Taylor touched on it, but yeah webcomics are EXTREMELY not the scene they were when a lot of people our age got into it (people our age now being in the position of having enough work behind them to 'abandon' it meaningfully).

Almost everyone I know who used to run a webcomic back then still cares a lot about those stories. Some people have moved into different mediums, some have rebooted their work and repackaged it for places like patreon or aggregators, a lot of them still produce free work for their audiences in one form or another even if it's not a continuation of their original 'one big story'. And some of them ARE still plugging away at the same projects, the same way they always did. But the skills that got people into webcomics 10-15 years ago are not the skills you need to get any kind of attention in today's market.

I complain a lot about 'hustle culture' taking over artistic spaces online, and that grievance really roots from what happened to webcomics more than anything else. There is no reason that you should need to be a marketing guru to publish an free indie comic online. There is no reason that you should be expected to update daily, or three times a week, or even once a week if you don't want to. There was genuinely a time when some of the best examples of the genre (and best known among Webcomic Likers) were uncategorisable experiments published one page at a time every other phase of the moon on wordpress blogs or static html sites.

If you were excited by webcomics as a medium in 2010, you were probably excited by qualities of the scene that simply don't exist any more - or at least certainly don't exist in the same form, or to nearly the same extent. Project Wonderful and webrings meant tiny comics still had shared readerships, and an avenue for connecting with new audiences through peers with similar interests. Micro-forums and comment sections meant each comic had its own little mini community, often full of other artists who were excited to talk process. Maybe the defining artistic relationship of my whole career, which has opened up more job opportunities than my actual degree, was forged in a webcomic forum with about 8 regular users.

The biggest loss I felt, personally, was the disappearance of spaces for talking about art with amateurs who really cared about experimentation and expression. A lot of it was super goofy, but bouncing off other teenagers with messy over-ambitious ideas about infinite canvas and found-object comics and branching storylines really ignited my passion for trying things. There were always parallel conversations about how to find an audience, whether merch was worth it, which conventions made money, but they were just as questing and experimental. Today, creative spaces are (somewhat necessarily, by nature of the way the internet has changed around us) dominated by marketing talk. The question hanging over every creative question for webcomic artists today seems to be 'but will it drive engagement'. And that's fucking miserable.

Anyone who got into webcomics before the shift to algorithmic feeds, omnipresent adtech and the premeditated murder death of Project Wonderful has probably looked around at some point and thought 'where the fuck am I?' Some artists have adapted comfortably, but a huge proportion of those who were most invested ten years ago were just never going to be interested in the skills that drive the current webcomic market. Because it is a market now, not an art scene. People have always needed to make money, and webcomics have never been especially profitable, but there was a time when they were an outlet - something you did after your shift at the bar, because it came with broad possibilities and a vibrant social scene. Now they are a second job.

Here's my point: when you notice the great proportion of long-running comics that just faded away or stopped altogether at some point, it is worth recognising that this wasn't just burnout. It was an extinction event.

Also, you're competing with billion dollar, AI-using corporations for readership now.

I've been making one page a week because that's literally all I can manage between paying work. No one's paying to read my webcomic, they're paying me to letter someone else's comic, and I need money to live. So the webcomic story I'm passionate gets 5-6 hours of labor a week, if I'm extremely lucky.

My god I feel this. When Smackjeeves died and Chromatic Press went under, all of my comics vanished from the internet and now I just feel so... lost.

I can't stand the Webtoon format. I don't like infinite scroll comics. I want to make black and white manga that I can print into little books and there's fucking nowhere for that anymore beyond a personal website but I tried that and it's impossible to get eyes on it even promoting on social media and I just...

I love comics, I love making comics, I WANT to make comics. But I don't know how anymore. I don't know what to do.

And I really hope that changes again while my aging body still works, because I miss it so much.

ARTSHIELD

Putting out another resource for people if their PC is too old to glaze or do their work on mobile platforms

Artshield works by digitally watermarking your art into tricking AI scrapers into thinking its also AI and thus excluding it from the pool of sampled images. Granted it's methods are not as potent as nightshade or glaze, but its browser based and fast so you can have at least some protection on your art rather than none.

Example of an un-guarded picture

Same image put through Artshield.

See any differences? no? Thats because unlike glaze or nightshade the process is a lot more simplistic and changes the art in more subtle ways, while that makes the protection a bit thinner the artifacting is much less noticeable. but dont worry, its there!

as you can see theres blurring and artifacting on anything an AI might look for, such as lines, changes in color, and background patterns. While its not much out of JPEG compression, its more than posting your work without any protection due to PC limitations.

It sucks as artists we have to jump through such hoops to make sure our livelihoods aren't stolen but there is hope that tools are being made to keep us safe, showing there are those that still stand with us against the fight on AI.

I dropped off of Tumblr for a few months (was dodging OFMD S2 spoilers cause I was dragging my feet finishing it for stupid personal reasons) but I'm back now and definitely forgot to share this!

I got a Silhouette for Christmas and used it to do a rebind of a Sailor Moon manga for a friend for Secret Santa. It was a bit of a rush job and I didn't get to press the book or the hinges as long as I wanted, but I like how it came out! Cutting machines are a game-changer, y'all.

Is this just a re-cover?

It is, yeah! I cut the original covers off a copy of volume 1 of the manga and dressed it up. So it still mostly has the structural integrity of a paperback, but it makes a nice, custom gift for a friend.

As a European, I knew Americans have been asking for walkable cities but i had no idea it was literally this hostile

WHERE DO YOU WALK YOUR DOGS!?!

lol yeah

yeah

I live in a big city in the US and I don't drive (lack of access to resources in my youth combined with anxiety as an adult), so I rely entirely on public transit, walking, and getting rides from friends/acquaintances. It takes me minimum an hour to get anywhere without a ride, and I'm LUCKY if there's a sidewalk on both sides of the road. Winter is a nightmare: most places don't bother de-icing their sidewalks, and where do you think they put all the snow they plow off the streets? Yep.

I own a bicycle, but almost never use it because the suburb I live in has virtually 0 bike accessible streets. Most cyclists I see here ride on the sidewalks, if there are any, and I can't even blame them.

Hostile, indeed.

I cannot believe I forgot to post these... @speakeronthewall made this beautiful handbound book of my Witcher fic Footprints are More Easily Seen in the Snow back in February and it's truly just so gorgeous! I was flipping through it again and realized I'd never shared it and so I just had to make a post. I'm beyond flattered that someone liked my story enough to bind it into a lovely book and it sits proudly on my shelf.

Thank you for posting these and reminding me to photograph my own copy! I loaned mine to a friend immediately and forgot to take pictures, which ended up being a problem with every copy of this fic in particular, lol... 🫠

I ran out of the faux leather I used for my copy and so I got creative for the author copy, but I think it ended up being a much cooler design anyway.

Thanks again for writing this lovely, sexy little fic! And for sending me photos when I realized I forgot. I'm glad you like the book! ❤️