Hello ^.^

[thistlequest]

Hail and well met! My name is Stevie (or Thistle, if you're feeling whimsical ). I'm a fantasy illustrator and cartoonist who's looking for a slower and more meaningful experience on the web ^.^ (they/them)

As someone who strives to be a pro-artist, I feel compelled to use fast paced social media. But as someone who grew up at the tail end of the golden age of the internet, I miss how the internet used to make me feel. I miss when webcomics (and I insist on calling them webcomics, not webtoons )only released one page a week, and spending hours trawling through a single artists page to admire all of the work that they ever posted. I want to take back a piece of the internet for myself, and find community here. Most of all I miss being able to approach the web with open sincerity. I hate how jaded social media has made us all.

I'm still working on my website, but in the meantime here are some things about me:
I love all things fantasy! My favorite author is Ursula K. Le Guin and my favorite book series was written by her-- The Earthsea Cycle. I also love playing video games. I grew up playing Skyrim and Fallout, but these days I play more Dragon Age or Fields of Mystria.
I listen to all kinds of music (and yes I really mean all kinds-- no exceptions  ), but my favorite genre is Dungeon Synth!! It's basically a genre that at its core is old school fantasy video game ass synth music. It's a really cool sort of indie scene with small labels that release cassettes and shit. There's a nice little community around it :3! One of the labels that I order from even sends a Magic the Gathering card with every order-- so nerdy and silly! I really love the artists Hole Dweller, Quest Master, and Umbria. Fogweaver and Erreth-Akbe are also awesome-- they make Earthsea inspired dungeon synth!! Would highly recommend checking it out if you're a big nerd like me

Anyways, happy to be here looking forward to spending more time doing web revival shit and less time cooking my brain with social media usage

[toribytez]

Yo.. welcome to the crib. \m/

[crazyroostereye]

Servus and welcome ,
nice having you here!

What an Interesting Music, It really gives the whole Fantasy world / Journey vibe of. I will look into adding it to my Playlist. Also, what's the Label that sends you Magic the Gathering cards? Sound like a fun Label.


If I may ask, as someone not really in the web comics community at all. Why is calling Webcomics webtoons bad? Has it something to do with webtoons company? And if yes what is the Drama?

[thistlequest]

Servus and welcome ,
nice having you here!

What an Interesting Music, It really gives the whole Fantasy world / Journey vibe of. I will look into adding it to my Playlist. Also, what's the Label that sends you Magic the Gathering cards? Sound like a fun Label.


If I may ask, as someone not really in the web comics community at all. Why is calling Webcomics webtoons bad? Has it something to do with webtoons company? And if yes what is the Drama?

TY ^.^!!! Nice to be here!

Glad to hear u like/are interested in Dungeon Synth!! I think the label that I got the MtG cards from is Out of Season! They sometimes send some free stickers and stuff too. That label carries most of the people that I mentioned I think. Not sure what is still in stock at the moment but sometimes they do restocks/full sets of previous albums. I find that it's pretty affordable too in terms of physical media collecting!!

In regards to not calling Webtoons webcomics, u are right that it's because of the company. Not because of something specific the company did (although there are plenty of specific examples..) but moreso for me because of an overall cultural shift around webcomics caused by Webtoon. As I remember it, there was a sort of webcomic golden age when I was younger. Webcomics were something that a young comic artist could cut their teeth on that was generally low stakes and low commitment-- most people only released a page or two every week. They usually were hosted on their own dedicated website with fun stuff like character "About" pages and extra content. There was a lot of amazing creative energy surrounding webcomics and some even wound up being published and becoming these really galvanizing success stories.

This changed when sites like Webtoon or Tapas became popular. These sites lowered the barrier to entry, but now webcomics have become subject to intense algorithmic scrutiny. Now people who want to be successful making webcomics feel compelled to use these popular sites and have to make what is essentially the equivalent of five pages per week in order to stay relevant-- turning what was once a more of a passion project into a thankless full time gig. I guess you could make the argument that it has created more opportunity for some artists, but I prefer something like Hiveworks that's organized more horizontally and doesn't have an algorithm. That creates more opportunities for all of the artists who's comics make it onto the site, and not just the lucky ones who's comics hit the algorithm just right at just the right time.

I guess my feelings around it are similar to the principles of web revival. Big companies have changed most people's relationship to something that I genuinely love and a community I longed to be a part of, and I want to take part of my agency back-- even if it's something so small as refusing to call webcomics "Webtoons".

[thistlequest]

Yo.. welcome to the crib. \m/

ty ^.^ glad to be here

[CrypticEyes]

Welcome to the community! I also grew up playing Skyrim and Fallout, and I love Fields of Mistria currently. I've been meaning to check out Dragon Age, but I'm not certain where the best starting place is.

I'm definitely adding some of the Dungeon Synth artists to my playlists. They're right up my alley, they remind me of games I used to play when I was really young (that were way above my age rating XD). I'm curious as to some labels, because I'd love to discover more of the genre!

[crazyroostereye]

@thistlequest
Thank you for the Label! Will look into buying a few CDs when Payday comes around.

How interesting with the Webtoons thing. I get that with the whole Algorithmic System, making it harder for Cartoonists and Artists to be visible / relevant for long. The whole constant load of Content that has to be easy for Advertisers is really Destroying many Art themes.