For anyone wondering, don't bother beginning the series. The author hasn't posted a new chapter in over 2 years at the time of making this comment and expects people to fund each chapter. Looking at the RAW website, it shows that the current $121 USD funded is only 11% of the total goal; that means they're expecting $1100 in total for the next episode alone.
I don't think the author realizes that in order to make money off making webcomics, you need to actually make the webcomics. Support follows creation; not the other way around. You can't just tell people that you'll make more chapters if, and only if, they give you money.
Hi, I'm the author. First of all, thank you for reading and showing interest and giving me the opportunity to clarify some things. The per-episode donation goal isn't something that must be reached for me to continue working; it's a way to help people understand and co-relate with the effort and time needed to produce a webcomic or webtoon chapter, especially in genres often compared to studio production quality. It's unfair to expect the same release schedule as those working full-time in a studio manned by a team, I'm just one guy.
Secondly, every creator's situation is different irl, financially and mentally, which greatly affects how much time they can dedicate to projects requiring full-time commitment. Even in studio production, many work up to 14 hours a day. Moreover, with so much content available, I don't want to support a culture where creators feel pressured and manipulated to continually produce for free, only to face more pressure from algorithms and audiences. You may be right about not asking for money upfront before "producing" the webcomic, but I've seen too many examples of creators working tirelessly and breaking themselves, hoping to "convince" people to trust and support them for YEARS without much success, and I'm certainly won't put the expectation where people will FINALLY support me after putting out 100 chapters.
In the real world, every service requires payment before it's rendered (e.g. food and beverage, maintenance, products etc). Modern consumerism has conditioned us to consume without considering the effort required to produce, and for me, it's disheartening to see the declining conditions in the webcomics space. Somehow at the back of my mind, if I were to mindlessly produce content and eventually receive the support I desire, it would be a disservice to other creators who have worked harder and seen no return on their efforts simply because content seems so "easy" to come by these days, the product of that will only further feed into the toxic culture I mentioned and even for me, I have no solution to this problem other than not letting external pressure affecting my own craftsmanship. Please change my mind on this, it's one of the reasons why I go on to a long hiatus just trying to understand my own burnout.
That said, I've been working silently all this while and I'm ending my hiatus this year and will be releasing the next chapter in a few days because it's still my passion, and I have many emotional events and themes to explore in this series, it's a worthy journey even for me as I'm bringing all the characters to life. For anyone interested in being the first to know when it's release, subscribe to my mailing list on the official site.
And if you truly love any indie webcomics or artists out there, remember to show your support; it doesn't have to be mine. Your trust to the development and seeing the growth in things you believe in goes for a long 2-sided-way.
Cheers to those who are reading this and understanding with much gratefulness. 😌🙏
Here's a sneak peak.