Comick Owner Says He Was Naive and Didn’t Protect His Personal Data

We recently published here how Kakao, owner of several manhwas and who actively shuts down pirate manga sites and even scan groups, mocked on its Twitter when ComicK was taken down.

After the shutdown of ComicK, many fans lamented and also condemned Kakao for mocking a pirate site like that. Anyway, through Reddit, the Comick owner made a long post where he said he was too naive, check out what he said:

Comick Owner Says He Was Naive and Didn’t Protect His Personal Data

He said that he started the project in 2021, motivated by his passion for anime and manga, and by the frustration with slow and outdated sites. His initial goal was to create something better and, naively, he even dreamed of getting official licenses if the site grew, comparing himself to Crunchyroll.

With the popularity achieved in 2023, his focus became to transform Comick into the biggest manga site in the world, helping scanlator groups and offering an experience without bad ads.

However, he admitted that his biggest mistake was not foreseeing how strongly publishers would attack unlicensed sites. While he worked on features and improvements, he neglected the legal and protection side.

CDN and domain providers ended up giving away his data, and publishers discovered his identity. According to him, being an honest and straightforward person, he never believed he was doing something wrong and did not take precautions to protect himself.

He regrets not being able to fulfill his dream, thanks users, moderators, and developers of sites like Mangadex and Bato, and says he hopes that someone more skilled will continue the work of supporting scanlators.

Giving a personal opinion here, I believe there is no longer a way for a Crunchyroll or FAKKU to be formed nowadays. For those who don’t know the history, both Crunchyroll and FAKKU were pirate sites that, with time and popularity, became legal.

But that probably won’t happen today, as soon as a pirate site appears it will become a target and won’t have time to grow and turn legal. Whoever managed it in the past, managed it.

In the replies, the Comick dev received a lot of support, with people saying things like: “You achieved your dream, your site rivaled multi-billion-dollar companies” and “Whoever you are, you have my respect” and “You did a great service to the community.”