which is to say, there's no money there.
>>152428530>K6BDok here you go: https://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/kill-six-billion-demons-chapter-1/
>>152408893the internet became bigger but also with more vindictive people and the people who like to drama farm
>>152408893They announced a "poker night at the inventory" remake recently, and I was thinking to myself if anyone even remembered who Tycho even was, even though it's all legacy characters in the game somehow he feels anachronistic.
>>152428903Agreeing with this anon. Pretty sure webtoons' pitch was a youtube for comics which would have a lot VCs drooling at the thought of it. Although Youtube might not actually be profitable or at least Google claims Youtube runs at about break even and there really isn't any competition for longform video content so they might not be lying that much. Users are also used to "free" so unless you can carve out a strong niche, you are very dependent on having a large viewing audience in hopes that a few actually support it financially.
>>152429962I had the same thoughts but with Strong Bad, for some reason i never delved into that corner of the internet but it turns out everyone else did, i just check if Homestar Runner was still a thing and it was, his youtube channel has okay views so someone is still watching, so it's probably the same for Penny Arcade
>>152408893Ima answer your question in backwise order:What made webcomics popular is they could do what other media were not allowed to do. There were no rules on the internet, and we all understood that this was a good thing, and comics would rise and fall based on merit, not anyone's idea of acceptable words or images.What killed them is when hosts were like "the financial companies have told us they no longer want money from everyone, but only from a tiny minority of people, or those who will begrudgingly follow their constantly-changing guidelines"At no point was this met with any suspicion, just mindless "psh, typical capitalist greed" as if they think money works backwards.I watched it happen. it was really sad. Now all the hosts are dead, garbage, or deadbage, and self-hosting is like 20 times as expensive as it used to be for some reason.>>152408945don't forget the aging of the one generation that used the old internet and thought tv and videogames were a valid way of life. I really thought that would last more than just us, but it didn't. And no older peeps joined us either. We're just too tired now to keep it up like we did.>>152408952except that 90% of webcomics were already in the vertical scroll format, so..In any case, I actually got recognized by someone in youtube comments who read my comic, which feels pretty good since it finished almost a decade ago. Feels good, man.
>>152409639It worked while ads worked. Also merch.>reading individual pages is frighteningly opaque. It's impossible to remember all of the details needed to understand a single page unless you've been reading the rest; something you can't do each morning.god, this is so true. But I consider that a personal fault, not a fault of the comic. You SHOULD aim to be more than your audience can handle. Someone's gonna have the right brain for it, and that's whom you're making it for.
>>152409902there was a time when word of mouth was not only all you need, but all you wanted. it ensured nobody would come to your product except those who wanted to see itaggregates are the most rancid idea since public schooling. just SHOVES everything in your face. I don't want my work shoved in anyone's face.>>152411938couple years back I thought I could possibly pull a Prequel, and update it more often than Kaz, but... MSPA forums are gone, pretty sure there's no more built in audience for CYOAs, plus basing it on an existing franchise gets harder as companies get more assholey and litigious. or rather, lawyers force them to be (why do we allow lawyers again?)
>>152414649Count Your Sheep is a fucking masterpiece, and sadly a posterchild for>Great comic stops updating one day>Shit, well hopefully it comes ba- IT CAME BACK!>aaand that lasted about two weeks. Now it's gone for even longera pattern I'm really tired of seeing. PLEASE have an EoL for your work, whatever it is. Someone, somewhere is following it, waiting. We'll understand, whatever the reason is. You had a baby, you broke your arm, you just don't feel like it anymore.. tell us, so we can have closure. And don't force yourself to come back. Rather, you should come back when you are forced to by the same drive that made you make it in the first place. If that's gone, it's gone.
>>152415244How do you figure?Things have been less fun in general than they've been since the days when most videogames had like 30 minutes of repetitive content and were brutally hard to beat.>>152417508it's weird, I felt so sympatico with those people. That culture. those were my guys. Haha it's cool to like videogames, I also reference things from tv shows.Then they all went woke and I'm like exsqueeze me? I thought we were against that shit. I thought we spoke the truth, and rolled our eyes at fedora edgelords.
>>152420212to put it another way, you used to be able to trust that everyone else on the web was a dork like you. Someone who wouldn't judge you, and even if he did, wouldn't have any power anyway.cell phones were a mistake, and we should have immediately written virus code that blocks all mobile devices attempting to access the internet. Would have solved everything. They'd have made their own shitty fake internet and left ours alone.>>152420453I hate myself for not laughing at those anymore, but I have to think of it like 80s comedy. A lot of what they were saying is like, fucking obvious now, but at the time it was fresh.
>>152421414You can make a wordless comic. Lots of them do that Primal kinda thing.>>152423136god Newgrounds really lost their way too, but less than most. They're in a weird limbo where they're ruined, but still feel usable, but nobody's using them, which is probably what keeps them feeling usable.>>152424576I don't think your definitions are quite right>>152428903young people don't "prefer that." they've never known anything else. Nothing else is available, even if they did. The idea that this status quo is desirable because it's what people prefer is what moron execs say to justify their failing decisions to the shareholders while hiding the embezzled money.>>152428903again, there was money in it, when ads weren't yet malware and people weren't just blocking them. and when they paid out and didn't censor your content.>>152429962I wish I liked those games, but it's just not fun playing poker like this with these AIs.>>152430387man homestar is still the joint.
>>152408893It's the general trend of things on the internet to go from free passion projects to>wait why the fuck am I doing this for free / peanuts? I have to eat / I should probably try to do something that gets me money. Combine that with a general dissolving of internet communities thanks to stuff like twitter and reddit and you get very little motivation for stuff like this.
>>152430586so many comics have their own discords now, and they always have drama.. it's really sad. everything's fucked. I spend my time vacillating between desperately clinging to the past and wondering if we're actually unhappier from having had it, than we would have been if things were just always this bad so at least we didn't know what we were missing. and in between I just find I can't really keep my mental focus long enough to fantasize about either. I can stay out of the present well enough, but it's hard to live in the past.
>>152430630I swear the internet incentivizes drama for attention
>>152408893lackadaisy is the only good one there, i wonder why
>>152431400the modern social media net, and more broadly, the clickbaity news media cycle, yes. the old web did the opposite. That's why trolling was invented, it was amusingly disruptive, but it did about as much damage as peeing in the pool.
>>152409589too many minorities
>>152412839>two schizosits less than two. but greater than zero
>>152412766typical shit where anonymous cranks pull strings and pressure people into ganging up on random people they assign as 'lolcows'and they can't push back or they'll be included in it. real elementary school shit. all the cool people left and everyone else has just become miserable and never update their comics anymore.
>>152408893The question iswhat do we use to revive them? tanna leaves?
>>152408893webcomics don't make moneyAnd for a while people were like... "maybe they could potentially make money, who knows idk this is a new internet thing"And outside of a very very very small group of early movers they found out that they could not make moneyand then all those people had to get real jobs and they stopped publishing their webcomics.
>>152432953for a while they made okay money, and had the potential to make more in merch and stuff if you got popular.then advertisers yanked it all.
>>152432953Before the profit motive hollowed all value out of the internet, there were comic hosting sites that barely made enough to cover costs. When they had the option people would do it for the love of the game.
>>152431455you mean it shat up the internet and turned it toxic for everyone? we see the results now
>>152420212Cringe culture never existed. It only exist on normalfag places. 4chan is one of them.
