It's one of the great tragedies of webcomics the way ‘real life’ so often gets in the way of our comic work.
I was going through my list of favourites the other day; having been here nearly 6 years now, it has gotten pretty unwieldy to the point that I had mostly stopped using it. So I began paring it down, taking out some of the comics I once loved but which haven't updated in years, and flipping through many of them in the process.
It struck me just how many were never officially ended, nevermind completed, but were more or less forgotten - abandoned. You know the ones…the updates peter out for a while, and the last page is an apology promising more pages in the future.
I have to admit to having done this with my own comic - twice, actually! The first time I just sort of ran out of script, and the second time was during the site redesign confusion.
Here are just a few of my favourite orphaned comics:
The People That Melt in the Rain
This one was like a cross between a really good episode of The Twilight Zone and a fairy tale.
Opey the Warhead
About a young warhead growing up post-apocalypse - irresistible artwork.
Orbit
A cute and funny comic that personified the solar system.
And so many more…
Do you guys still have some dear old comics in your favourites that you hope against hope will update some day?
Have you ever had to abandon a project of your own that you loved but that just got lost among a pile of other stuff to do?
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Have a comic milestone, a community project or some comic-related news you’d like to see in a newspost? Send it to me via PQ or at hippievannews(at)gmail.com!
FRIDAY NEWSPOST - Abandoned Webcomics Nostalgia
HippieVan at 12:00AM, Feb. 7, 2014
6 likes!
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Alex_g at 1:17AM, Feb. 12, 2014
Kaos: The comic was completed in a paperback, I posted the link in the artist comments.
Mr Kaos at 12:30PM, Feb. 11, 2014
the terror of undead. it didn't update for years. a great comic. i Wonder what happened to the artist because it just ended... without any Word of why. - See more at: http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2014/feb/06/friday-newspost-abandoned-webcomics-nostalgia/#sthash.PGSwxNxP.dpuf and then zandars saga that ended because someone kept to bugger the artist. he even gave the user a warning that he would end it if that one kept to annoy him.. and well. that user kept to do that. now it won't even be finished. sigh a good comic ended because of someone WHO couldn't understand a warning.
Locoma at 10:10AM, Feb. 11, 2014
It's awesome you mention web comic nostalgia. I started 2014 doing a short story about exactly that :) http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/ANTI_FEATURED/5448248/ Personally, "Blip" (blipcomic) was one of my favorite webcomics and stopped updating, first in DD, then in the offical site. I still check it from time to time only to scroll hundreds of spam-bots commments. Also, Ozone, I'm still using the original MIKYAGU font in my current comics :D Never gonna give it up.
smkinoshita at 12:05PM, Feb. 10, 2014
I used to be in contact with Opey's creator a ways back. I think it'd really make him feel better to know Opey was missed, but I lost track of a lot of people.
AzuJOD at 9:25PM, Feb. 8, 2014
Some of the comics on my faves list are no longer updating because they're finished. I keep them there in case I feel like reading them again. Here's one I miss: Hocusha. http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Hocusha/ That comic stated with good art, stopped updating, then came back with even better art, and now stopped again.
dar88 at 5:29AM, Feb. 8, 2014
one of my fave was a comic called mobs ties i loved that webcomic but like many of the greats it was cut down to soon :-(
Ozoneocean at 1:25AM, Feb. 8, 2014
The Purgatory Tower creator was Sarah Hablethwait, now Sarah Klegman since she married... she had a lot of job stress at the time. One of those situations where they start in college or just out of it and life/work stress squishes it out of you. Her other work was as part of a 3 people creative team and those are always very tenuous.
Banes at 6:20PM, Feb. 7, 2014
Well I missed "The Compozerz" but it just returned! And "LENA" was so great. The story took a very strange turn on the last page or two, then nada. I still hold out hope to see it reborn, though!
HippieVan at 3:17PM, Feb. 7, 2014
Next week I was thinking of doing some kind of Valentine's-themed newspost, but I definitely do one highlighting completed comics in the near future. I have some really cool completed ones like that sitting in my favourites as well. :)
bravo1102 at 3:05PM, Feb. 7, 2014
You give birth to something and for some reason(s) never see it to completion. It can be a painful sense of loss to the creator as well. It really stinks when you're really into something and the creator just up and says "I've done everything I could with this, bub-bye!" But I want more! "But I have no interest in creating any more." Yeah. like that. Next week can we have a huge newspost about creators who have finished webcomics? Got to recognize the tenacity and get-er-done attitude of those folks.
Seabiscuit at 3:03PM, Feb. 7, 2014
I really really miss The Nineteenth Century Industrialist and Sword in Hand. :(
Jaggedclaw at 2:26PM, Feb. 7, 2014
Oh my gosh, so many comics on my favorites list haven't updated since 2011 or 2012... Let's see, there's Dangermoth, Death Brigade, Death Comes Knocking, Real Girls, Sakana no sadness, Stitches, The Darkened Heart, Bad Guy High, Wyyrd Vintage, Tides of Tirnangog, Minion, Long Conversations About Nothing... ugh! So many! I miss all of them!
DarkKyo at 12:01PM, Feb. 7, 2014
I have...life and lack of resource have caused me to not be able to. Update my works.
Ozoneocean at 10:33AM, Feb. 7, 2014
@Usedbooks- re: worst case scenarios- Very, very, amazingly rarely is it because the creator dies... I know of only about two instances of DD examples. It's usually always life issues-not lack of interest, just life moving on and people's circumstances changing in such a way that they can't spare the time anymore: lots of people start out as college students where their time is really regulated, when they get into the working world it's harder for them to manage time- relationships often cause people t off the radar- we lost a LOT of people to the military over the years- etc, so many reasons. :(
Flinto at 9:31AM, Feb. 7, 2014
Yep, thats really sad, specially when they don´t give the comic a proper sendoff. Its sad that some of my favorite webcomics are no longer running.
usedbooks at 9:06AM, Feb. 7, 2014
It's not so bad if the creator is still around working on other things. I find myself wondering about vanished creators. Can't shake the thoughts of worst case scenarios (even if in most cases, it's just a loss of interest).
Mika_yi at 8:39AM, Feb. 7, 2014
I had a lot of comics in my favorite that, to be honest I think all of them, if not most of them stopped updating. it's sad there's not actual reason why, almost like they just vanished. I have to admit I had a lot on there that I liked reading, but I guess they moved on, or quite updating. I can't name any really right now, I know I did have to go through and cut off a lot of my favorite comics because they were no longer updating. I really miss reading a lot of the comics I favorite. I have two comics I had to put on standby, more or less it's actually just one that I haven't gotten around to scanning the revamped pages of. and the other is on hold, with a redux version of it so it's not dead just redoing that one. TT.TT
Neilsama at 8:04AM, Feb. 7, 2014
The original version of the Non Standard Assembly, back when it featured Harper and Gollum from The Repository of Dangerous Things and a few other random crossover webcomic characters. I don't think there are any surviving pages of it anywhere online. I always wanted to see how that would have played out.
antcomics at 7:56AM, Feb. 7, 2014
I miss John Clyde the Nature Guide, A Roll of the Dice (both done by a brother/sister team, brother wrote, sister drew). I also miss Goosetown and Lunchbreak, Pugnuggle Tales (still in touch with the artist, he just burned out), Raw Fish, Breaking the Ice, Bruised Oranges, The Unitary Authority of Ersatz (again, in touch with the author still, he just grew bored with it basically). And there are more, can't think of them right now.
HippieVan at 7:23AM, Feb. 7, 2014
haha, I purposely did not include any from artists who are still around because I didn't want to make them feel guilty. :P @kawaii: I kept 30ish old favourites that I knew I would want to read over again at some point.
Abt_Nihil at 6:29AM, Feb. 7, 2014
Genejoke: Thanks, I really appreciate it. Obviously, I'd love to get back to drawing more Holon :/ Personally, I'd always hoped Bloodhound and Leather Woman would update again... http://theduckwebcomics.com/bloodhound http://theduckwebcomics.com/leather_woman (NSFW)
KimLuster at 6:28AM, Feb. 7, 2014
Yeah, I love 'Opey the Warhead' - I'd pay if that one was restarted. Also, I wish the writers of 'Holon', and 'Elspeth' would come back around. 'Quantum Rock of Ages' only got 'abandoned' here at DD - I found it other places, but I haven't made myself read it thru like I did here.
usedbooks at 6:03AM, Feb. 7, 2014
A good chunk of my faves actually concluded but many also just stopped. The Rose Killer, Raw Fish, The Hub, Cricket's Creature. There'd be even more except I cleared out my favorites a year or two ago. Every few months, JustNoPoint appears and puts up a page or two of The Devon Legacy before vanishing again.
PyThomas at 3:59AM, Feb. 7, 2014
Anecdote, Billy Learns To Rock, The Princess, Geminni Level Up, Gelotology. Every once in a while I'll find something in Quail's Random that hasn't been updated in years, that I thought "Damn, that would've been a great comic to follow".
Ozoneocean at 2:52AM, Feb. 7, 2014
Love the pic BTW!