I’m Done with Tapastic

I’ve been involved with Tapastic since before it existed.  I was approached at a convention by a couple of the guys getting ready to start the website, which was then called Comic Panda.  They liked my stuff and wanted me to be a part of their site.

Over the years I’ve been a part of a lot of webcomic sites, and honestly I haven’t liked most of them.  I never really wanted to join them, it’s just the game you have to play if you want to get your webcomic out there.  Unfortunately, most of them did not really do a whole lot to promote my comics, and were largely designed to force comic creators to, in fact, promote that webcomic site.

Add our badge to your site!  Link to our site!  Get your readers to vote for you on our site!  Blah, blah, blah.  Most of it didn’t amount to anything, and I’ve watched a lot of these sites come and go over fourteen years.  I met a few other cool creators, and saw some fun comics, but I never got much readership.  And while it is nice to meet other comic people and see their stuff, that was not my goal, and if I wanted to do that I have other resources.

Then along comes Tapastic four years ago with all their promises of being different.  Here’s one big difference, they force you to put up your comics on their site!  But they are going to be doing all this marketing and promoting, and building their brand and bringing you with them!  And I could get in on the ground floor.  Yeah, at least that’s what they said.

Most of my comic colleagues were hesitant to try it, but I thought I’d be open minded, give it a shot and hope for the best, even though I wasn’t really comfortable with double posting my content and some of the terms they wanted me to agree to.

Unfortunately it didn’t take long before Tapastic started showing their true colors.  Suddenly they had their own in house comics and partnerships with the few outside comics they really wanted to promote.  Each site redesign focused more and more on promoting their own stuff, and when I voiced my feedback it was listened to, kind of addressed, and then basically ignored.

The site now is designed to showcase what is popular, leading to it being more popular in a lovely circle.  And of course they deem what is popular and what they want to feature.  A far cry from the original design that was all about helping people find new comics.

Then they finally offered the long promised way for the comic creators to get paid!  Originally we were all supposed to get money from the ads shown on our comic pages.  I don’t think that ever happened.  Then they did offer a program where people could donate money to support a creator, and get bonus stuff in a Patreon like model.  Except it was a real pain to set up and manage.

Well now they just announced that less than after that launched they are cancelling it.  And they are going to be messing with the format of the site and app again!  Now they are going to include novels, or some crap.  And changing the focus to be even more on their own stuff.

I’m tired of it, and in four years I’ve gotten very little out of it.  I was never featured on the site homepage, or in the emails, or the app.  My comics were always regulated to obscurity, while I watched others shoved down my throat.

And the only method they offer to get popular on the site is mingle with the other creators and readers.  Really get involved in the community!  In other words help promote their site and make it more active.  So they get to grow their brand, which they’ve done their damndest to turn into a big company, and you get…well, not much.  And remember when I said I didn’t go to these sites to schmooze and browse.  Yeah.  When did it become not enough to just draw comics and let people read them?

The only thing Tapastic ever did for me was interview Alex and I when they launched, before they decided to discard us for their home grown comics, and give us a plug on their blog when we were running our Kickstarter.  So I thank them for that.

So I’m done posting my stuff on their site, and I’m done with all these webcomic promotion sites.  If you want to read my stuff or interact with me, you can always find me right here at my site.