As I've noted before, once most people find out how much work doing comics takes, and how little money they make, they quickly lose their will to continue. The ones who do either have an incredible work ethic, are completely insane and have no social life and don't care about money, or they have such a driving need to tell their stories nothing else matters. Since that doesn't describe many people, ergo you have so many unfinished comics.

Few are willing to sacrifice for their art any more.

Long multi-chaptered stories scare me. Burned often in printed comics.

I got this completist thing.

This thing with leaving stories unfinished is why I was very impressed with maggock 's story Inner Space and how she not only finished the story but went on to fund completed and very professional looking printed volumes through Kickstarter. Not at all bad for a single person operation.

Yes that is why I told many furries out there that Blacksad graphic novels did the right thing. Each graphic novel in the Blacksad series is a stand alone story all of its own. Each graphic novel in the series, do have ending all of their own. It wasn't trying to be some kind of ongoing trilogy to start with. I like it that anybody can pick any of the Blacksad graphic novels and it doesn't have to be read in the right order to get the whole story as possible.

Yeah, I was able to realized that Nordguard is now dead due to many reasons before you posted here. There's pages form the second graphic novel on the internet, but they're nothing but preview pages. I do believe if it was done as a one person working on the series. Second graphic novel could have been done by now.

Well I have been informed that volume two of Norguard IS happening and supposedly was out at AC and the reprint version 2.0 of the card game. Now granted sofawolf website is pretty bad at updates much less showing anything about that but one can hope it is true.

I have more then a few comic series that are *DOA* because of writer implosions, drama bombing, bankruptcy, and more. Not limited to just our corner of the fandom but we are far more prone to it because frankly the fandom accepts it. We flock to the new shiney and promises of a 3 book series, weekly updates, etc, and every single time we get burned as the artist takes the money and runs, or something about as bad crawls up and nukes the site from orbit, just to be sure.

Kind of a shame and goes even more for a furry game..from Ironclaw to Justifiers pretty much as Jim Groat said if you want to go broke make furry comics. You will not be dissapointed ;)

Gaia bless
Pakesh_De
Snoofy old burr

If it was out at AC then it was the best-kept secret at the con, and nobody mentioned it, nor have I seen it for sale anywhere.

Only the card game expansion and second edition were out at AC. There's a mention or two of the second graphic novel here like it's still going to happen, but no ETA:

http://dogpatch.press/2015/06/29/no.....indfall-novel/

greenday?

That, or perhaps this famous painting.

Always sad to see that happen, there are a few i know are pretty likely to get done, but as they are short stand alone comics im not sure they count?
Went through a phase of searching for furry webcomics when i first got into the fandom, often very old ones, which was very frustrating when i read through then realized that they are on indefinite 'hiatus' or seemingly abandonedhalf way through a story, or seemingly near the end. (though seems the artists etc are happy to continue paying for hosting fees and what not...)

One in particular i was really sad about was Jim Hardimans Caterwaul comic, which didnt even make it to the first issue, for obvious reasons. Real shame as the amount of back story/universe building that he had done was impressive, doubt we will ever even see what little he had finished.

Death is a legitimate reason for a comic not finishing

He actually did a few self-published issues of Caterwaul back in the 90's, but I have no clue if they're available anywhere.

I had totally forgotten about Nordguard...

Yeah, I feel the same about many of the comics I had emotionally invested . One big one being Catena Manor. They tried a rewrite as Catena Cafe but never got beyond the first "volume"

we have had this discussion before.

bad for graphic novels, bad for web comics. very few continue.

The ones that do are rare. The ones that do and I like (Good art, decent storytelling, clockwork), are rarer still, Like Lackadaisy. The Whiteboard still continues, but that is a Paintball strip, with furry characters, rather than a furry strip.

Eh, if you can't telll your story in 20-26 standard comic book issues It's too long...I'm looking at you Girl Genius.

Girl Genius has won at least one Hugo, is wildly popular, and probably brings in a ton of money. No one in their right mind would quit doing it!

Heh, one is reminded of Shonen Jump.

And yes, now that I think about it, buying Nordguard would be only a waste of money. It could be art showcase but that's it.

Heathen City is another one I'm sad to see go.

Yeah, Heathen City sure vanished without a trace.

It had quite a potential... Maybe someone could talk to the author (Alex F. Vance), about buying or taking over the story universe and revamping by crowdfunding.

He's still around, although apparently he's stopped doing anything creative and now presents himself as a photographer. I doubt you'd find anyone fanatical enough about the series to take over the writing, artist-wrangling and publishing. That would be a huge amount of work for basically no money.

I doubt you'd find anyone fanatical enough about the series to...

Other than me, probably not. Hee.

Once I save up enough money, I'm sure spending it on furry comic commissions would be a priority.

Agreed. This comic´s over 600 pages in hard copy too....

The fate of "Nordguard" disappointed me, I had some hopes for this one because it was at least not an open-end concept.

But I remember telling people not to do endless epics back in the 90's when Furrlough was still a thing. No one listened then, no one will listen now, and that's why so many people refuse to give a furry comic a chance any more. Twice bitten, etc. I am actually surprised that anybody is still willing to print/buy comics which are not "gay fuck of the day" type stories (who needs a proper end in porn, anyway...).

The French method of doing self-contained stories (not in all comics, but in most of the classics) would be the nicest - publish the effing thing after it is done (waiting for single weekly pages in a slow-going story is a drag) and keep the initial work to a single issue (just in case the usual, inevitable happens).

To be fair, the superhero genre does not have any endings either, ever. The whole concept builds on an origin story and an endless, repetitive middle where rarely anything of note happens, interpreted by a likewise endless string of authors and artists who try to give meaning to substories without breaking the mold (IT WILL CHANGE THE MARVEL UNIVERSE FOREVER, TRUE BELIEVER! - until the change is reverted or simply forgotten, the universe rebooted, or the series cancelled so it can have another start a few years later without the baggage). That's not exactly a good pattern to follow. (And while it works commercially for the intended superhero audience, it does not work for webcomics/furry comics which need to set out to tell much shorter tales in the first place.

As long as it's free I'm willing to give it a chance, but with furry comics I'm no longer waiting for an epiphany.

I don't know anything about any of these other comics you've mentioned, but I have faith in Dreamkeepers. Their game that they are working on (there was a Youtube about it) on the other hand...it's too soon to tell, but it looks promising.

Speaking more broadly then just furry work... who is the modern equivalent of Osamu Tezuka/Jack Kirby in term of productivity?

The cynic in me says that today's world isn't capable of producing one.

I honestly don't know. I don't follow mainstream comics very much. It may not ever be the same because artists don't have the 'studio system' any more, where you could count on assistants and the publisher to help take care of a lot of stuff artists have to deal with themselves today.

It still exists in some extent in Japan, read as much learning about recent high-profile successes over there. Here, yeah there does seem to be this racehorse treatment of content creators, ridden until they're broken with little to no support and then executed behind the barn and replaced with another.

I will post about a fabulous online comic.

It's called "Redtail's Dream", and it is capital F finished.

It is a freaking tragedy. It drives me nuts to start reading a comic, only to have it fold before it reaches any satisfactory conclusion.

It's rough on the readers, certainly, but I think it may take a toll on some of the artists and writers, too. I've seen artists on FurAffinity seem to shrug and walk away, but if you follow their journals, you can see them falling apart, either before or after the fact. Makes me sort of crazy.

I'm guilty, too. I started posting a story a year or so ago, got two or three chapters up and hit a block. I guess I could finish it, but at this late date, who would care?

Then I thought maybe the old titles Shanda the Panda and Katmandu, both which are within one issue of completion, but there's been no movement on those in years.

Mike and Carol Curtis shut down Shanda Fantasy Arts in 2010 due to health, age, and Mike's ongoing comic gig writing the Dick Tracy newspaper strip.

https://www.flayrah.com/3160/shanda.....sues-next-year

I don't know if their final issues ever came out or not. They were supposed to be released in 2011 according to that article, but I can't find a trace of those issues online. Looks like Shanda #49 came out in 2012 according to Ed Zolna's site.

Yes, I have #49 (with excellent art by Shelly Pledger). I've been in irregular contact with Mike Curtis. Last I heard from him he admitted he'd been having some writer's block issues with the final chapter of Shanda. I really hope he manages to finish it.

That's kinda sad, but I had seen it coming. It been a long time since Blotch posted anything and they don't work together anymore. Which is pretty sad imo, the combination was perfect.