Tapas Media (formerly, Comic Panda and Tapasitc) is an open platform for comic artists who publish on the web and are based in San Francisco, California. Tapas specializes in mobile comics (vertically formatted comics such as webtoons). Tapas also funds the translation and typesetting of comics into English. At this time, most of the translations are Korean to English translations, but they are working on making this service available to more Creators and languages. Although best viewed for comics that are mobile-formatted, Tapas is open to all styles such as four panel comics, comic book pages, and manga pages.
All artists on Tapas have the opportunity to monetize off of their content through ads on the site much like Youtube. When a creator accumulates enough views to give them $25 worth of ad revenue, the Creator will be issued a check for this amount. Also, Tapas will be rolling out new features where readers can pledge to support their favorite artists on a monthly basis and receive material or digital "benefits" from the artists. This allows the creators to feature artwork or chapters that only supporters can view.
In the North American market, where printed cartoons were the general trend, the platform is publicizing webtoons and webcomics. In late 2013, Tapas surpassed DC Comics, well known for its Superman and Batman series, in US site rankings. Tapas entered into a strategic alliance with Daum on January 20, 2014 to pioneer the road for high quality Korean webtoons into the English-speaking market. Later that year, 5 series from Daum Webtoons: Like A Wolf / Jack, The American Ghost / Season of Su / Trace 2.0 / and Subway Line 1 was translated and officially launched on Tapas.
Tapastic aquires Webtoon Live[]
On November 2014, Tapastic announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Webtoon Live. Launched in October 2010, Webtoon Live is a grassroots community dedicated to promoting webtoons, vertically-formatted comics that are optimized for mobile viewing.
“Webtoons is quickly becoming a global phenomenon and it is largely due to amazing online communities such as Webtoon Live that paved the way,” said Chang Kim, founder and CEO of Tapastic.com. “Like Webtoon Live, Tapastic is also a thriving comic community, and we are extremely excited to join forces to promote the creators and stories that we love.”
“We are very proud to partner with Tapastic; we feel like this partnership will benefit our community greatly. Our aim with Webtoon Live was to promote Korean webtoons and I feel like the people at Tapastic can help us achieve just that,” said Maxime Deuse.
DaumKakao (KAKAO WEBTOON) and SK (Nate webtoons) are both strategic investors of Tapastic. In addition, Tapastic has a strong relationship with key webtoon promotion agencies. Popular series in Korea such as Michelin Star, Like A Wolf, and Jack, The American Ghost are already being published on Tapastic.
Under the terms of the agreement, Tapastic will acquire all of Webtoon Live’s assets at an undisclosed amount. Subject to customary closing conditions, the acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Tapas Media and Tencent Animation and Comics[]
The indie book and digital comic platform is partnering with Tencent AC to take advantage of the United States’ $1.08 billion comics market and $28 billion book market by distributing a series of comics with crossover appeal and potential, including titles like Fox Spirit Matchmaker, Book of Yaoguai, Cupid’s Chocolate-ing, Jack Of All Trades and Zombie Brother.[1]
List of webtoons[]
- Aidie
- Amond i
- Annarasumanara
- Application I
- The Cat Meets Fish
- Chewrining
- Cosmic Bullet
- Daydreamers
- Deadbrain
- Death Architect
- The Devil's Bag
- The Devil Who Couldn't Fly
- Dreamcide
- Estancia
- Estancia 2
- The Forte
- Green Smile
- Hey! Turtle
- Holy Alice
- Homo Sexience
- Jack, The American Ghost
- Like A Wolf
- MED
- MeRanCoRi
- Michelin Star
- Moonlight Hair
- Noblesse
- Nonsense Comedy
- Paper House
- Season of Su
- Seol Lee
- Shaman
- Sigmund's Letter
- Subway Line 1
- Take Care of My Cat
- Taxi Driver
- Trace 2.0: Armor Line
- Trauma
- What Don't You Understand
External Links[]
- The Official site.
- Tapastic at Facebook.