I posted this in Mastodon the other day, but I do believe it deserves a repost here, with slight adjustments.
I personally have a passion for webcomics, I love drawing them and enjoy reading (whenever I have TIME to do so, which has been lacking tbh), but sometimes I feel that no matter how popular some webcomics are it’s still a very niche thing, there’s rarely a case of a particular webcomic becoming mainstream (besides memes, of course).
I know about Webtoons and Tapas, aight? I’m just wondering because even WITH those websites it feels like webcomics in general are this little thing that most people either don’t know or don’t think about.
Am I wrong?
I’m going to actually agree with the other guy, though feel free to reply back. When finding a webcomic, it becomes something you need to subscribe to. Compared to books or TV shows, content ends up drip-fed for story-based webcomics. For comedic ones, you have the burden of needing to be funny consistently.
And then you also face the issue that you have with most other forms of media. If it’s too early on and it’s bad, you’re not sure if this is just a rough patch and worth investing in later, or if it’s good, you don’t know if this quality would continue (though you’re definitely more likely to keep reading). If it’s something that’s been going for years, the sheer size of it might be daunting.
And then, even with all of these problems, you still have the even further issue of if it’s something you’ll enjoy. XKCD is fantastic, but if you’re not technical, you’re probably going to be less interested. Oglaf is also great, but it’s super-NSFW and basically constant sex jokes. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal bounces hard between philosophical humor and dumb jokes. Questionable Content requires you be enjoy slice-of-life comics–so long as they’re set in the future with sentient AI. Twokinds needs you to be a furry or okay with that, but also invested in fantasy. Penny Arcade is not funny to people who don’t enjoy video games.
What you’re left with is a small group of people who are looking for drip-fed reading material, and of that group, a smaller subset that are looking to add to their existing lists, and of that group, a subset that likes your genre, is interested in your presentation, and most important of all, has actually found your comic. Some of the more interesting takes I’ve seen have come from webcomics, but they’re competing with more successful formats.