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This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

Series Hiatus

When a comic artist is too busy, too tired, away on vacation, or needing time to catch up on his Strip Buffer, rather than allow an extended Schedule Slip, he may resort to announce an intentional break in the series, usually with a pre-set return date. Unfortunately, it is not rare for what is intended to be a short hiatus to become permanent.

Compare Uncanceled.

Examples

Anime and Manga

Rei Hiroe last put out a volume of Black Lagoon in 2009. Good thing he finally announced he was going to resume writing again in 2012. Except...the announcement was made back in March 2012. He finally got out a chapter in March 2013...only for him to announce the next chapter would be released around June.
Katsura Hoshino took a hiatus from D. Gray-Man from November 2008 to March 2009 due to an injury, then while fans were enjoying the return, it started a whole new hiatus in April.
Fruits Basket took an extended break after about 36 chapters because Natsuki Takaya injured her drawing hand. She came back after a few months and finished out the series.
Kohta Hirano with his series Hellsing: The Dawn. He felt like stopping out of nowhere in 2007 but Young King Comics did not declare the series as finished or cancelled. If it ever comes back to serialization, the fans will probably have forgotten about the series altogether.
Hunter � Hunter has gone through multiple hiatuses, the longest one lasting about one and a half years, due to Yoshihiro Togashi's health problems.
Hayao Miyazaki started the manga version of Nausica� of the Valley of the Wind in 1982, regularly stopping the comic - sometimes for over a year at a time - to work on his films (beginning, naturally, with the Nausicaa movie). Because of this, it took Miyazaki over 12 years to complete the manga.
Technically happened with Trigun, although it was sort of out of Yasuhiro Nightow's control: the original magazine the title was serialized in folded, and when he was hired by Young King Comics a year later they asked him to restart his old series instead of creating a new one.
Nana went on hiatus in 2009, as the author had some health problems. She has since recovered, but has not yet given word on when or if she will continue the manga.
Gamerz Heaven appears to be on hiatus, but some speculate that the non sequitur cliffhanger the last chapter finished with could just be a really, really lame ending.
At the end of March 2013, Gangan Online announced Shindere Shoujo To Kodoku Na Shinigami had been put on indefinite hiatus due to the author having a sudden illness.
Fairy Tail's anime is currently on one, leaving off episode 175 in the middle of the Grand Magic Games with some major cliffhangers.

Fan Works

Nobody Dies got hit with this hard in February of 2012, where after chapter 110, it simply stopped updating for months. When questioned, the author responded that he had written himself into a corner and was trying to work out how to get the story back on track. As of January 2013, he may have found his answer, as he has seemingly once again posted some story updates.

Live-Action TV

All Creatures Great and Small went on one of these from 1982 to 1988, with two Christmas Episodes in between.
Happened to Doctor Who in the mid-80s; it was rested for 18 months. A similar thing happened in 2009; although five specials were produced after the Series 4 finale, the fifth series didn't air until 2010. This was in part to allow for a smoother transition to the new production team.
Torchwood did this this between Children of Earth (2009) and Miracle Day (2011), because the producers needed to find an American network to take on the show in conjunction with the BBC.
The producers of Thank God You're Here took a break for a year before bringing the show back for a fourth season.
The first season of 3-2-1 Contact aired in 1980, but due to funding constraints, the series went into reruns until 1983.
'Allo 'Allo! went on a two year hiatus from 1989 after lead actor Gordon Kaye suffered a horrific head injury, putting the entire future of the series in doubt. He went on to make a full recovery and the show successfully returned for 3 more seasons.
Are You Afraid of the Dark? was cancelled in 1996, then Un-Canceled for one final season in 1999, with a mostly new cast.

Newspaper Comics

The best known cases in print comics were the more-than-yearlong breaks taken by Garry Trudeau in 1983 and Gary Larson in 1989, and the shorter breaks taken by Bill Watterson in 1991 and 1994 and Charles Schulz in late 1997. In the business, these are known as "sabbaticals".
- Trudeau has gone on week-long vacations every now and then since the long break, with reruns being published in place. He also took a 3-month break in 2008.
Tom Pappalardo published the comic strip Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot! from 2007-2008, took a year off, and returned in 2010 with a retooled layout, renaming it The Optimist.

Webcomics

The author of Casey And Andy announced that he was planning to leave the comic alone for an indefinite amount of time while he worked on his other project, Cheshire Crossing. He did later return and finish it.
The author of Collar 6 took a one week hiatus after he completing the 100th strip.
Maritza Campos of College Roomies from Hell!!! takes off the first two and last two weeks of each year (though she had to start the hiatus in 2006 several weeks earlier due to health issues). She also took several weeks off after the birth of her first child.
Earthsong has gone on a number of hiatuses in the past. The author getting married and going on honeymoon caused one of them.
Josh Sortelli of Elf Only Inn has taken lengthy breaks from production of his webcomic, up to several years on one occasion.
Dan Shive of El Goonish Shive took two months off at the end of 2006 to catch up on his Strip Buffer and attend to personal issues.
- And takes several more on a regular basis due to deciding he doesn't like his buffer anymore and redoing it
The webcomic Eversummer Eve has a long and tortured history online. It had been running for several years before Denise Jones moved new updates and its archive to subscription-site WirePop, where it helped launch the site. The comic eventually hit Schedule Slip in 2007 without notice, quietly leaving the site in early 2008. The comic has not been updated since, and the author has since indicated on Deviant Art that it's on hiatus, but she intends to come back to it and remake/reboot it at some undetermined point in time.
When Chapter 14 of Gunnerkrigg Court finished in September 2007, the series went on a hiatus In Name Only. The regular comic didn't update for two weeks, but bonus material, including a few Guest Strips, were posted every weekday (whereas the regular comic only updates three times a week). Tom Siddell explained that the break was supposed to represent the protagonists' summer holiday, so the time skip between Chapters 14 and 15 wouldn't feel so abrupt.
Hello Cthulhu, thought to be an orphan, was updated a whopping year-and-a-half after the 85th strip. Hopefully we'll get some more strips by 2015.
Jayden and Crusader experienced a hiatus between January and May 2008 in an effort to improve artistic ability before continuing.
Mike Shapiro, author of Joe The Circle, mysteriously ceased his already-sporadic updates on his comic in July 2002. To the frank astonishment of both his readers and his characters, he unexpectedly resumed updates... in September 2006. Thus, at four years and two months, Mike has one of the longest non-permanent hiatuses of a webcomic.
- And, unfortunately, he stopped again shortly afterward.
Keychain of Creation was forced onto hiatus after 383 strips due to the artist getting tendonitis. Due to the chronic nature of the aliment the hiatus may become permament.
The Life of Nob T. Mouse went on hiatus for eight years, but has since been running along nicely and now updates three times a week.
Christopher Livingston, author of Livin' in Oblivion, started a hiatus titled, startlingly, "Hiatus". Two months later, an update, then nothing. He still sporadically updates, but with no schedule.
Living With Insanity took one while David was on vacation with no internet access and Paul was doing some work for Oni Press. Other than that, no major problems.
Loserz went on hiatus several times, for durations of two to four months, mostly in winter. On the other hand, when it was alive, it often updated daily.
Megatokyo actually does do this on occasion, but due to Fred Gallagher's notorious Schedule Slip, it's hard to tell the difference.
Melonpool ended up getting a couple large breaks, with many of them flat out abandoning the material that it went on hiatus with.
Mountain Time took a hiatus that was later "explained" in a special travelogue feature.
Due to his chronic illness, Rich Burlew of The Order of the Stick took a few weeks' break from the comic, once he reached the end of the "War and XPs" story arc.
- Another hiatus ensued in mid to late 2012 due to an injury sustained to his drawing hand.
Sailor Sun: placed on hiatus due to the author moving to the middle east for job reasons, now at the vague statements of intent on the Dead Fic scale. However his other, shorter, comic I Dream Of A Jeanie Bottle is randomly coughing up updates.
Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance is known to go on at least one major hiatus a year. The longest occurred shortly after the birth of his daughter and lasted over two months, during which time a number of other artists (including some mentioned in this very entry) drew filler strips for the site.
Wayfarers Moon in an unusual subversion: The announcement for the hiatus included an announcement for an extra Spin-Off comic once they would start up again.
Anne Onymous of The Wotch took off the first six weeks of 2007 to recover from a serious personal problem. Another hiatus began in August 2009; as of July 2011 the story has not resumed, although the site underwent a slight reorganization in May.
The Prime of Ambition stopped in the middle of the most interesting part of a flashback in the very beginning. After 11 Jun 2008 the authors occasionally dropping in bonus materials, sketchbook pages and teasers, until the #bpspill page on 4 Jul 2010 and Christmas Episode. A to-do list promising reanimation of the comic in the first days of October appeared only 16 Sep 2011 It wasn't, but at least to-do list got regular updates.
Xin, who draws Erfworld, took time off in November 2011 to deal with her dying mother. During this time, the text only "Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower" was posted instead, which was set before the events of the main comic.
Brawl in the Family went on a brief hiatus shortly before the 400th comic due to Matthew Taranto's health problems. A second one was announced immediately after the Christmas comic, set to last a little over a month.
Unsounded. As the author puts it between chapter 5 and 6:
Long time readers know I take a one month break between chapters to recharge my batteries and fluff the page buffer, allowing me to keep the awesome three updates a week schedule. It's for the best
Sidequest Story went into what was supposed to be a brief one-month hiatus, but which ended up lasting almost a year. Luckily, it got back to updating weekly again after that.
A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible stopped updating in May 2006 and returned in December 2012. That's six years and seven months!
The Fuzzy Five announced a hiatus in August 2012. As of Jan 2013, no indication of a return date.
Fluffy Bunny Domination recently went on a 5 week hiatus. Time will tell if it is permanent or not.

Web Original

That Dude In The Suede left That Guy with the Glasses for a two-year hiatus in January 2009 in order to do missionary work. His return was pushed back to May, and when he still failed to return to the site rumors sprang up that he was doubting coming back at all - and even confirmed them. In reality, his delayed return was tied to delays in TGWTG's third anniversary special. On June 30th, at the end of Suburban Knights part five, Suede revealed himself shocking everyone who believed the rumors thus pulling off a long-term prank. On July 8, Suede released a trailer announcing he would be making more video reviews for TGWTG.
Homestar Runner has been known to have long gaps in between updates, especially when The Brothers Chaps were working on the video game. As of March 1, 2012, it is currently on its longest hiatus in site history, having not had a new cartoon in over a year.
- A new email IS coming, however, someday, when we're not expecting it
Super Mario Bros. Z was put on an indefinite hiatus due to an unspecified "real-life problem" up until its cancellation in 2012.