But you aren't spending anymore time on the comic then you would be on a non story one, I mean its still updating a few times a week. So your reasoning doesn't make sense to me, unless you just start reading a webcomic from where ever it is, and don't bother to read the archives at all. Which also doesn't make sense to me.
Most people only have a minuscule amount of time during their week to devote to webcomics, like myself, and reading a story comic takes effort because you have to start from the beginning. Someone like you, on the other hand, who runs a webcomic, probably devotes most of their computing week into reading them. It just depends on what your priorities are.
The only serial webcomic I really enjoy a lot are Dr. McNinja and Order of the Stick. Dr. McNinja works because he doesn't tell long stories. He basically writes normal american-style 24-36 page comic books, he just does it one page at a time, digitally. Order of the Stick is just plain awesome, but I find myself buying the physical books even though I read it online. Reading it again in book form shows it in a completely different light. I also read 8-bit Theatre, which is serial, but it just hasn't been doing it for me lately. Don't get me wrong, 8bt is high quality, and that quality has not dropped. It's simply that the jokes are the same gag over and over again, and it no longer amuses me as much as it once did.
I think what it comes down to is that you can only break up a story so much before it breaks. Some stories work better when broken up in different ways, but it can only go so far. I doubt that releasing one page of your book each month would not work, no matter what. At the same time, it's not necessary to always release your story all at once all of the time. Serializing a story, in any medium, is a very delicate process. You have to divide it into chunks of the appropriate size and release them on an appropriate schedule. If you don't do it just right, you have horrible problems with pacing and keeping your audience into it.
It seems to me, and maybe just me, but it seems like the majority of people who read webcomics want to read gag a day, or just comedic comics with no story, rather then reading comics that are more story based
Take any good manga, comic, or whatever, and break it up into 3-5 panel chunks. Imagine trying to read Sanctuary in such tiny chunks.
The very medium of webcomics prevents the kinds of storytelling people expect in other media. It's very difficult to tell a coherent, long-running story in this format while still allowing each individual update to stand on its own. Failure makes you another Mary Worth.
You have to have one important, interesting, or funny thing happen in EVERY SINGLE UPDATE. If you can't do this in small updates, then you have to put out larger chunks of the story at a time. Hence, gag comics are more popular and more prevalent.
Order of the Stick probably handles this the best of any webcomics I read. 8-Bit Theatre is a decent second, along with Dr. McNinja and Errant Story.
I agree with you guys that the very medium of webcomics does impede the storytelling, and its because I run a webcomic that I'm trying to understand this better (also I really don't spend that much time reading webcomics, only about 10 - 30 minutes a day depending on the day and whatnot.)
Unfortunately the only other ways, that I can think of, that a comic could update to lessen the storytelling issue would be possibly troublesome for the reader. You can do once a week with multiple pages (with mine it'd be 2,) but then the story is still being impeded a lot, just slightly less, the upside is its still easy for a reader to remember the update day. If you go to a monthly update, you get a lot more pages likely, but then you have everyone showing up on one day to read the comic and visit the page. Which sort of kills any chance for advertising, or whatnot.
I might try and experiment with something like this with my comic, (once I talk to the artist,) but it will certinly most likely require altering the code to the website, amongst other things. But hopefully it will led to the comic being easier to read and understand.
PS: I agree with 8bit theater stuff, I stopped reading it a while ago not because it wasn't still good, but because I just got tired of the same stuff every time.
I read MT the first couple of years then I switched to Mac Hall. Then when that comic starting updating less and less, the finally stopped. I switched up to Questionable Content. I'm pretty happy with QC providing me with my soap opera comic drama fix.
I am a fairly avid webcomic reader. I have most of my favorite webcomics all bookmarked and check them when they are updated. I've been reading MT for many years, and have found myself not as excited to check the site on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays as much as I used to. I feel that like many anime where you get the main male and female characters, MT seems to draw out the whole, "Let's get together and have a relationship, love, yadda, yadda". That's one thing that annoys me about MT, that I wish Fred would just get it over with. He has recently gave Piro some "balls", but it just doesn't seem enough for how long the comic has been going. If he finally has more character development, in which he finally starts a relationship with the characters, I might feel more compelled to look forward to reading the updates, however, I'll stick with the more enjoyable ones, like QC that was mentioned. However, I honestly enjoyed when Hawk, from Applegeeks, took over for Fred when he was on vacation. Those strips were a nice change of silly and overall cute compared to most MT strips.
Yes, Questionable Content is awesome. As well as many others webcomics to name. Currently my favorites that I find very enjoyable are DM of the Rings, No Pink Ponies, Brinkerhoff, Applegeeks, & Shortpacked. And thank the lord, I finally have access to Order of the Stick at my work, so I'm slowly but surely catching up in the archives.
I do have to agree that QC is a really good comic. It's got very good art, really unique characters, and a story that is rather "slice of life," but not in anyway boring. It may be the most balanced comic in that sense.
Comments
I think what it comes down to is that you can only break up a story so much before it breaks. Some stories work better when broken up in different ways, but it can only go so far. I doubt that releasing one page of your book each month would not work, no matter what. At the same time, it's not necessary to always release your story all at once all of the time. Serializing a story, in any medium, is a very delicate process. You have to divide it into chunks of the appropriate size and release them on an appropriate schedule. If you don't do it just right, you have horrible problems with pacing and keeping your audience into it.
Take any good manga, comic, or whatever, and break it up into 3-5 panel chunks. Imagine trying to read Sanctuary in such tiny chunks.
The very medium of webcomics prevents the kinds of storytelling people expect in other media. It's very difficult to tell a coherent, long-running story in this format while still allowing each individual update to stand on its own. Failure makes you another Mary Worth.
You have to have one important, interesting, or funny thing happen in EVERY SINGLE UPDATE. If you can't do this in small updates, then you have to put out larger chunks of the story at a time. Hence, gag comics are more popular and more prevalent.
Order of the Stick probably handles this the best of any webcomics I read. 8-Bit Theatre is a decent second, along with Dr. McNinja and Errant Story.
Unfortunately the only other ways, that I can think of, that a comic could update to lessen the storytelling issue would be possibly troublesome for the reader. You can do once a week with multiple pages (with mine it'd be 2,) but then the story is still being impeded a lot, just slightly less, the upside is its still easy for a reader to remember the update day. If you go to a monthly update, you get a lot more pages likely, but then you have everyone showing up on one day to read the comic and visit the page. Which sort of kills any chance for advertising, or whatnot.
I might try and experiment with something like this with my comic, (once I talk to the artist,) but it will certinly most likely require altering the code to the website, amongst other things. But hopefully it will led to the comic being easier to read and understand.
PS: I agree with 8bit theater stuff, I stopped reading it a while ago not because it wasn't still good, but because I just got tired of the same stuff every time.
Yes, Questionable Content is awesome. As well as many others webcomics to name. Currently my favorites that I find very enjoyable are DM of the Rings, No Pink Ponies, Brinkerhoff, Applegeeks, & Shortpacked. And thank the lord, I finally have access to Order of the Stick at my work, so I'm slowly but surely catching up in the archives.