Thoughts on niche Webtoons

WARNING: SENSITIVE TOPICS AHEAD!!!

Webtoons (web cartoons)! The internet equivalent of cartoons that you watch on your computer instead of the TV, or used to until streaming services became all the rage.

There have been many of them over the years; a few I have watched, and loads that I haven't. They stem back as far as the 1990's, when the internet was a wee li'l laddie, when you'd lose connection to the internet because the phone was being used, when everything was all radical and cooool.

In fact, I believe the very first known webtoon was made by an unfortunate individual who shall not be named, but the ones after that are made by good souls mostly. Stuff like Homestar Runner was a huge milestone for the internet back in the day, and I've STILL yet to watch most of it despite seeing bits and pieces of it over the past 16 years, I just don't know where to start!

This blog post will focus on SOME of the ones I've watched and/or know more about. You'll probably see some familiar ones, or maybe not. You may also be upset to not see your favorite webtoon discussed. Unfortunately, it would take me forever to watch every webtoon known in the universe. Also, do expect me to go in stupid depth with some of these, ramble heavily (you came here for that, right?) and giving my own potentially divisive thoughts on certain things. So with that said, let's start off with the first one that I watched...

Doodle Toons (2015 - 2017)

Ah, Doodle Toons. The first webtoon I recall watching, at least on YouTube (if there's anything from Newgrounds I watched way back in the day, I've probably forgotten, and I am not counting Madness Combat).

How I was introduced to the series was fairly simple: I was checking out random YouTube Poop videos one day in 2014, and I stumbled upon the cartoonlover98 channel. I liked his YTP's, so I kept watching. Around August or September, his second Q&A video was released. It featured a white rabbit called Bellybutton. I really liked the design and his personality as a 14 year old, and I felt it was much more interesting than the weird blob character from the first video. Other characters in the video also included early versions of Cruncher, Goldie, and Pip.

A little while later, the pilot episode "Rabbit for Dinner" would be uploaded. I did not watch it back in the day, and I honestly do not know why. What I did watch, however, was the deleted scene, which I found funny at the time. Maybe the very short length of the deleted scene made me watch that instead. I can't quite recall, it's been nearly 11 years as of writing this.

Similarly, the actual show itself began in 2015, and there were a ton of comics, but I never watched the episodes or read the comics until September 2017. I did watch the "Doodle Toons Doodles" shorts when they were new however, and I enjoyed those. I specifically remember watching the "Mr. Enter Fans" one, based on a comic.

In September 2017, I decided to go ahead and watch the pilot episode. I'm not sure what lead to me doing so, other than maybe I felt I was missing out and wanted to catch up on the series. It would have been the first time I had watched a cartoon in a few years (besides clips of TV cartoons here and there), and I think that played a factor into why I really enjoyed the pilot. I watched the rest of the series that had been uploaded at the time, and enjoyed that just as much, too (this was before "Fast Food Follies" was uploaded). I also read the comics, and even made my own really terrible fan-art that is long (thankfully) lost to time. I was sort-of obsessed, though not to the extent of some other people.

Coincidentally, right after I finished reading the comics and watching the cartoon, the series was overhauled with new designs. At the time, I was heavily split on them. I liked how they looked on their own, but I was so used to the old designs that it felt a bit jarring seeing characters like Cruncher and Goldie look so different. I wasn't the only one who felt this way too; people in the comments of the redesign drawing felt very divisive towards it, some calling it an improvement while others were calling it too different and not as cute as the old designs. It also stung that the extra characters from the comics, such as Gingerbread and Soo, were all scrapped. The new designs grew on me after some time, and a few months later, they were tweaked and looked much better.

In October 2017, "Fast Food Follies" was uploaded, and it was the first Doodle Toons episode that I saw in full when it was new. I believe it was on the same day that Super Mario Odyssey released, which is making me feel old right now. At the time, I really enjoyed the episode, though that may have been because it was the first instance I had seen an episode of this series on release, and the fact I just wanted to see new episodes then.

In early 2018, previews and such were posted for the then-upcoming episode "Monkey Business". It would've been the first episode of the second season, and the first one to fully incorporate the new designs. For a few months however, everything fell silent. I had assumed the episode was being heavily worked on. In reality, it was scrapped around March 2018, and an announcement for this was made not long after, explaining the series' cancellation. I was bummed out at the time, but looking back on it, I think it was the right move. There was no way the creator was going to pull off more full episodes when dealing with college, and I feel it was going to go downhill from there on anyways, given what happens to a lot of cartoons when they are handed over to other writers (in this case, lemurboy123, now known as HorseFolder, was helping out with both writing and animation; his animation test felt very noticeably different, there was no chance it would've worked out. Not saying he is a bad writer, but his style is its own thing).

If I were to take a look back on the whole series now, I still don't think it's bad (which might be nostalgia bias talking), although it's definitely aged a little bit. I understand why the creator despises his work, but as an outsider who can see past the flaws and acknowledge almost all of it was drawn on a Nintendo 3DS of all things, I can't help but show some appreciation for it. There are some jokes that kinda miss or don't work too well (I recall "What's In a Name?" having a joke about Police Academy 4 that didn't make sense?), and there is quite a bit of wacky face use (something which SpongeBob SquarePants heavily suffers from in recent times). Some of the voice recording audio quality is also not perfect, but that's expected for shows like this.

However, those don't bring down the enjoyment of the episodes for me. If you look at it from the angle of a passion project rather than something that's meant to be serious and very high effort, I think you'll still be able to enjoy it. Animation wise, it looks very nice for what it is, with the only complaints I have being the colors are too neon bright, and "Fast Food Follies" (which is now my least favorite episode for the fact it kinda goes nowhere compared to the others) having some wonky animation and noticeable errors, such as the ground being missing in one shot. "Fast Food Follies" also suffers from a weird darkened exposure filter, which was not there in the trailer. It brings down the white levels on the eyes and looks a bit dull.

After the cartoon ended, the comics still kept going for quite some time. The characters were redesigned to be taller and more varied a few years ago, and then shortly after were completely overhauled once more when the comics ended. People appear to be very divisive towards the current designs and personalities of the characters alongside the art-style itself (much moreso than the 2017 redesigns when those happened), but I'm personally fine with it, since they are just characters now separate from Doodle Toons (which is basically dead now, much like the Jellybean character that was killed off for various reasons). The only criticism I have really is that the noise filter is too noticeable and doesn't look very believable (it's very obviously digital), but there are ways to improve that, such as using a different overlay and making it a lot more subtle.

In closing, I have a lot to thank for Doodle Toons. While it may have not aged completely well, it's still fun to look back on, and it's what solely got me into art and animation. If it wasn't for this series, you wouldn't even be reading this blog right now, and my ideas for Dinaura and Cakelini would've never existed!

Now, moving on to the second webtoon that I watched, right after Doodle Toons (which it once just so happened to crossover with for an April Fools video) (also by after, I mean after the first few episodes but before "Fast Food Follies")...

Mugman (2014 - 2017, 2024)

No, not the one from Cuphead! I'm talking about the one made by HorseFolder (formerly Lenstar Productions / lemurboy123).

Mugman was the second webtoon I watched, and the reason for watching it was simple: I had watched Doodle Toons, so I thought I should go and watch the other webtoon I used to see thumbnails of, especially after watching the crossover video.

I had already been familiar with the creator's previous series, The Dups, which I really enjoyed playing through in LittleBigPlanet 2 since the near beginning. I had already recognized the Mugman character from a scrapped game called HellFire vs. the Officeman, where he was based on his Dups iteration. Strangely, I never saw "The Mugger" (the Mugman pilot) back in the day, which is odd because it was a YouTube exclusive short of The Dups. Of course, the Mugman character in the Mugman series is a naive, friendly guy instead of a criminal, which I also had known by this point.

I had not watched Mugman until September 2017 for much of the same reason with Doodle Toons, although when I first saw episode listings for it on the creator's channel in 2014 and 2015, I had assumed he was reuploading some random, obscure pre-existing cartoon. It wasn't long before I realized that it was his own. The first thing I watched relating to the series was the "Schunke Insurance" video, which featured the Johnny and Papa characters. That was way back in December 2014, and the video was privated for a really long time and became lost for a good while.

I enjoyed watching the series during my first (and mostly only) viewing of it. Unlike Doodle Toons, it was slower paced, and focused more on world building and the characters' interactions, as opposed to very wacky humor. I was also kinda blown away by the higher quality voice recordings, though that may have just been because the visuals were very crude. It was also really cool hearing an original MIDI soundtrack, rather than stock APM production music. The characters were very memorable and likeable, and even those who weren't likeable, such as Johnny and Papa, were still enjoyable.

There was something about the series that always stuck with me. The visuals were crude and ugly for the most part, but it wasn't exactly MS-Paint enough to look agonizing, and it was at least consistent with good character designs to make up for it. There was sort-of an appeal to fans of older technology like myself, something that is much more noticeable when you dig into other things about it than just the episodes.

Of course, by the time I had started watching Mugman, the infamous 2017 reboot had already happened. It didn't hit me right away that Mugman suddenly had two arms and acted a bit differently, but when I began looking back on the series, it felt very weird to notice. The 2017 reboot was met with a lot of resentment and confusion from fans due to all the unneeded changes (such as Pementa now being a human), and the reboot was entirely driven by anxiety of the creator thinking his older work wasn't good enough, after a failed pitch to Frederator Studios back in 2016 (Frederator liked the cartoon, but insisted the characters needed better motives, which the creator took as a sign of his work not being up to standards). The creator would go on to despise his older work on the series, even poking fun at it a lot.

After a short-lived spin-off series where Mugman talked about weird things the creator owned, the series was cancelled with a final "Farewell" episode in October 2017, right before the last finished Doodle Toons episode. It showed Teanna, Johnny and Papa as constellations in the sky, hinting that they were dead, which made me feel weird given I was watching the episodes that featured them a little while prior.

Then the series came back, but it didn't. The creator hosted a stream where he was working on a new short that appeared to be yet another reboot. There was even a part where Mugman was going to go to City 17 from Half-Life 2 (which sorta does happen in the final episode, although originally it was going to be around the park behind the plaza with a citizen, rather than some generic field with a rebel and networking issues). This series was going to be called Welcome to Wedgewood, and the short was named after it (later retitled to "Search for Wedgewood"). It was pretty much a prototype of what would become Loose Ends. While more episodes had their scripts finished, the series was cancelled right after the first episode, since the creator was not happy with it.

Then the series almost came back AGAIN, this time featuring Mugman as some sort of sea creature called a "Muglodyte", and Pementa was a fisherwoman. It was very stupid, and the Muglodyte character was reworked into a new character. Eventually, it was semi-scrapped, but the ideas of it were re-used for Pike's Lagoon.

When Pike's Lagoon was still new, the creator absolutely hated all of Mugman for a while, even making fun of it constantly. That is until he rewatched it, and realized that it wasn't as bad as he thought. He brought back the characters in late 2018 with a few drawings and a reference in Pike's Lagoon, which lead to speculation that the series was returning in its original form with new designs and a new style, but this never happened, and the creator blamed his reasoning for not bringing it back on the fans for whatever reason, according to a tweet he made.

From then up until early 2024, the state of Mugman was unknown. In 2019, the creator allegedly sold the Pementa character to some random artist, who made her even more of a generic human than she was in the 2017 reboot. In 2022, a short named "It Only Takes Twice" was made, but it was clearly making fun of the series. In 2023, the creator started drawing the Mugman characters once more, and it seemed like a reboot was possible.

In May of 2024 (a year ago as of writing), it was announced that Mugman was getting a revival, right after an upload of a remade music track was posted. Shortly after, the first episode of the 2024 revival, "A Pack-a-Derm", was uploaded. It featured the usual naive character, but in a situation that was slightly more mature (featuring cigarettes and an addicted Wildman character). It was the right decision for the series, having it aged up a bit with the audience. It was also very nice seeing a lot of the old characters like Chickpea again. It was so successful, that it even got on the daily top 5 on Newgrounds. It seemed like the future was bright for the series, that Mugman could finally get what it needed for years...

...And then got fumbled up in the next episode. Not that "The Cat's Disavow" was a terrible episode, in fact during the premiere of it, I actually really enjoyed it. I was pleasantly happy to see Teanna return with a similar voice, too (I even thought it was the old VA due to them having the same forename). But there was one detail that I overlooked, which others caught. One detail that has potentially ruined Mugman forever:

animator320 voiced in this.

This individual I'll go over later, but to sum it up shortly here: he is a creep who ignored therapy and should not be allowed on the internet, and the creator is seemingly still friends with him for unknown reasons. This alone has caused people to no longer consider Mugman socially acceptable. A lot of people moved on from it as a result. In fact, it is probably time to discuss the elephant in the room, that being Mugman's creator.

The creator of Mugman, which I will refer to by his YouTube handle "HorseFolder", is a very troubled person. During the making of Mugman, he was much younger and innocent, of course. But something over the years dragged him into the wrong mindsets, and that is the combination of Twitter and anxiety.

The first noticeable incident is the 2021 call out, which is about how he had allegedly caused and neglected Johnny's voice actress' suicide attempt in 2016 after he scrapped the Johnny and Papa characters from Mugman. This lead to a huge controversy, resulting in many, many people ditching HorseFolder and refusing to ever associate with him. Even the person who took the rights to Pementa redesigned her completely as a result. Over the years, there has been a lot of debate on how much of this is true. According to the Mugman Wiki and some people, the voice actress confirmed that the suicide attempt had absolutely no connection to HorseFolder nor Mugman at all.

While I do hope this is the case, there's also a ton of conflicting info. The first being that there was a (now deleted) blog by HorseFolder's former best friend claiming that everything had happened, and I also remember there being images of the voice actress DM'ing HorseFolder in Twitter, complaining something about dignity. I don't want to go too far into drama, but I really do not know what to believe. The response from everyone, of course, was overblown; people overreacted far more than even HorseFolder did, but it was understandable given how shocking the whole situation was. It should be noted that the voice actress transitioned over a year after the incident; this has been confirmed.

Another thing I've noticed is that Johnny and Papa were going to appear in Albi & Azul (the next entry) half a year later, but the series was cancelled before they could. If the drama was real, then Johnny probably would have been silent. If Johnny was going to be voiced by the same actress as before, then that makes the whole situation much more dubious.

Beyond the voice actress drama, there was also an issue with the creator giving homophobic and transphobic statements. Some of these may have been taken out of context, or were just poor wording. HorseFolder has gone on to apologize a few times and even said he's not transphobic once, but some people are still iffy or uncertain about the whole thing.

The second incident is unfortunately much more recent, and quite sad. Right before the 2024 revival of Mugman, he allowed his partner to cheat on her ex. They had been friends for over a year, but that does not excuse cheating. Seemingly, HorseFolder was super nervous and concerned about this, but his now-partner pushed it heavily onto him, so you'll have to decide on who gets the blame here. The age gap is also something that's been controversial, although they are both adults at least. Lastly, HorseFolder chose her partner over his friends (whatever that means), which would normally be a bad thing to do, but I've heard that some of his friends weren't exactly nice people, and were likely the ones enabling his bigotry.

He had also made a racist caricature drawing in 2024 around the same time, and I really do not know if this was meant to be actually problematic, or if it was shock humor. Regardless, it was not a good look, and definitely not something anyone should do.

It's a shame that the series and its creator is shrouded with controversy to the point where people will put down others for liking it, even if they try to separate it from its creator. Really, once you get past the crude art-style, it's actually pretty good for what it was. The characters felt very believable and comforting, much moreso than even Doodle Toons, and the non-very wacky nature of the series makes it a bit easier to go back to. There's a lot to appreciate, such as the world building, or a lot of the content made relating to the series (such as the 3D models made for it and the mugman.net website). It was nice to see the characters; it was like seeing old friends. In 2017, I wasn't as fixiated on it as I was with Doodle Toons, but I was quite a big fan. I even liked the 2017 reboot on its own (though in retrospect, the reboot is not very good).

As of typing, there has been absolutely no news on the series in over 8 months, which has lead me to believe it has been cancelled yet again, and I assume the fuss caused by animator320 voicing in the last episode is the reason why. A sad way to end the series, having it end on an episode with a problematic person casted.

In some ways, I think Mugman should have not been revived, as good as "A Pack-a-Derm" was and as much as we want to see the characters again. It would be better for it to be picked up by fans, preferrably someone who would never make really questionable or problematic decisions, even if it may be a little different. It's probably better to remember the series for what it was, rather than what it could become.

Sorry to be such a downer with the Mugman portion, but it really needed to be said. Mugman meant a lot to me, and felt more sentimental than even Doodle Toons given it was related to a series (The Dups) that I had played since I was 11. Even some of the characters from said series appear in Mugman, which makes me wish I saw it back in 2014 / 2015, as during that time, I was rewatching and fixiating over The Dups!

With all of this said, I think it's time to talk about HorseFolder's most obscure, underrated series:

Albi & Azul (2016)

Probably a series nobody expected to be talked about in 2025, yet here we are.

You were probably expecting something like Plancy's World, and as much as I like that webtoon, I don't really have a whole lot to say about it.

Albi & Azul, also known as Abbi & Azul, was a very short-lived (only three episodes!) webtoon made by HorseFolder in 2016. It was about an alligator and a frog, who lived together in a strange, gloomy flooded world. The characters were mute, the plots were pretty basic, even the humor wasn't very laugh-out-loud, but it was cute and interesting. This could also be my bias towards reptile-like characters (gee, I wonder why).

There was something about the characters I really liked, and I'll give HorseFolder that: he has made some pretty interesting, memorable characters, even for ones that have hardly appeared and/or barely if ever talked. Azul, the alligator, was sweet and playful, but not the brightest. Albi, the frog, was snarky and easily unamused, but could be friendly and cared for her friend, even showing sympathy for her in the first episode. It was a neat dynamic, and in a strange way, I ended up caring about these characters more than I probably should have. Both of them were easily hungry, as evidenced by the first two episodes.

Shortly after the third episode (and a few random animations posted to Twitter), the series was abandoned, with the reason being that HorseFolder felt it lacked charm. I disagree, since it was very charming to me, regardless if it was simple. The characters were soon slightly redesigned, with Azul now being orange, and Albi (now named Abbi) also being orange before becoming green. These designs first appeared in the elusive Mugman video "What's Up, Mugman?", where they are in the audience (despite the two shows were originally meant to be in seperate locations, possibly different worlds).

Azul would soon be turned into a male character, and a Queen character was added (though she was planned for the series since near the beginning). The Queen would've been sorta dictator-like, using Azul and Abbi for her own benefit. This was shown in an animatic for a scrapped reboot of Albi & Azul called Snaggleswamp, where Azul had to get something for the Queen, but misremembered and ended up fetching a carrot mine bomb instead. From that alone, you could've guessed that it was going to be much more comedy oriented. The video was never finished, and Snaggleswamp's fate remained uncertain.

The above design actually partially inspired my Reville character, mainly the snout shape Reville had early on was very similar.

Azul would soon get redesigned again, becoming a bit chubbier and taller. This design would be used for yet another attempt at rebooting Albi & Azul, named Pond Pirates. As you could imagine, it went absolutely nowhere beyond illustrations and concepts. The idea was that Azul was a "pirate" now with Abbi helping him out. Azul was also less friendly (sometimes being aggressive), but more determined.

There's not a whole lot more I can talk about. If the series wasn't canned so early, I'm sure this would have much more information. As stated earlier, Johnny and Papa from Mugman were meant to appear at one point. There was also going to be a wizard kangaroo named Wizroo. It's a shame nothing ever came from it. It was so interesting and cute, and I'm sure it would've gained some following had it been given more time to develop. As it stands, only two of the episodes are officially available; the third one is still privated (they were all privated for a few years) and I have no clue why. Maybe HorseFolder just doesn't like it for whatever reason.

Pike's Lagoon (2018 - 2020)

Okay, last HorseFolder-related webtoon I will talk about (primarily because it's also the last one I watched, not counting the pilot season of Loose Ends). This one was also made between him and another person, being a collaborative effort of sorts (though I guess you could consider that for most other webtoons out there, but the idea of this series was shared I guess).

Pike's Lagoon was a webtoon that began in early 2018, after Mugman was canned, tossed out the door and kicked down the street. It was refactored from a strange, pointless reboot of Mugman. It was about a vegetarian sea creature named Pike, who lived in the eponymous Pike's Lagoon. She would have to protect her garden from the Sea Pumpkin, and had some quirky friends.

I remember liking it when it was new, but it wasn't very funny nor interesting, and it very much lacked world building, something that Mugman had done years prior. In fact, I find it quite boring looking back on it, although the episode about the singing salmon is still my favorite. I do like the character of Pike and even a bit of her design, although I'm not a fan of her having breasts. It just feels weirdly... sexualized? Her friends were also a bit fun to witness, but there's really not much to them nor the show itself.

Of the three HorseFolder webtoon entries in this blog post, I think this one is my least favorite mostly on the fact it was kinda uninteresting. I felt more should've been explored, but a huge chunk of it is set in samey locations. The pizza episode at least showed us a bit of the surface, and even mentioned Wedgewood (the location of 2017 Mugman). The problem with the show is that the underwater places all look identical, and aside from Pike's own house, I really do not remember much at all in terms of the locations shown.

At some point in early-mid 2019, I stopped watching Pike's Lagoon, and I don't know why other than maybe I was burned out at the time. I never bothered to watch the rest of it, and I remember a friend telling me that it got even more boring later on. Unfortunate, because I like the characters, and the Sea Pumpkin is funny, so I would prefer to have them be used in more interesting stories. Around this time, I also stopped watching webtoons almost entirely, with the exception of ones made by friends or ones that were work-in-progress.

I apologize for the very short entry here, but I just do not know what else needs to be said about this webtoon. It was okay, and then just kinda ended. A silent short was made a few years ago, but it's not counted as part of the series. Pike's design was updated, and seemingly removed the breasts (which should've never been there to begin with).

Now for something real nasty.

CartoonMania 🤮 (2016 - 2020)

Okay, I am cheating with this one, because I have barely watched it and I don't want to call it niche, BUT I have seen an episode in a Discord call once, and I am aware of its infamousy.

So, where do I begin with this webtoon? Oh, I know! Why do people like this?! Okay, okay, I will explain my problems with this webtoon, and why I don't want to go near fans of it, not even with a 200 yard pole.

1. The creator, animator320, is a creep (as I told you earlier).
And I don't mean that lightly. He's not just horny or perverted, he is actually a very problematic person, and by that I mean he is classified as a pedophile. In his series, there are a lot of really questionable shots featuring Tanya, who is an underaged character, bellydancing and even twerking. There's also a weird, kinda creepy romance between Victor Virus and Penny, both of whom are literal babies. Both of these are especially present in the movie. The creator also treated his underaged VA's poorly (and I have seen this with my own eyes) and tried to get them to voice in some very uncomfortable stuff, which was part of what lead to him getting called out in 2020. Some of those VA's changed their identity a ton as a result, some even disappeared. A few people have defended him recently, saying he has taken therapy. He has clearly chosen to ignore it, as he still putting dodgy things in his animations even now.

2. The whole show's humor, is just very loud screaming and too much slapstick.
That might be a more personal opinion, but I don't really find what's so funny about it after the dozenth time hearing a character yell or get hurt in an overly wacky way. It's only funny if it's kept to a minimum, like a lot of other types of humor; you have to keep it fresh and potentially unexpected. You have to be very clever to pull-off constant slapstick and have it still be funny (think Tom & Jerry).

3. 315 of the characters are filler with barely any personality.
Only the 5 main characters really have their own proper personality and are used when they need to be used. The rest? They all either lack personality, or have no reason to exist, or both. Believe it or not, the only reason why there's 320 characters is because there was a similar or exact number for the amount of Springfield citizens in The Simpsons Movie's mob scene, which he not only obsessed over a lot but also ripped off for his own movie! And guess what? The planned REBOOT of CartoonMania may have even more unnecessary characters! Anyone who is making a cartoon should know that it's better to have a few characters and flesh out their personalities, than making literal filler characters for the sake of a number.

4. There's quite a bit of tracing.
So, in one episode, there is a shot of the ceiling in one of the hotel's rooms, and it is very obviously traced from Squidward's house with barely any differences other than a few extra paintings. The design of Victor Virus is also traced from a ghost seen in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (the show which this is heavily "inspired" by). Having a style issue is one thing, but resorting to stealing stuff from other cartoons is another.

I know I'm probably being aggressive, but CartoonMania alongside animator320's actions have done a lot of damage to the niche webtoon community, more on that later. But yeah, if you were expecting me to like CartoonMania, then I'm sorry, but I just can't get into it. A huge shame really, since animator320 was fun to talk to back in the day, it's just very unfortunate that he became problematic. If we're talking about CartoonMania's visuals and animation, I also have many questions for why it was made in OpenOffice of all programs. There was a time when animator320 tried Toon Boom and a traditional test, and they actually looked good! But then he decides to go back to OpenOffice, and as a result, the animation looks very stiff and the characters appear really angular.

Considering that CartoonMania was pretty much a nuclear bomb towards the niche webtoon community, I think it's time to talk about said community.

Other webtoons + the old niche webtoon community (RIP)

Alright, so there are quite a number of webtoons that I have watched, but not enough of for their own entries, or I don't have that much to talk about them.

I'm not sure what they go by nowadays (they were a victim of animator320 and changed their identity a ton as a result), but back in 2019 and 2020, a user named tenorthetoonguy made a few webtoons. I was friends with him (not super close, but we shared similar interests), so I got to see some of these as they were being made. These cartoons mainly included Kat and Ruff, As Sold By Tedd and Fredd, Out Of Luck Daisy, and Oxymorons. I don't remember too much of these cartoons now, but I remember finding them pretty well made for someone that young. It was evidence that anyone could make a cartoon with time and effort.

Kat and Ruff was a charming little cartoon. I don't want to compare it to Ren & Stimpy, but the dynamic between the main two characters is similar to an extent. It's very unfortunate who voiced Ruff, but I'll give him credit that he does a good Gilbert Gottfried impression. As Sold By Tedd and Fredd was inspired by those old Wilkins commercials, and played out very similarly. Out Of Luck Daisy I don't remember too much, but it seemed decent and I remember tenorthetoonguy having fun with it. Oxymorons was a very strange one; it was a collab project with friends who would just write whatever they found funny, even if it made absolutely no sense. Some compared it to Evaporate, though it did feel pretty different to me, primarily because it's not based on dreams, and the humor is still a bit different. There were a few webtoons made by tenorthetoonguy before these, but he scrapped them by the time I was checking out his content, and I'd imagine they are very dated (as in he'd probably hate them now).

By the way, speaking of Out Of Luck Daisy, a poster for Dinaura actually makes an appearance in the first episode! Unfortunately, it's next to a poster for the previous entry, but it's still quite interesting to see. It's using an old design of Reville, and the logo used was one I threw together quickly after he asked me for one (it was a temporary logo and never actually planned to be used). This was also back when the series was named "Dinauria"; I scrapped the "ia" suffix because I felt it was overused and made the name sound stupid.

In terms of other web cartoonists, I don't remember a whole lot sadly. It has been over 5 years, so it's difficult to remember. A friend of mine who now goes by LeușteanArt was going to make a cartoon also named Oxymorons, but it never went anywhere. Foolmates, by Isaiah Anderson, was a really good one too, especially by the time they replaced Angel with Granny Angel. It's one of the few webtoons that has mostly held up very well (I say mostly, since the earliest episodes are pretty dated, so I recommend to check out the later ones).

There was one friend of mine (and tenorthetoonguy) called Cole, and he had a webtoon named Cole's Whatever. It was about a guy named Cole who lived with his younger brother Max. Cole would've been grumpy, while Max was very upbeat. It was pretty funny, and I remember Cole showing us him working on it during private streams. There were a few other characters as well, but I don't really recall their names. I have a few things from this webtoon saved, but it appears the full episodes themselves are currently lost, as they were deleted from YouTube a few years ago.

Of course, you are probably wondering about the niche webtoon community as a whole, or what it used to be like during the late 2010's and very early 2020. It was quite a neat place for a while. I made a lot of friends, some of which I still talk to even now. It was a very good time to get into making your own animations, as there was a lot of support.

Then, it happened. In mid-2020, animator320 got called out for his creepy behavior and content. This was pretty much a nuclear bomb towards the entire niche webtoon community. A lot of people left or changed their identities as a result, and stopped associating with webtoons entirely. So many friends went missing. It was a disaster, and it was all caused by one influencial web cartoonist's downfall. If that wasn't enough, a year later, HorseFolder (as already discussed earlier) got cancelled out on Twitter for allegedly covering up a suicide attempt from one of his former VA's, and also for acting very transphobic and homophobic. Apparently, he made fun of his fans including tenorthetoonguy, too. While there's been debate on how true some of it is, it made even more people disassociate with the niche webtoon community, and that wasn't the end of it. About two years ago now, a user named Gamerduck was cancelled out for being a rapist, and that was the equivalent of an asteroid hitting the niche webtoon community; completely destroying whatever remained of it.

What happened to animator320 is honestly very depressing. There actually was some good in him, in that he was nice to talk to, and did look out for others. He even tried to combat his disgusting thoughts in mid-2019 and became clean for a little while, before letting them consume him fully. I was friends with him way back then, before I even knew that he was creepy, and not only did we make lighthearted jokes (such as about Reville's snout size), he also reached out to me in my DM's when I was feeling suicidal. He was a good soul corrupted by pervertedness, and then became a creep. By 2020, I already stopped communicating with him, as I had discovered just how creepy he was being. I have not talked to him ever since.

Moral of the story: keep it in your pants, and don't be a jerk.

The new niche webtoon community

Recently, I've been noticing people talking about webtoons again, albeit to a lesser extent. Now that all the big ones that I mentioned have died out (with Mugman's current status being up in the air), smaller webtoons are getting more known. There's not a whole lot of them that I know of, but it does seem that nature is healing, and that a new community of sorts is starting to grow.

Hopefully, this develops further and becomes just like how the niche webtoon community originally was in 2015 / 2016. It will take some time, but I think with enough niche webtoons getting noticed, it can happen. I also hope that drama does not ravage the whole thing, too. I just wonder what the next big niche webtoon will be. You could argue that Mugman was the big one for the old community (and I guess Doodle Toons, although I feel Mugman was talked about more and had a longer legacy in the community).

I will not be counting stuff like CartoonMania's planned reboot or the Mugman revival from 2024, since those were based on pre-existing webtoons (and the former should just never exist to begin with).

Crazy Compositions (2022)

One of the first new niche webtoons, and a very good one at that. Created by CosmicToons, Crazy Compositions is seen by some as a second Mugman (see it as a love letter to what it was, with a creator that is much nicer and has no problems), right down to the comfortable setting and appreciation for older technology (it also began during a time where the fate of the Mugman series was still unknown).

The voice acting is pretty good. I think Cami especially does a great job voicing female characters (from not just this, but other animations she voiced in too). The animation is also very fluid and well-made, which stunned some of my friends when they came across this series. I do think the designs can be a little samey, which is actually joked about in the series itself, but it's inspired me to make my own interpretations of what two of the characters, Wilson and Teresa, could look like with some extra details to keep them more varied. Of course, it's up to Cosmic himself to decide on what he wants, I just did this for fun. They'd probably be difficult to animate though. The other characters wouldn't have that many changes beyond details on their shirts and maybe some added accessories.

Wilson has overalls and a tool belt, which I think matches with him being an inventor. I also simplified his hair (really I just drew the face too high but shhh, although generally you'd want to have a low number of "spikes" or whatever for easier angles). Teresa now has some hair scruffs, glasses that rest on her forehead (because they look cool and it was easy to place there rather than on her face), a short-sleeved t-shirt (less prone to touching and causing static on computer parts) that has the name of her store on it, an anti-static wristband (recommended if you don't have bare metal to touch when tinkering with computer internals), anti-static fingerless gloves (also for safety), and sneakers instead of slippers (since there were already other characters with slippers, so I thought they would stand out).

Right now, there's not too much else I can talk about, mainly because the series is on-going and it's still early in its life. I also recommend checking out CosmicToons' other series Building Block World for its surreal nature, and his remakes of the mobile J2ME Pac-Man ports called Pac-Man Mobile: Rewritten.

Very popular webtoons and why I don't care for them

For some strange reason, I have a very hard time getting into popular webtoons. I do not consider these "niche" mainly for the fact they often have millions of views; something none of the other webtoons here ever managed to get.

Homestar Runner is excempt from this, but I still haven't properly watched it (as of writing) because I don't know where to start, given how long it has been going on for etc.

But what would qualify as examples of non-niche webtoons that I cannot get into, are ones such as Hazbin Hotel and The Amazing Digital Circus. Both of these are massively popular, and yet I struggle to get invested in them. From what I know, the former is largely just swearing and sex jokes, sometimes even going a bit too far (I recall one episode causing controversy). It's stretching the definition of "webtoon" as well, considering I think the episodes are on a streaming service. The latter I like the character designs of, but I've heard the show does have a bit of the usual SMG4 humor that I'm not a fan of.

If we are going to talk about ones that I have watched, then Catching Up by LS Mark is one. I watched it in a stream with my other half, and let me tell you: it was really, really boring. The pilot was 20 minutes long yet the plot (which is just the main characters going to a club for the first time) could easily fit into a 5 minute episode, the characters aren't very interesting, the plot barely goes anywhere through most of it, there's hardly any good humor besides some visual gags that are few and far between, and the conflict is barely related to the rest of the episode and is resolved way too quickly (it's even thrown in right at the very end). None of my friends liked it either, so I'm not alone on thinking it wasn't good, and I think it's quite hypocritical of LS Mark to bash other cartoons and then incorporate the same flaws they have into his. Oh, and there's popularity casting (when someone is casted as a VA etc. for popularity sake rather than any other reason), which will be amplified in the next episode. Good job on not letting no-name VA's grow.

Sorry, got a bit harsh there. It's just that I really do not like it when I can tell something is done out of spite or for the sake of audience reactions (or more specifically, popularity casting).

I think what also puts me off from these types of webtoons is that they do not feel as sincere as niche ones. You'll barely, if ever get to interact with the creator(s), and as a result the community doesn't feel tightly knit, and there ends up being a lot of toxic fans.

Something about niche webtoons in comparison also gives you the idea that anyone could make one with enough time and dedication. You don't need a massive studio, tons of backers, connections to big YouTubers, and funding from the Australian government to make a cartoon on the internet.

So yeah, you can tell me "watch TADC OR ELSE!!!" etc. all you want, but I just can't, man.

What I want to do

If I had the time and motivation, alongside better mental health and better hands (my drawing skill is improving, but my hands aren't the steadiest to draw carefully) as well as a better understanding of character construction and how animation is made, I would absolutely love to make a webtoon, and maybe one day that can happen.

While turning Dinaura into a webtoon would be awesome, animating it would be nightmarish and getting the right voice cast would also be difficult. I think something like Cakelini would make more sense for becoming an animated series, given the simpler character designs and voice casting not having to matter as much (as in it might be easier to just get friends to voice in it, rather than professionals).

My idea of Cakelini is simple; a spiritual successor to what Mugman was, complete with a retro PC look and feel to it (minus voice lines, as those need to be clear). This sounds similar to Crazy Compositions in a few ways, but Cakelini would be about the upbeat titular character living with her easily angered sister Frostelica, a bit similar to the characters of Mugman and Teanna. I don't want to exactly copy Mugman, rather I just want to recapture the comfort and laidback vibe it had earlier on, while also focusing on quality for the stories.

Think of Cakelini to Mugman as how Vintage Story is to Minecraft; a similar premise, but with quite a few things done differently. I don't just want to have another Mugman; I also want to improve upon it, and go places that it didn't.

Conclusion

Whew, that was a really long blog post. This was meant to be done on the 6th, but it took until the 8th to get finished. I'm not gonna bother updating the URL just for it, heh. Whether or not future blog posts will ramble as much as this one, I have no clue, but at least I can finally rest for now... except I can't because I have life getting in the way, alongside the rest of this website to work on. D'oh!