Punny Panda’s Surprisingly Not-Terrible First Year 

Hey there!

In just one year my little Punny Panda website somehow landed in the global top 10–15% of organic engagement in the art & comics niche (according to Grok, Gemini, and ChatGPT — yes, I asked all three robot-oracles because I have trust issues).

With:

• only 2 chapters of the main comic released in 4 months

• no recognizable personal art style

• no YouTube/TikTok/Instagram army

• no paid ads whatsoever

So… embarrassing or mildly impressive? I honestly can’t decide. Probably both at the same time.

We (me + you, my dear magical pandas) are slowly, clumsily, and with very questionable financial planning building something that in my wildest dreams wants to become a new kind of Disney/Netflix hybrid… while I personally live on roughly $200/month during wartime.

Normal? No.

Healthy? Definitely not.

Entertaining? …maybe?

Right now I’m reading the Jeff Bezos biography (the man who built Amazon from scratch, not the one who inherited planetary resources from grandpa or a convenient dictatorship — different genre).

Fun facts about Jeff that make me feel even smaller:

• He prepared the launch of Amazon for 7 years (most rookies try to survive 2)

• Parents gave him ~$245,000 seed money

• They moved to Seattle and started with… an online bookstore

The real mountains of money actually came later from AWS (Amazon Web Services). Go to their website right now — it feels like they sell magic potions for every possible human problem.

Jeff also wrote legendary “Letters to Shareholders” every year.

I don’t have shareholders (yet?), but I do have wonderful Patreons and UNIfans for China you can join and a severe case of “will people believe I’m not going to disappear next month?”.

So here’s my very first Letter to Magical Pandas & Random Curious Visitors, written with the self-confidence level of a person who’s cosplaying Jeff Bezos on a $1 monthly hosting plan.

✦ Timeline speedrun ✦

October 2024 → I launch the site

Immediately realize that Webtoon basically forces everyone to buy ads anyway → “Fine. I’ll build my own sandbox with blackjack and emotional damage”.

Tried different website builders:

WordPress — too many plugins.

Wix — prettier, but expensive and somehow feels sluggish.

Ended up with Google Sites (free & surprisingly fast) + Buy Me a Coffee (the only donation platform that still worked in my country).

Then I had to duplicate content on several other platforms because SEO said: “One website? Cute. Try harder.”

Social media experiment verdict:

People really hate subscribing nowadays.

Like… violently.

The only accounts that grow easily are pet accounts. That’s the harsh 2025 reality.

I cried, begged, posted daily, got shadowbanned, deleted, IP-banned on Reddit, deleted again on Bluesky… eventually I gave up on “building a following”.

Instead I just started personally messaging people with polite “hey, maybe you’ll like this weird comic?” notes.

And then, when I was already mentally preparing my Loser Acceptance Speech for the end of 2025…

I looked at the actual numbers:

~45,000 total visitors

~7,900 readers of Witch’s Pie

…Excuse me?

Turns out people don’t need to subscribe to see you.

They don’t need to press the bell.

They just need to find something that feels good in the endless scroll.

And apparently some of them found a tiny, hand-drawn, slightly chaotic corner called Punny Panda.

So thank you. Seriously. ❤️💕💕💕🙌

Even if you never subscribe, never comment, never send a ko-fi — the fact that you came, read a few pages and left a little warmer inside… that’s already more than I expected when I started.

Current cauldron contents (slowly brewing):

• • Witch's Pie (main story)

• • ACE Magic Academy (side stories/worldbuilding)

• • Punny Panda Magazine (cozy life tips & little essays)

• • Drawing courses “How I somehow survived 12 months drawing like this”

Rest, smile a little, eat something sweet.

Punny Panda is still here, still weird, and somehow still alive.

With lots of messy love.