A case study from Shren Patel · ← back to portfolio

AXED

A WEBTOON Original that scaled to 40M+ reads, then closed as enterprise IP.

Solo-created comic series at WEBTOON. Twice-weekly publishing cadence, backed by a homegrown image-processing and consistency-check pipeline. The IP rights were licensed to Wattpad WEBTOON Studios across two formats — book publication plus a 2-season animated television adaptation, both releasing in 2025.

See the numbers ↓ Where the practice went next ↗
40M+ reads 492K+ subscribers 2M+ monthly views at peak IP closed · 2025 release
// the product

What AXED was.

AXED was a WEBTOON Original — a serialized comic released on WEBTOON's official roster from June 2018 through December 2020. The series shipped twice weekly at peak, anchored by a small ops team plus a custom Python image-processing pipeline I built to keep panels consistent at scale.

Platform
WEBTOON Original — selected/promoted serial on the official catalog
Format
Vertically-scrolling serialized comic; twice-weekly ship cadence at peak
Active publishing
Jun 2018 — Dec 2020 (2.5 years live; peak audience sustained across the run)
Production stack
Python + OpenCV image-processing and consistency-check pipeline · operator workflow tooling · Git-based review and ship
// the outcome

What it became.

Audience at scale, then a clean enterprise IP exit across two formats.

40M+
total reads across the series run
492K+
subscribers
2M+
monthly views at peak
2x / week
ship cadence sustained

The IP rights deal — Wattpad WEBTOON Studios

Counterparty
Wattpad WEBTOON Studios — the merged publishing + animation arm spanning book and screen adaptation
Scope
Multi-year, multi-format license: book publication + 2-season animated television adaptation
Releases
Both formats releasing in 2025
Structure
Negotiated solo, on the creator side, from sourcing through close
// signal

What this proves.

AXED is the single clearest demonstration of the builder-operator-closer combination — and the reason the engineering work that came next at CentrOS isn't a one-dimensional pitch.

Builder

  • Wrote and drew a serialized comic that survived audience selection on a competitive platform
  • Built the Python + OpenCV pipeline that kept consistency and ship cadence viable at twice-weekly
  • Designed the queue → tooling → review → ship workflow that prefigured today's HITL agent systems at CentrOS

Operator

  • Ran a 2.5-year content business with a small ops team and external collaborators
  • Held ship cadence through audience growth from 0 to 492K+ subscribers
  • Maintained the production pipeline end-to-end — no platform team underneath

Closer

  • Sourced and negotiated a multi-format IP rights deal with Wattpad WEBTOON Studios
  • Structured book + 2-season animated television license terms across multiple years
  • Carried the commercial close solo — same muscle now applied to CentrOS design-partner conversations

For an engineering hire, AXED proves a decade of shipping doesn't stop at code. For a commercial hire, it proves a builder can close enterprise IP deals across multiple counterparty types. Read on at CentrOS for how this practice was formalized into a production runtime, or back to the portfolio for the full timeline.