Longest plot arcs
Dec. 22nd, 2009 09:12 pmI recently caught up on the last year of Sluggy Freelance webcomic. I used to read it regularly, and eventually got bored, but am still curious to know what happened to the characters. It's been running for 12 years and we are just discovering a little more about the mystery of Oasis, first introduced about 10 years ago.
And I wondered what other continually-updated stories manage to have a mystery or plot set up and resolved over a longer stretch of time. Off the top of my head:
* Several 20+ long regularly updating stories, don't have one plot arc taking up all of that, but do have characters growing up over the course of the story, eg. Doonebury, Arlo and Janis, Coronation Street.
* Long-running series of books, but are more normally episodic.
* Sequels with a long gap in the middle, eg. "Godot finally arrives" (or whatever the actual titles are). But if they resolve a mystery they're rarely something the original actually had in mind.
And I wondered what other continually-updated stories manage to have a mystery or plot set up and resolved over a longer stretch of time. Off the top of my head:
* Several 20+ long regularly updating stories, don't have one plot arc taking up all of that, but do have characters growing up over the course of the story, eg. Doonebury, Arlo and Janis, Coronation Street.
* Long-running series of books, but are more normally episodic.
* Sequels with a long gap in the middle, eg. "Godot finally arrives" (or whatever the actual titles are). But if they resolve a mystery they're rarely something the original actually had in mind.