#bugtopia

so today I got this notification:

on this comment:

which I left on this post:

Which. ‘Oh whatever! Some musician liked your comment!’

BUT NO

my favourite musician is The Narcissist Cookbook. They are the one that I talked about in that comment. The friend? The friend that they collabed with? Their close friend who they have a podcast and tour with? Bug Hunter. YOU KNOW WHO LIKED THAT POST?

Bug Hunter.

Somehow I left a random comment on a random post offhandedly mentioning a musician I enjoy without name and it got liked BY THAT MUSICIAN.

It was a decision I really wrestled with myself for months over it, before finally concluding that letting it end after 40 episodes was the better option. Just to be clear, webtoons did not force me to end the series. They even offered to give me a pay raise to continue the series. It was my decision due to a multitude of personal factors. I'll just repeat what I said on my patreon:

I just want to say, first of all, thank you all so much for patiently waiting for my series to release and for supporting my work as I began developing the series. Bugtopia was a series I genuinely loved and adored and it made me feel so incredibly happy that people were turning their heads towards a series about weird bugs and their natural lives.

However, as you can probably guess, it pains me to say that I am concluding the series after season 1. I had 4 seasons planned with new characters to introduce, but unfortunately, I cannot see myself continuing to work with Webtoons and I want to pursue other projects.

This decision was due to a compiling number of issues with the company, the final straw was when they had a mass layoff, fired my editor that I've been working with for two years, and did not inform me for a week, leaving me in the dark until they randomly assigned me with someone else. My new editor is great and I'm glad I'm working with someone so patient and understanding, but this decision to fire my previous editor, the one who got me the job to begin with, without prior warning made me feel disrespected and disregarded, and it killed all motivation I had for properly completing the series.

I also felt incredibly overworked, I was spending vacation days working on comics and avoiding time with family just so I could get something done for webtoons once I come home. I feel like so much time was being wasted away for a company that paid me so little that I had to work twice as hard building up funds on my patreon. Bugtopia just ate up so much of my time. The pay also didn't make up for it. It's commonly assumed that webtoons authors make about $800 for the episodes they do, but that's not true. In fact, you can make far less depending on the amount of panels expected for your contract. It doesn't help that the artwork i did for banners and promotions were all things I had to draw and didn't get paid for, and the work I gave was either tampered with or scrapped, making me feel like I spent more hours of my day wasting time. There were also comics I had to censor and scrap, likely due to another series being in hot water for its racially insensitive content. But it was just extra work I wasn't being paid for. It also frustrated me because I was seeing other series with far more explicit content getting away with a slap on the wrist (turns out you can't say "fuck" anymore without it being hit with a mature rating, disappointing!)

In all honesty, it just felt like webtoons needed me more than I needed them. I was making more money from patreon in a week than I was making from webtoons in a month.

Personally, while I don't really regret my time with Webtoons and met some great people along the way, I honestly don't think any artist should work with them. You will be severely overworked and underpaid, and will barely be featured in ads unless your series becomes an instant hit immediately. It doesn't really matter how successful you are, you're just a product to Webtoons, put yourself above the corporation.

I have tried my best to provide you all with a satisfying conclusion to Bugtopia, even if some episodes may feel rushed or incomplete, but I completely understand if the conclusion isn't to your liking and I do apologize, but I could not continue working on this series if this was the mistreatment I was going to continuously get. I owe a massive thank you to my editor and assistants for helping me complete the series, I truly don't think I could have ever finished it without them.

Though I am done with Bugtopia, that does not mean I want to stop projects entirely, so please don't feel bad for me. I have a lot of upcoming projects and ideas in the works, and I'm still continuing the Monsters and Girls series.

pic i drew of milan for @idolomantises

I'll start with Heaven's Design Team! It's about a group of a designers working for God(their client) to create the animals that will populate Earth. One of the designers, Venus uses they/them(purple haired character holding the peacock) and is an overall joy. I actually own the manga, but there is an anime available, and it's a great watch/read with plenty of cool animal facts.

Next up is Bugtopia! It's a slice of life webcomic that follows multiple characters, and one of them, Viola(although there are multiple trans characters) is an absolute delight who reads BL(Bug's love) with her friends

Ending my contributions off, it's my own webcomic, Captain Jellyfish! It's a magical girl webcomic that's a mix of Sailor Moon and Miraculous Ladybug(if that makes any sense lol) and the mc, Mattie/Captain Jellyfish is trans

Been reading Bugtopia and decided to do a style study...that uh, turned into more just fanart

All the Bugtopia characters are just so Shaped but I am also just a sucker for long poofy hair lol