How Useful is Tumblr for Webcomics?

There are many perks in creating a webcomic: control over your content, managing your own work hours, and establishing yourself in the comic book industry without waiting for a phone call by a big named publisher. However, the biggest drawback in creating a webcomic is establishing a large enough audience to profit from. As in any occupation, self-promotion is key to finding success. For artists, Tumblr has become a popular choice for promoting their artwork and hosting their webcomics for millions to view and share online. While enticing, do artists really gain anything by distributing their work through Tumblr?

John Allison, a talented webcomic author and illustrator of Bobbins, Scary Go Round, and Bad Machinery, answered this question on his blog. First he talked about social media dominating internet usage for many people and the hard effort formerly put in establishing a webcomic. He then transitions to his thoughts on Tumblr, the growing microblogging site founded in 2007, being used by artist to host their webcomics:

 . . . There are people who put all their work up on Tumblr, and don’t put it anywhere else. It’s so easy! Drag and drop! Their comics exist, contextless, in a stream of other people’s work. They’re measured by a meritocracy of Notes, Re-blogs and hearts. They have little control over the environment in which their work is displayed. Pageviews on a website are how you make money. A website is a venue to curate your work. It’s how you get someone to PAY ATTENTION TO YOU AND ONLY YOU.

Art isn’t democratic. It doesn’t take place in a caring, sharing environment. It is a huge “look at me”. We are the pre-schoolers who can still point at what we’ve done and get a sticker, and we want to keep getting those stickers forever.

I would never decry any service as worthless. There are people who have caught mass attention via Tumblr, and sold great piles of things as a result. There’s a use for everything, and an exception to every rule. The exceptions are the reasons that others try. But Tumblr sets the bar of success incredibly low. The payout will almost always be zero. Not beer money, nothing.

He further illustrates his point by comparing the popularity gained through Tumblr as someone pointing at something from an artist booth and saying “that’s funny” and walking away:

Tumblr is the “that’s funny” archetype writ large. A million bells and whistles going off at once. To attempt to “win” on Tumblr, you have to drive your work down to the lowest common denominator, collect your “that’s funny”, and then, that’s it! It’s the equivalent of pasting your work up on bus shelter glass in a rainstorm. The sun comes out, your work is gone, no matter how many people laughed at it.

While Allison’s words seem harsh, they ring a great deal of truth. Tumblr can garner a great amount of attention towards your work, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be credited for it. Unlike DeviantArt, which credits an artist name in an image’s filename, Tumblr labels their images with generated numbers and letters. There are art-driven Tumblrs that do their best to credit an image in their post, but often you’ll see an artwork, photograph, or any original content reblogged with no clear origin attached. This is fine for the average user who just wants to share an amazing picture with their friends, but it’s not beneficial for artists hoping to expand their audience. After all, they can’t count on everyone to Google Image their artwork.

Does this devalue Tumblr as an importance venue for artists? Not necessarily. It just means Tumblr needs to be used more as an advertising tool than a potential comic book web host. Tumblr functions the best as an online portfolio that teases an artist’s work, while linking back to their money-making websites. It’s also smart for artists to tag their work on the menu navigation bar for easy viewing, in order to distinguish their artwork from ones they may reblog from others.

However, if this is all done for fun, then it’s unnecessary for Tumblr artists to worry about sharing their work on the site. After all, Tumblr is a fast and easy way to communicate verbally and visually with others on the web. Can it be used for something greater? Time will tell. Like the webcomic industry, there’s no easy path to success through social media, but each new day brings a better understanding on how to make it work for you.

Where do you stand? Should artists continue to use Tumblr as a webcomic host? Or should they find another way to share their work?