CSotD: Did I miss anything?
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When I go through the comics each morning, one of the factors I have to consider is, "Will this make sense to someone who hasn't been following the story?"
For instance, Tank McNamara is in the middle of an arc about drunk driving, and, this being Thursday, it seemed pointless to drag people into it now. Similarly, Pros & Cons is continuing a dialogue that began a few days ago and, again, you can't just jump into the middle and enjoy the nuances.
Comics that are intended for print have to contend with a particular limitation of the medium — unless the reader happens to be sitting next to a stack of papers from the past week, they can't go back and provide context. And people don't read the paper as faithfully as they used to. So, before you can advance the story, you have to bring everyone up to date.
By contrast, today's Pirate Cove is like walking into the middle of the chase scene in an Abbott and Costello movie. If you haven't been following the strip, you have no idea what is going on here.
What would be a disaster in print, however, is a strength on the web, because part of building reader loyalty on the web is providing a sense of inclusiveness, of being in on something special. This isn't exclusive to the web, mind you — TV shows like "24" and "Lost" also traded on making people feel good about knowing what was going on.
But you can fall behind on those shows to the point where you throw up your hands and stop watching. Even with the ability to watch missed episodes online, you still have to have the loyalty to devote those 48 minutes or so to each missed piece of the puzzle.
Catching up on a web cartoon is much quicker than that, and it's not hard, given that one of the absolute ironclad requirements of a web cartoon is easy site navigation. Not only does Pirate Cove have the regular "previous" and "next" buttons, but you can scroll down and start the entire story arc at the beginning with a single click, then go through piece by piece until you've caught up.
You can, of course, also go on line to catch up with syndicated comics, though for some reason the syndicates haven't really got the navigation thing down as well as they should. But syndicated comics still have to be formatted for print readers, and, just as with watching all the chapters of an old movie serial in a single sitting, the fact that each one starts by bringing you up to date breaks up the flow and is kind of a reminder that you're doing homework.
This is not intended as a "better" or "worse" comparison, by the way. But it might help explain why web comics can string along a storyline for a year at a stretch while continuity strips are dying in the newspapers. (And a tip for those who find that distressing: I joyfully follow classic episodes of both Latigo and Steve Canyon on line, thanks to Dan Thompson!)
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