History Main / AuthorExistenceFailure

** Of course, because he suspected he wouldn't finish "Three Formulae", Jacobs left the copyright of the series relatively open so it would eventually have an ending. Which worked, but also led to new ''Blake and Mortimer'' adventures made by two different writer/artist teams. One team [[TheyJustDidntCare actively tries to]] ''[[DolledUpInstallment ignore established canon.]] The other team is very good... but one of its members just died while working on the new volume "Curse of the Thirty Pieces of Silver", leading to new AuthorExistenceFailure.

* An in-show example: The ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' series of novels by Carver Edlund (aka Chuck Shurley) is actually a written account of the lives of Sam and Dean Winchester, written by a divine prophet. The series ends on the sadistic cliffhanger that is "No Rest for the Wicked," with the publisher claiming Chuck died. He didn't, really, he stopped because Sam and Dean found out about it. "We have guns, and we'll find you." [[spoiler: It's possible that the series through "Swansong" will be published [[AuthorExistenceFailure posthumously]]. Unfortunately, this will not improve the [[DownerEnding cliffhanger]] situation.]]

* [[LudwigVanBeethoven Beethoven's]] 10th Symphony had a similar fate.
* JohnLennon recorded a large number of demos before his death in 1980 that were not used on Double Fantasy (his 1980 album with recorded with his wife, Yoko Ono).
** Six were released after being polished by Ono in 1984, along with six of Ono's compositions and released as the album ''Milk and Honey''. Four more were given to the surviving Beatles by Ono in early 1994. The other three Beatles and producer [[ElectricLightOrchestra Jeff Lynne]] reworked the demos into new Beatles songs, and "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" were later released as singles and on "Anthology" albums.

* George Harrison died while working on the album ''Brainwashed''; it was completed by his son Dhani Harrison and former Travelling Wilbury bandmate Jeff Lynne. They made it considerably more lavish than George would have if he had lived--we have WordOfGod on that; Lynne felt that doing otherwise would've dishonored his memory.
** On the subject of the Traveling Wilburys, the band averted this by continuing after RoyOrbison died shortly after their first album's release, but it severely shortened their intended plans, and they released one more album in 1990 before splitting.

* JimiHendrix died before completing a planned double album provisionally titled 'First Rays of the New Rising Sun'. It was subsequently released over three posthumous albums; ''Cry of Love'', ''Rainbow Bridge'', and ''War Heroes''. When the Hendrix family regained control of his estate in 1997 they withdrew these albums and released a re-compiled ''First Rays...'', based mostly on Jimi's notes, as an 'official' Hendrix album.

* Subverted with TupacShakur; after a stint in prison and making a deal with the devil in the form of signing with infamous record label Death Row, Tupac churned out a mammoth number of songs (mainly by way of recording the vocals for said song in marathon recording sessions) prior to his death. The logic for this was to A. make up for lost time after spending a year in prison at the height of his career and B. to get his Death Row label contract fulfilled ASAP due to him realizing what a huge mistake it was to sign with the infamous label. Since then, a good number of posthumous albums have been made and they've even constructed a lifelike hologram of him as of April 2012, for Doctor Dre and Snoop Dog to perform tracks featuring Tupac alongside them in concert.

* There's been speculation that OtisRedding intended "(Sittin' on) The Dock of The Bay" to be part of a [[Music/TheBeatles ''Sgt. Pepper'']]-like concept album, but he was killed in a plane crash 18 days after recording it, and he didn't record anything else before then.

* T. Rex leader Marc Bolan was killed in a car crash, ending the band immediately.

* Heaven and Hell singer RonnieJamesDio (formerly of Black Sabbath) died of stomach cancer in 2010. Since Heaven and Hell only existed so the non-Ozzy members of Sabbath could play with Dio again, the band pretty much ceased to existed after he died.
** Ronnie's main band, {{Dio}}, were working on two follow-ups to their ''Magica'' concept album prior to his death. The story will never be completed now. (Making the way he cuts off the narration of Magica's storyline with some teases cut off by a michevious "Ah! But that’s another story!" to make you wait for the next installment much HarsherInHindsight.)

* In another case of AuthorExistenceFailure making an album possible, a Linda [=McCartney=] collection called ''Wild Prairie'', which contained everything that she ever professionally sang lead on, was released in 1998 or 1999, after she died. Paul wanted the world to know she was a great musician, regardless of the evidence... The Music/{{Wings}}-era works are mixed at best, but her most recent songs are excellent if you can get past the lyrics. "The White-Coated Man" (a collab. with Chrissie Hynde) is especially haunting.

* Similar to the ''Father Ted'' example, narrowly averted by ''TheBill'' where actor Kevin Lloyd died only a week after being [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor fired for his alcoholism.]]

* Creator/FyodorDostoevsky intended ''TheBrothersKaramazov'' to be the first book in an epic story titled "The Life of a Great Sinner", but died four months after publishing it. Given that ''TheBrothersKaramazov'' is widely considered Dostoevsky's greatest work, the fact that more was planned has bibliophiles smarting to this day.

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* Steve Irwin, aka the ''CrocodileHunter'', was killed in a freak accident with a stingray while filming the documentary ''Ocean's Deadliest'' with Philippe Cousteau Jr. He [[PosthumousCollaboration was posthumously featured]] in his daughter's show, ''Bindi the Jungle Girl''.

* More of TupacShakur's songs have been completed since his death than were completed when he was alive. (The mere fact that he left that much unfinished material behind when he died is impressive in and of itself.) They've even constructed a lifelike hologram of him as of April 2012.

* Creator/FyodorDostoevsky intended ''TheBrothersKaramazov'' to be the first book in an epic story titled "The Life of a Great Sinner," but died four months after publishing it. Given that ''TheBrothersKaramazov'' is widely considered Dostoevsky's greatest work, the fact that more was planned has bibliophiles smarting to this day.

* Arthur Ransome had an unfinished ''SwallowsAndAmazons'' book when he died. Nicknamed "Coots in the North,'' it had the Blacketts meeting the Death-and-Glories, and makes one weep for WhatCouldHaveBeen.

* The death of Brian Daley in 1996 didn't keep three more ''{{Robotech}}'' novels (which he co-wrote with James Luceno under the name Jack Mckinney) from coming out. The last three novels were written by Luceno alone but still using the Mckinney pseudonym. Unfortunately, fans did notice a difference.
* Brian Jacques, author of the ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'' novels, died of a heart attack on February 5th, 2011. He had planned to never stop writing the series, and the last book he'd been working on, ''The Rogue Crew'', was left complete but unpublished at the time of his death. It was released three months later.

* {{Music/Hideto Matsumoto}} (better known as "hide") from the band {{Music/X Japan}} died before completing his third solo album, ''Ja, Zoo''. It is still debated today whether his death was an accident or a suicide, though most agree it was an accident. hide and Yoshiki had also planned, up until hide's death, to reunite Music/XJapan with another vocalist than Toshi or with hide on lead vocals in 2000.
* Former {{Music/X Japan}} and {{Music/Loudness}} bassist Music/TaijiSawada has also died (of a likely homicide covered up as suicide), becoming the second person out of both the original {{Music/X Japan}} and the third formation of {{Loudness}} to die.

Sometimes editors go bankrupt, and ''sometimes authors '''[[KilledOffForReal die]]'''''. Even more worrisome is when they do so before completing a series, leaving it [[OrphanedSeries orphaned]]. If readers are lucky, the author had enough warning or foresight to keep notes on his plans for the rest of the series or at least fill someone else in on the most relevant plot points, so that [[PosthumousCollaboration their work can be continued by someone else]]. This may result in the series JumpingTheShark if the replacement isn't very good, but at least you have closure. Worse would be if the series just isn't popular enough to justify going through the effort to find a new author.

Not to be confused with the criticism trope known as "DeathOfTheAuthor". Or ApocalypticLog. Or CreatorKiller, where the author merely falls from grace and loses their reputation. See also TheCharacterDiedWithHim, where the show goes on without the character a dead actor portrayed, and FakeShemp, where there is an attempt to disguise the absent actor.

* KanetoShiozawa, the Japanese voice of the [[PirateNinjaZombieRobot Cyborg Ninja]] in the first ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', died of a brain concussion [[DeathByFallingOver after falling down a flight of stairs]] on May 10, 2000. As a tribute, his voice recordings from the original ''[=MGS=]'' were used for ''MetalGearSolid2'' for the second Cyborg Ninja (who was actually another character), as well as in ''SuperSmashBrosBrawl''.

* ''{{Eddsworld}}'' creator Edd Gould died after a long fight with cancer in March 25th, 2012. [[OutlivedItsCreator However, his friends are continuing the series]].

* Keith Whitley also charted several singles after his death from alcohol posioning in mid-1989: posthumous #1 hits with "I Wonder Do You Think of Me" and "It Ain't Nothin'", "I'm Over You", and a duet with his widow Lorrie Morgan on "Til a Tear Becomes a Rose". RCA Records released ''Kentucky Bluebird'' in 1991, which included several unfinished demos fitted with new instrumentation and other previously-unreleased tidbits ranging from already-finished songs to ''AmericanCountryCountdown'' interviews. Two of the songs on this album, "Somebody's Doing Me Right" and "Brotherly Love" (the latter a duet with Earl Thomas Conley), made the charts. It was followed in 1995 by ''Wherever You Are Tonight'', also composed of demos with new instrumentation dubbed in.

* Ai Yazawa is becoming little by little an example of this. In July 2009, her ''Manga/{{NANA}}'' manga was suddenly stopped from being published in Cookie because she collapssed and fell ill. This wasn't the first time that Yazawa passed through this, since the last time that happened (around 2007) her hiatus was from some months (conveniently, since NANA was a regular monthly series). When she came out of the hospital in April 2010, she said that she 'didn't have touched a pencil or pen' and she had to still recover... however, as of June 2012, there wasn't been any official word from her editors, Cookie or Shueisha about her actual status, becoming worrysome if you think that she hasn't really fully drawn or written something (NANA or another thing) in the last 2 years.

* Tragic poetess and author SylviaPlath committed suicide shortly before publication of ''TheBellJar'', her only novel. Most of her poetry went up in a bonfire when Plath was in a rage one day, and ex-husband Ted Hughes destroyed many of her journal entries, his reasoning being that her final journal entries revealed that she had gone off the deep end and become a madwoman who couldn't be saved from suicide. Plath hinted she was in the middle of writing a sequel to The Bell Jar before she passed away.

** George Harrison was also one of the producers of CirqueDuSoleil's ''Love''; in the making-of special his wife and son are seen watching the troupe's dress rehersal some months after George died, and it's eerie seeing Dhani (with [[WhatBeautifulEyes wide, bright eyes]]) looking through a giant projection of his nearly-identical father.

** A similar case happened with the FurryComic ''ComicBook/AlbedoErmaFelnaEDF'': Steven Gallacci (the author)'s wife, died of cancer in 2006, causing him to stop drawing and leaving the comic book industry and fandom (seemingly) for good, and leaving the whole story unfinished.
*** Actually, as of 2011, Mister Gallacci has attended a few West Coast furry conventions and done some drawing. He's noted all the effusive praise he's gotten posting his work on Website/FurAffinity has really been so flattering that he's giving the idea of getting back into the comics game some thought.

** If they had both died subsequent issues would have been kinda dull.
*** No joke. Before Gerhard joined him (around issue 80) Sim had said that if he died, he had left instructions for all the remaining issues to be published BLANK.

** According to the Yves Rodier version, [[http://www.membres.lycos.fr/dafilu/tintin/46.html Tintin survived]]...obviously.

* George R. R. Martin, author of ASongOfIceAndFire and television producer of the famed series GameOfThrones, considering that the book series has taken 20 years to write (with two remaining books yet to be published), has acknowledged that in the eventuality of his death (he's in his mid-sixties), he has left instructions to the producers of the show giving them a general idea of how is the story supposed to end. Regarding the book series, he is writing the sixth of seven planned novels at this moment... and we pray nothing happens.
** It's also in case Martin doesn't finish the novels soon enough for the show to use them, which is far more likely. Some things just can't be rushed.

* Late in his life, Eugene O'Neill began work on two massive drama cycles: ''A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed'', which was supposed to have as many as eleven plays, and ''By Way of Obit'', which would consist of eight one-act monologue plays. He only managed to complete one play in each cycle, ''A Touch of the Poet'' from the former (the fifth play out of the projected eleven) and ''Hughie'' from the latter, before illness prevented further writing. All the incomplete plays were destroyed, with the exception of ''More Stately Mansions'' (the sequel to ''A Touch of the Poet''), which survived in draft form.

* ''{{Riget}}'' ended after two seasons with many loose ends and at least one further season completely scripted, due to the deaths of three key actors: Ernst-Hugo Järegård (Stig Helmer), Kirsten Rolffes (Mrs. Drusse), and Morten Rotne Leffers (male dishwasher).

** It's also in case Martin doesn't finish the novels soon enough for the show, which is far more likely. Some things just can't be rushed.

* Now that Jeff Hanneman has passed away, ''Music/{{Slayer}}'' may become a three-piece band with a touring guitarist, or else said touring guitarist may become an official member once work on their upcoming album is completed. Before Hanneman's death, Kerry King stated that if he recovered from his health problems, he'd be welcome to return to the studio, but now King's forced to record all the guitar parts himself anyway.

* Now that Jeff Hanneman has passed away, ''Music/{{Slayer}}'' may become a three-piece band with a touring guitarist, or else said touring guitarist may become an official member once work on their upcoming album is completed. Before Hanneman's death, Kerry King stated that if he recovered from his health problems, he'd be welcome to return to the studio, but now King's forced to record all the guitar parts anyway.