Diana's Day WIP Video + Webtoons Wall of Text (Patreon)

Today was a great arting today. Made progress on several projects, including the next FE page! Above is a sped-up recording of that work for you to enjoy!Also, this week Webtoons announced the winners of their 'Call to Action' contest. Artists of all skills sets created and submitted a full color, 60 panel comic that included "a blood-pumping brawl between at least two characters." Each ambitious artist was vying for the cash prizes, the chance to be a new Webtoons Original series, or at least a free copy of ClipStudio before it became a subscription platform.I did not enter, but had fun with the prompt idea, as patrons can see here. In the end, there were over 3,000+ submissions, I do not envy the judges having to pick three winners from that literal ocean of talent. More interesting than the Winners Announcement, though, were the reactions. Comments upon comments speculating why Webtoons chose these three comics, above other submissions with higher popularity numbers. Why were so many of the most 'liked' submissions snubbed, not even given an honorable mention? The contest rules said popularity would be 40% of the score, right? The answer was obvious. To me, anyway. I kept waiting for someone to point it out, but no one did. Commenters either wrote the contest off as rigged, or scolded the rig-sayers for not being good sports, or called on Webtoons to make their scoring records public. No one went back to the contest rules. If they did, they would've realized what Webtoons was really looking for. Maybe you'll see it.The rules state the score breakdown as this:Level of Audience Engagement: 40%

Judge Assigned Scores: 60%

Score assigned categories:

Up to 10 points Narrative

Up to 10 points Readability

Up to 10 Points Clarity

Up to 30 points Action Execution

Did you catch it? The reason the most popular entries didn't win is because popularity wasn't a factor in the scoring. Out of a 100 point score, 60 of those points determined the creator's skill at making comics for the action genre, and remaining 40 points were based on audience engagement. "But isn't pressing the 'Like' button audience engagement?" you may ask. For Webtoons, yes and no. If you ever browse through Webtoon's thousands of thousands of comics, you'll see one of the ways to organize your search is by "Popularity." Even the contest submissions can be sorted this way. It helps you quickly find which comics have been given the most 'Likes' from previous readers. But the 'Like' button is not the only way for readers to engage with a comic series. There is also a 'Rate' button, where you can assign a 1-5 star rating. There is also a comment section, where readers can respond to and vote on each other's posts as they react to the latest update.This is where the Grand Prize Winner Scale Hunters pulled ahead of others in the judging. Compare it to the most-liked submission, Lancel the Flagbearer. Lancel may have been given more 'Likes' by readers during the judging, but Scale Hunter's readers gave higher star ratings, more page views, and more activity in the comments section. This wasn't a rigged contest. Scale Hunters may have had a smaller audience, but it was one of the most active audiences, which is what Webtoons was really looking for in their next Original Series. 

Remember, Webtoons is expanding their Originals into other forms of media. Their last big action hit, God Of High School, has branched out into books, animation, and a video game. A contest that accounts for audience engagement helps ensure their new Original Series will come with a strong built-in fanbase for future expansion.

So, what lesson can we take away from all this? It's a mistake to fixate on the size of your audience. Having thousands of people 'like' a single social media post won't do much to help you grow in the long run. However, taking time to engage with the people who are as excited about your work as you are making it, that is how you start the foundation of a strong creative community.

Speaking of engagement, thanks for helping build this creative community for FE. You are all awesome, and I'm looking forward to creating more for you in the future.