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ABCRevive Since: Dec, 1969
#1: Apr 27th 2012 at 10:53:04 AM

We've all heard about webcomics that went on hiatus and never came back, but how many updates does a creator or a creative team need to do on a webcomic before they can "safely retire" and move on to other projects?

TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#2: Apr 27th 2012 at 5:13:16 PM

You're going to get a thousand different answers to that one, based on who you ask.

Me, I don't like the idea of Orphaned Series. I know, it can be tough to see a project as long-running as a plot-driven webcomic through. However, if you don't have the will to do so, you probably shouldn't have started it in the first place. I think webcomics as a medium have come far enough that such should be recognizable as a basic rule for anyone trying to create a webcomic.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Medinoc from France (Before Recorded History)
#3: Apr 29th 2012 at 10:00:39 AM

I think it's less "how many updates" and more "how it ends" and "do we know the end is coming".

The artist may say "I'm planning to end on X milestone" (which for gag-a-day comic, may just be a number of pages), or may create a conclusion story just for the ending (which for high-school comics, may just end in graduation).

I think the worst that can happen to a comic is to end without saying it: When it simply stops updating and then doesn't renew the domain subscription.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#4: Apr 29th 2012 at 2:00:19 PM

Ideally, the answer is to do what Anti-HEROES did, and pass the torch on to someone (or someones) else. Far too few people try to do that though.

edited 29th Apr '12 2:00:32 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
AnimeGIF Since: Dec, 2012
#5: Mar 14th 2013 at 8:16:53 PM

Before we can talk about where a webcomic "stops," we need to talk about where a webcomic "starts."

There is so much variation in content, panelling, update schedule, etc., that the only universal criterion for what makes a webcomic is that someone comes back to the draw more of the same webcomic and post in online. However, there are enough Stillborn Serial that we should have a buffer separating the webcomics that seem likely to stick around from the "first-and-last-attempts." Normally I'd say a webcomic started as early as five or ten strips, but the 24-hour comic day has proven that some creators can rattle off as many as twenty four strips in one sitting. Remember that the only criterion we have is that they person has to come back to draw more instead of just waiting for their buffer to run out. Therefore the earliest it can be called a "true" webcomic is twenty five strips, which is a little over two months on a MWF update schedule.

Before twenty-five updates, it makes more sense to talk about the comic in terms of an experiment, about the artist's style and potential rather than any particular strip, and the strengths and weaknesses of character types and update formats rather than getting too deep into the story itself. At twenty-five updates, the comic can be considered a successful experiment, meaning that the art, story, creator, and schedule were a good match. The artist can still experiment, and waiting until twenty-five updates avoids passing judgement based on the "knee-jerk reactions" of certain fans. Some fans will actually put off reading for more than two months in order to read the archives in a more complete form, but that does not mean their input is any less valid than the person who refreshes the page at midnight and writes "first post" in the comments. Finally, the twenty-five updates can also be used to experiment with whether the artist can come back after going on a hiatus, as well as any other schedule change. Two months cover minor illnesses and emergencies, and if the first experiment is unsuccessful then another twenty-five update can be given, but when the chances are two months apart half a year should be more than enough.

I have heard it said that after four years most webcomic artists look back at their early stuff and what to change things. After four years of drawing, their skills would have improved no matter where they started or what they were drawing. At three updates a week for fifty-two weeks, four years will give you about 624 updates, give or take a holiday update. 625 is twenty-five squared or 25 experiments of 25 updates each. There is an odd synergy in those number, but most fans will react badly to redrawing the first strips, let alone the idea that the creator wants to quit. However, we also have to consider the potential new fans:

If comic archive can be read at a page per minute, then a 600 page archives requires a ten-hour Archive Binge for new readers to catch up to current readers.

It is actually closer to two-thirds of a minute per page, but we're still getting close to the eight-hour day that separates a "fun activity" from "work you should be paid for." When new readers are being asked to do a full day of unpaid labor, to say nothing of the starving artist, it is time to either think about wrapping up the story or releasing a "condensed version" that will catch the reader up to all relevant plot points in as little time as possible. The problem with condensed versions is that when all the relevant points are brought together, it is easy to see where the story is going. As far as I've been able to figure, 825 is the ideal strip to end on, far enough past the "four-year" mark that the creator can look at where they are going objectively, but not so far that new fans can't catch up over a weekend binge. Webcomics that have 1000 strips or more have been around long enough to have gathered a large fanbase that they aren't worried about attracting new fans. The fans they have are loyal, and any new fans are extremely loyal after making it through the archives. They are loyal not only to the author, but to the strip itself and its characters, to the point that moving onto a new project risks more than it would gain in the first few strips. What do you think?

T pity the fool what don't know the Theory
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#6: Apr 4th 2013 at 9:00:06 AM

Huh, I missed this necro. But to respond:

There's no real magic formula, mainly because there's no standardized update schedule. Some webcomics run 5 days a week, such as Dumbing of Age (and remember the artist is doing [1] another webcomic on top of that). Some run only once a week (Rusty and Co. being a case of this, only every Wednesday). And some update whenever their artist/writer makes the time (The Order of the Stick and MegaTokyo being cases of this). There is plenty of room for variation, so it's pointless to declare any specific goal as making a webcomic "official".

Also, there is no standardized reading speed or pace. Some people prefer to Archive Binge over getting daily updates. They just like to process stories in chunks, and there's nothing wrong with that. Others will follow the story blow by blow, and that's fine for them too. Claiming there's a obvious cutoff point based on a specific reader pace is just using anecdotal evidence; it takes all kinds.

I'll also point out there are ways to handle it well and ways to handle it poorly. Nami Warriors is a case of a webcomic ending totally abruptly, as Medinoc pointed out is not a good thing. However, there are even worse examples. A recent terribly bad case was Alone in a Crowd, which the creator ended with a written speech saying that he didn't feel the webcomic was good enough to be worth continuing, specifically because it wasn't generating enough traffic to make it his full time job (which is something over 90% of webcomics naturally fail to do). If you are expecting to "break out", you need to rethink your priorities.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
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