Kakao Entertainment is shutting down Tapas, the North American webcomic platform it bought in 2021. Korean outlets reported the closure on September 22. Kakao plans to fold its webtoon and web novel businesses into KakaoPage by the end of 2026, and IT Chosun reports a detailed transition schedule on September 29.
Kakao had not announced the closure to creators when the news broke. Author Sara Fox says she learned of it from a news article shared on Discord, then received confirmation.
Kakao paid about ₩1.1 trillion, roughly $780 million, in 2021 for Tapas and the web novel platform Radish, per Anime News Network. That valued Tapas at about $510 million. Kakao booked a ₩46 billion goodwill impairment on Tapas in late 2023 and shut Radish in 2025. Tapas launched in 2012 as Comic Panda. It lists 75,000 creators and 100,000 titles. It has 10 million registered users.
Fox writes The Vampire’s Last Omega and has more than three million views. She wrote for K-Comics Beat: “We indie creators are now abandoned.” She says her contracts are in limbo and calls December a permanent wall.
Kakao bought Tapas during what K-Comics Beat describes as a “space race” with Naver’s Webtoon for North America. Creators used Tapas as the other door besides Webtoon. One creator on Bluesky told Kotaku that consolidation leaves Webtoon as the only viable host for a large audience. Another said readership on the alternatives is minimal.
Webtoon leads on position, and its books are flat. Second-quarter revenue was $338.5 million against $348.3 million a year earlier. Net loss was $14.6 million against $3.9 million. Monthly active users rose 0.5% to 156.9 million, with 7.5 million paying users. Naver holds 62.4% of the company. Disney holds 2%. Webtoon won the market by attrition, and the Tapas exit does not fix its financials.
One competitor has stayed off most radars. Arkhaven Comics, led by publisher and writer Vox Day, launched Arktoons on April 28, 2021 as a Webtoon alternative. It opened with 32 comics from Arkhaven, Dark Legion, Rislandia and Superprumo. Day said at launch, “we are the asteroid.” The platform carries Alt-Hero, Midnight’s War and Chuck Dixon’s Avalon, and it is free to read. Fandom Pulse reported in February that Arktoons passed 15 million views, a figure Arkhaven reports itself. Its Hypergamouse Kickstarter raised about $30,000 on day one. Alt-Hero raised more than $235,000 on Kickstarter in 2017.
The scale gap is wide. Fifteen million cumulative views sits against Webtoon’s 156.9 million monthly users. Tapas creators weighing their options are looking at Webtoon Canvas, Patreon, or self-hosting, per Pawaka Labs. Arktoons sits outside the Kakao and Naver orbit.
With Tapas gone, do independent webcomic creators want one dominant platform or their own sites?