A change in seasons

We often talk about breaks in comics when referencing hiatuses. Sometimes they are planned, most often they aren’t. However, as I have been catching up on the backlog of webcomics I had saved up, it occurred to me that many of the long running series I enjoyed reading had season breaks.

This was something that my comic partner and I also utilise. In one comic we referred to the breaks as issues, as the comic is originally created in a print format. The other was digital only, so we had seasons. These planned breaks gave us opportunities to take a step back and evaluate our progress. We would use them to go over the current events in the plot and consider what we might want to change, refine or include going further. For instance, we have a master outline for one series, which we use as a guide. Each issue allows us to pace out the plot points we want to cover or move things around if need be.

Season breaks also present an opportunity to use a timeskip if you want to move events along. Given the audience will have experienced a passage of time you could match the length of the timeskip with that of the audience. This invokes a sense of immersion in the reader whilst allowing you the flexibility to have events progress organically, preventing a potential drag in action.

Even non-serialised comics benefit from the concept of seasons. It can allow the author time to build up a buffer. It also presents a chance to make any pivots in the approach, or try something new. By segmenting it in this way, it can help the audience find particular gags or strips they really enjoyed.

Does your comic utilise some form of “season”? Let us know in the comment section below! And join us on Sunday evening for our Quackchat at 5:30PM(EST)!

____________

Don’t forget you can now advertise on DrunkDuck for just $2 in whichever ad spot you like! The money goes straight into running the site. Want to know more? Click this link here! Or, if you want to help us keep the lights on you can sponsor us on Patreon. Every bit helps us!

Special thanks to our patrons!!










Justnopoint - Banes - RMccool - Abt_Nihil - Gunwallace - PaulEberhardt - Emma_Clare - FunctionCreep - SinJinsoku - Smkinoshita - jerrie - Chickfighter - Andreas_Helixfinger - Tantz_Aerine - Genejoke - Davey Do - Gullas - Roma - NanoCritters - Teh Andeh - Peipei - Digital_Genesis - Hushicho - Palouka - cheeko - Paneltastic - [https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/L.C.Stein/]L.C.Stein - dpat57 - Bravo1102 - The Jagged - LoliGen - OrcGirl - Miss Judged - Fallopiancrusader - arborcides - ChipperChartreuse - Mogtrost - InkyMoondrop - Jgib99 - Hirokari - Orgivemedeath Ind - Mks Monsters - GregJ