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{{trope}}{{cleanup|Needs some rewrite. The main text describes this as if it were specific to web comics, and throws a small sop to other media. The description should be made media-agnostic.}}
[[File:
{{quote|''I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.''
|[[Douglas Adams]]}}
One of the biggest problems with
Extreme cases of schedule slip may result in an [[Orphaned Series]]. On web comics, [[Filler Strips]] are often used to cover for short (or even long) breaks in a series which is otherwise moving on schedule. On the bright side, this can help alleviate [[Archive Panic]] caused by date of first publication. The fact that so many
Whether the lack of an obligation to make every deadline molds
As the non-
Subtrope of [[Release Date Change]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* [[Kentaro Miura]], the creator of ''[[Berserk]]'',
* ''[[D.Gray-man|D Gray Man]]'' has experienced several stops in production due to the author falling ill. After a hiatus in 2009, the series returned with a fifty page chapter... and another hiatus. However, from November on, it started running monthly rather than weekly.
* ''[[Fist of the Blue Sky]]'', the [[Prequel]] to ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' can only enjoy sporadic and unannounced releases since 2005 due to Tetsuo Hara, its illustrator, becoming blind in one eye from a condition suffered by one in a ''million.'' Having lost depth perception, '''all''' his panels have to be re-drawn and inked by an assistant; the fact that his insisted style is realistic and intricately detailed does '''not''' help to alleviate the problem.
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** The OVAs also followed suit in what it seems to be a staple in the franchise, the first three episodes had just a few months between each other, from the 4th and on the delays would just get longer and longer as Satelight was having a hard to time to keep producing the episodes all by themselves, after a year and half without releasing anything Satelight passed the baton to Madhouse and finally looked like they would keep up the pace, and they did... only up to the 7th episode, another year and few months (and many rumors that Madhouse just dropped the series) is what it took for the 8th episode to get a release date; only time will tell how long it will take to finish the whole thing up.
** Hirano topped himself with the prequel, ''Hellsing: The Dawn'', after 6 chapters he simply stopped in 2007. The Dawn didn't even had enough chapters to publish a ''single'' volume, so the series remains just a collection of 6 separate publications in 6 different ''Young King Ours+'' issues.
* ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'', from the author of ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', was featured regularly in ''[[Shonen Jump]]'' for several years. Nowadays the series is on hiatus much more than it is not, with roughly one tankobon volume coming out every one and a half years ''at best''. Delays have been attributed to illness as well the [[Yoshihiro Togashi|author]] and his [[Naoko Takeuchi|wife]] spending time with their new child.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20160402091241/https://hiatus-hiatus.rhcloud.com/ Frustrated fans created a website to start tracking the delays] to show how often the delays are.
* ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]'' was originally started in 1982 solely to get funding for the film (as they would not back an anime movie not based on a manga when Miyazaki was still an unknown). It was 7 volumes long (about a year and half for a weekly series or two and a half for a monthly, and the volumes were shorter than most) did not finish until ''1994'', as Miyazaki was still directing other projects and the movie was only reflected in the first one and a half volumes.
* The manga of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' has been running since just before the anime started,
* ''[[Saint Seiya:
* The second season of ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'': Announced back in 2007, said to be released fall 2007/spring 2008, eventually released summer ''2009''.
▲* ''[[Saint Seiya: Next Dimension|Saint Seiya Next Dimension]]'' suffered a number of these due to the creator becoming really sick, the switch to all-color, and Editors delaying it on purpose due to ''[[Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas]]''.
** There was a four year gap between the ninth and ten volumes of the light novel.
▲* The second season of ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'': Announced back in 2007, said to be released fall 2007/spring 2008, eventually released summer ''2009''.
* The ''[[Yami no Matsuei]]'' manga began in 1997 and updated fairly regularly until the release of volume 11 in 2003. Then there was a full ''seven years'' between volume 11 and volume 12- it wasn't released until 2010 (apparently due to problems with author/artist Yoko Matsushita's health)
* Due to [[Too Soon]] issues related to the big Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011, the penultimate episode of ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' was postponed. [[Word of God]] expressed relief at the delay, as the earthquake cost the staff precious time that would otherwise have been used to make the episode. Eventually it was announced that the last episodes of the anime would air together about a month later (although this was apparently well after the episodes were completed). The last volume of the manga adaptation and the [[Prequel]] manga ''Oriko Magica'' were also delayed, the latter being moved from April to May.
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** Note that the actual manga series itself is from the We-Couldn't-Make-This-Up department but because of another reason. Araki Hirohiko, the writer and artist, has never missed a deadline in all 23 years of drawing Jojo (over 100 volumes and counting).
* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima|Negima]]'''s author, [[Ken Akamatsu]], takes breaks lasting from a week to upwards of three weeks every now and then, claiming to be doing research. While he's almost as famous for his [[Shown Their Work]] moments as he is for inducing [[Trope Overdosed|trope overdose]], [[Memetic Mutation|a lot of fans joke]] that his "research time" is spent [[Male Gaze|researching his wife]].
** [[Memetic Mutation|Akamatsu's wife demands
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[All-Star Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder]]'' started in 2005 and took until 2008 to reach issue ten. A new six-issue mini-series would be done by the team to wrap it up, but even that is running late.
* ''[[Circles]]'' originally began four issues per year. Now the rate of issue appearance is akin to ''[[Berserk]]''{{'}}s.
* Happened to ''[[Ambush Bug]]: Year None'', with a several month long gap between issue five and the finale. AB being the [[Meta Guy]] he is, this was thoroughly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the issue itself, which was actually called issue 7 (with six being nonexistent) to further make fun of its lateness.
* The print comic ''[[Battle Chasers]]'' was intended to be Joe Madureira's big break, and fans were extremely eager for it. Unfortunately, Joe also bragged in a magazine article about all the fun stuff he and his staff could do in their offices that were not in the slightest bit connected to getting a comic on shelves; the series was eventually abandoned altogether, along with the majority of Madureira's career. ''Battle Chasers'' has practically become a phrase meaning "comic that cannot meet its schedule" in the comics industry.
* This has been going on almost since the comic book miniseries took off. ''[[Camelot 3000]]'', a 12 issue monthly series, started in December 1982 and ended in April ''1985'', with nine months between the last two issues.
** And then God invented the "Buy the Deluxe hard-cover and [[Archive Binge]] the whole thing in one night" and there were much rejoicing.
* Due to scheduling conflicts, Dave Gibbons' [[Continuity Reboot|reboot]] of ''[[Rogue Trooper]]'' ended up being told in groups of 3-4 six-page installments over 37 weeks.
* Comics written by Allan Heinberg tended to be ''horribly'' delayed.
** [[Young Avengers]] had to be bi-monthly and still had problems.
** During his run on [[Wonder Woman]], his lateness was a problem in the making of ''[[Amazons Attack]]''.
* In [[The Nineties]] [[Image Comics]] was known primarily for four things:
* This seemed to be a recurring thing with [[Grant Morrison]]. Both ''Batman & Robin'' and ''Return of Bruce Wayne'' faced numerous delays from the summer of 2010. It got to the point where neither series had an issue released in August. This had also led to comics taking place ''after'' Bruce's return (The ''Road Home'' one-shots) being released before the ''Return'' was complete.
* ''[[Planetary]]'' by [[Warren Ellis]] and John Cassady released 27 issues in TEN YEARS. The script of the final issue was apparently written over two years before it was published. This was in large part due to both creators working on other titles for other companies at the same time; Ellis was by far the worst offender, as during ''Planetary's'' run, he worked on at least '''twenty''' other books.
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* ''[[Platinum Grit]]'' is a bimonthly comic, the first issue released in 1994. They gave up on bimonthly a while ago - issue twenty came out in 2009. Or you can just say it's twelve years behind schedule.
* Fans of ''[[Sasmira]]'' have been waiting for the release of the second episode ''since 1997''. And by the look of it they aren't done waiting yet.
* In the now-canceled ''Star Wars Rebellion'' comic series, the very first arc was plagued by a number of schedule slips. Issue four was released in late July, ending on a cliffhanger going into the final issue of the story arc. The conclusion to the arc was released in December of that year.
* ''Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk'' #3. Scheduled for April 2006. Published in March 2009.
* ''[[The Ultimates]]''. The first 13 issue volume took 26 months from start to finish, the second equally long volume (for which Marvel promised that they had learned their lesson about keeping it on schedule) took 25 months.
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* ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'' has been prone to this at times. One issue included a rhymed "[[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|Cautionary Tale]]" in the style of ''[[Struwwelpeter]]'', wherein a fan who continually complained about next issue's lateness is murdered by the authors.
{{quote|''In summary, our tale makes clear
''That Patience is a virtue dear.
''So, gentle reader, know your place,
''And don't get on our ****ing case." }}
* 19 issues of ''[[The Red Star]]'' comic have been published since 2000, and the storyline is not finished by a long shot as of this writing. The latest three issues came out in roughly one-year intervals in 2006-2008, and who knows when the next one arrives.
* Every single issue of ''CLiNT'' has been delayed due to the artistic team on ''[[Kick-Ass]] 2'' having to prioritise ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]''. It got so bad that in issue 10, it was announced the comic would be shifting from a monthly to six-weekly schedule.
* ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]''. Issue #4 was pushed back a month and #5 wasn't released until two months after that. Apparently this was to give Steve McNiven more time to finish the artwork. That doesn't seem so bad, but remember, this was a [[Crisis Crossover]]. A number of tie-in issues (either other minis or regular titles) that were completed on-time were held back so as not to spoil developments in the main mini-series.
* [[J. Michael Straczynski]]'s [[JMS Spider-Man|run on ''Amazing Spider-Man'']] also suffered from a few delays due to JMS' involvement in other projects (such as the TV series ''[[Jeremiah]]'').
* David Lapham managed to produce only 40 issues of ''[[Stray Bullets]]'' over the course of ten years. Towards the latter part of that time the slip had gotten so bad that the comic was coming out roughly annually or biannually. It has since been declared an [[Orphaned Series]] despite Lapham's insistence on eventually returning to finish it.
== [[Fan
* [[Subverted Trope]] with ''[[You Got Haruhi Rolled]]''. In its first year there were 81 chapters written (that's one update every four days or so, for the curious) and since only three chapters have been released in its second year one could be forgiven for thinking that a major
* This happened to ''[[Harry Potter and
** But three weeks later, he was already finishing chapter 81 and explaining that he was still making backwards edits to all the unposted chapters. So most of the complainers have stopped complaining and asked him to just post more often on his progress :).
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== Literature ==
* Occurred and was even lampshaded in [[Charlotte Bronte]]'s somewhat-unknown earlier work ''Caroline Vernon'', making this [[Older Than Radio]].
* The main reason for the backlash against [[George R. R. Martin]].The first three books of ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' were released in 1996, 1998 and 2000. The less-than-well-received fourth book was released in 2005 and the fifth was released in July 2011, with the sixth yet to be seen over a decade later. All of this was magnified by unprofessional and antagonistic responses about the gaps (publishing an update video less than a minute longer that consisted of telling fans worried about an [[Author Existence Failure]] "Fuck you" and [[Flipping the Bird]]). Other industry professionals have claimed this has caused ''statistical'' level damage to the fantasy genre, conditioning large groups of readers to never touch an unfinished fantasy series for fear of it being [[Left Hanging]].
* ''[[Abarat]]'' fans were told that ''Absolute Midnight'' would come out in 2004 and are still waiting.
** The date has been set; September 2011. Seven years after the second book.
* Seven years separated the first book of ''[[The Unicorn Chronicles]]'' from the second, and seven more years separated the second from the third. Some of the children it was initially marketed to have now graduated from college. Fortunately, the fourth book took only two years to come out.
* The fourth book in ''[[The War Against the Chtorr]]'' came out in 1993, the fifth is scheduled for 2011. That's an eighteen year wait in case we just broke your brain.
* [[Isobelle Carmody]]: A '''DECADE BETWEEN SEQUEL BOOKS IS TOO LONG!''' Many of her younger fans have gone through highschool and finished a degree in the intervening time when waiting.
* [[J. K. Rowling|JK Rowling]] intended to release a new ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' book once a year, and was successful for the first few years in keeping this up, but ended up with a four-year gap between books 4 and 5. The so-called "three-year summer" is considered to be a factor in the massive boom in ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' [[Fanfic]] that began around this time.
** Referenced somewhat in the early part of the fifth book, when the titular character feels like summer has been dragging on forever, and is eager for something to actually, finally, happen.
* [[Anthony Horowitz]] is awful for this. The first [[Groosham Grange]] book came out in 1988, the second in 1999, and there was a twelve year gap between books 3 and 4 of The [[Diamond Brothers]]. Thankfully, he seems to have got is under control with his more recently started series.
** In fairness to Horowitz, the first [[Groosham Grange]] book was pretty much a standalone novel when he wrote it and the first three Diamond Brothers books were a self-contained trilogy; the fourth, fifth and sixth books in the series formed a second trilogy of novellas.
* Scott Lynch, author of the [[Gentleman Bastard Sequence]] series, falls into this. The third book's release date has been pushed back multiple times. To give a sense of scale, the second book was released in July 2007, and the third book has slid to the end of 2012.
* The ever changing release date of Ben Aaronovitch's third ''[[Rivers of London]]'' book, ''[[Whispers Underground]]'' is a case of this, giving fans a wonderful chance to rehash all those old ''[[Duke Nukem Forever]]'' jokes.
* The first book in Nikolai Tolstoy's ''Books of Merlin'' trilogy, ''The Coming Of The King'', was released in 1988. The sequels have been delayed since 1989 and are still not out.
== Live Action TV ==
* The first two seasons of ''Beyond The Break'' aired on [[Teen Nick|The N]] in the US in summer 2006 and winter 2007, respectively, with season 3 due to air in winter of 2008. It then got pushed back repeatedly, with The N [[Screwed by the Network|neither showing promos for a new season nor rerunning the first two seasons]], only bothering to acknowledge it when they needed to defuse cancellation rumors, and season 3 got its initial airing [[Short Run in Peru|on the Canadian TV station then known as Razer]]. It finally aired in the US in June
* Nickelodeon is bad with this as a rule, but the fourth season of ''[[iCarly]]'' takes the cake. Season 3 managed to air 18 or so episodes (with some double length episodes) in about 6 months. Season 4's season opener was aired in July 2010, and did not finish until almost a year later in mid-July 2011. The season has ''9'' episodes only, with one double length episode and a 3 part crossover.
** The show was budgeted for 13 episodes (which ended up as 8 single and 1 two-part episode that makes up 9 episodes, but the 11th, 12th and 13th were made into a [[Crossover]] with ''[[Victorious]]'', and basically have the ''iCarly'' characters become guest stars on their own show.
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* ''[[The Sopranos]]'': The first three seasons arrived one per year three years in a row but things changed dramatically after this:
** Season 4 was released about a year and half after season 3 which was the earliest example of the fans being annoyed with David Chase's slow plotting pace. Surprise, surprise when season 5 was released a year and a half later. David Chase not being one to settling for that decided he needed nearly ''two years'' to plot the sixth and final season. When the damn thing finally premiered it was announced that nine more episodes were added and fans almost had a heart attack when the season actually premiered only ten months later. Say what you will about the controversial [[No Ending|ending]], most people who had been following the show from day one were probably just relieved it had ended at all.
* The Writer's Strike of 2007-2008 caused this for several network TV shows. However, unlike [[HBO]] and their fancy-schmancy accommodations and lack of restrictions, network TV is far more strictly regulated in terms of production, airtimes, and the like, so to compensate for the slippage and finish a season up by May [[Sweeps]], many shows had to be cut down from typical 22-24 episode runs (for example, ''[[30
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== Miscellaneous ==
* Renowned computer expert Donald Knuth began work on ''The Art of Computer Programming'' in 1962, expecting to finish later that year. His publisher convinced him to divide the book into seven volumes, the first of which was published in 1968, six years later. Two more volumes followed in '69 and '73. The fourth volume proved to be so lengthy as to necessitate being further split into a projected three subvolumes, the first of which, 4A, was released in 2011. For those of you keeping score, that's a 38 year schedule slip, in a project that has been ongoing for nearly half a century.
* A semi-famous Sports Statistics page ([[Doug Stats]]) has had this happen because the sole webmaster works ''fifty hour workweeks'' at a different job, and also happened to have been raising a family on top of that. He does regularly get stat upgrades, but when things become severe at the start of the season, people start complaining.
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== Video Games ==
* ''[[Duke Nukem Forever]]'' is [[Development Hell|the epitome]] [[Vaporware|of this trope]], as it was "coming soon" for 14 years before finally being released in June 2011 (and even then that was a setback of one month, a fact the developers readily lampshaded).
* All [[Blizzard Entertainment]] products have a release time of "Soon" (TM)
** There was a twelve-year gap between ''Diablo II: Lord of Destruction'' and ''Diablo III''
** There was a twelve-year gap between ''Starcraft: Brood War'' and ''Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty''.
* [[Valve]], the developers of ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]]'', ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', and ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' are particularly infamous for continued delays on their release dates - so much so that their fandom has coined the term "[http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time Valve Time]" to refer to the manner in which they can single-handedly dilate time around themselves. This is probably mostly thanks to Valve's loose internal corporate structure, where no-one has a single, set-in-stone role to play in the company. They claim it is due to their attempts to produce high-quality games that are fun, and the developer commentary often mentions features that were not fun that had to be discarded, which certainly consumes time.▼
** ''World of Warcraft'' players are familiar with the phrase "content drought", referring roughly to the year or so leading up to the next expansion's release, when Blizzard stops releasing new raid tiers for the current expansion.
{{quote|'''Valve time for ''[[Vaporware|Episode 3]]''''':<br />▼
▲* [[Valve]], the developers of ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]]'', ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', and ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' are particularly infamous for continued delays on their release dates - so much so that their fandom has coined the term "[http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time Valve Time]" to refer to the manner in which they can single-handedly dilate time around themselves. This is probably mostly thanks to Valve's loose internal corporate structure, where no-one has a single, set-in-stone role to play in the company. They claim it is due to their attempts to produce high-quality games that are fun, and the developer commentary often mentions features that were not fun that had to be discarded, which certainly consumes time. Similar jokes abound regarding the fact that third parts for any of their series have not been released (such as the meme "Valve cannot count to three"); the developement cycle for what could have been ''Half-Life 3'' went for so long, the team eventually dissolved, and the writer published [[Serial Numbers Filed Off|a name-changed synopsis]] of [[What Could Have Been|the planned storyline]] on his blog.
'''Announcement''': [http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2episode2ob/news.html?sid{{=}}6151796 Christmas of 2007]<br />▼
'''Actual''': [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Coincident with the]] [[wikipedia:Rapture|Rapture]] (no, not [[Bioshock|that one]]) }}▼
▲'''Announcement''': [http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2episode2ob/news.html?sid{{=}}6151796 Christmas of 2007]
▲'''Actual''': [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Coincident with the]] [[wikipedia:Rapture|Rapture]] (no, not [[
** Averted with ''[[Left 4 Dead 2]]''. Valve intentionally released the game on a fixed schedule (literally a year after the first game was released) to prove they can release on time. Fans to this day still argue whether or not this was a good thing, due to several issues the game brought up.
** In some cases like the above, there's also "[[Inverted Trope|Reverse]] Valve Time".
*** Due to the (relatively) long time between the release of ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' and the Mod API for said game,
* Krin, the guy responsible for the ''Sonny'' games has no definite release date for ''Sonny 3''. Members on the Armor Games forums frequently speculate when ''Sonny 3'' will come out. For a time, people actually thought the guy was dead.
* ''"[[John Romero|Come hell or high water]], the [[Daikatana|game]] will be done on February 15, 1999."'' Well, it wasn't. (It finally was in April 14, 2000.)
* ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Brawl'' was announced in 2006 and set for a 2007 release. But because they already had one third-party character in the game ([[Metal Gear Solid|Snake]]), and fans demanded another third-party character to be added to the game ([[Sonic the Hedgehog]]), the game had to be delayed until Feb. 2008. Then when February was near, the game was delayed until March because they wanted to work out some bugs in the online system, and so the game finally saw a release in March.
** ''[[Kid Icarus: Uprising|Kid Icarus Uprising]]'' also went through several delays too. It was initially announced in 2010 as a launch title for the [[Nintendo 3DS]], but when the 3DS's launch neared, it was delayed until August of that year. August came around, and the game was delayed until November or December. Then it was delayed until early 2012, which was when it was finally released.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]''. A 2006 trailer announced it would be released in 2007, but it wasn't released until 2008.
* [[Working Designs]] was notorious for this.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* ''[[Achewood]]'' has been falling into this for a while, with multiple days between each update and the author repeatedly pushing back his own deadlines. Eventually, he just put it on hiatus, with strips coming out once every several ''months''.
* ''Adventures In Ninja Cookery'' (not to be confused with ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'') never had an official schedule, but the author said he would try for once a week. Updates have taken as long as fifty days to be released.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131113161018/http://alice.alicecomics.com/ Alice] was last updated on July
* ''[http://americangothicdaily.com/ American Gothic Daily]''. [[Artifact Title|It isn't.]]
* ''[[A Moment of Peace]]'' experimented with a 'whenever' schedule after the author found she produced more over a Christmas break when there were no deadlines. After producing a lot of comics under this new schedule, the comic went back to a Thursday-Sunday pattern.
* ''[[Angels 2200]]'' has gone through periods of dormancy over the years; the current one started in July 2011 after an announcement of family health issues. One strip was posted in December, and since then, silence on all fronts.
* ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'' still sticks to its schedule, but... back a few years ago, Mark Shallow was updating ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'' 3 days a week, and ''[[Adventurers!]]'' three days a week. Now, ''Adventurers'' is over, ''Anti Hero for Hire'' updates twice a week, and the comics are about half the size they used to be, usually only 3 panels.
* ''[[Apple Geeks]] Lite'' updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday without fail (though it was only Wednesdays and Fridays at first, the first Monday comic being #49). The main ''[[Apple Geeks]]'', however, updates erratically at best - and has been reduced to only a single issue per week. As a result, despite AG Lite beginning in 2006, ''three years'' after the main comic, the [[Webcomics Long Runners|thousandth overall comic]] was AG Lite 476 (Wednesday, June 24, 2009)--almost half of the overall output. In fairness, a black-and-white comic ''strip'' is considerably easier to make than a full-color, full-page comic.
** [[It Got Worse]]. In late 2010, updates started to become sporadic at best until Haque finally put the comic on hiatus.
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* ''[[Blip]]'' had been going since the beginning of 2008, and only in spring 2011 fell behind due to a combination of computer ills and a probably much needed vacation for Sage. Comics still update daily, but the dates are now off by about a month.
** And now, as of fall/winter 2011, months can pass between updates.
* [http://www.butternutsquash.net/ Butternut Squash] once had a fairly regular weekly update schedule. But since 2007, instances of guest comics, filler art, and seemingly-endless piles of excuses and pleas for patience courtesy of the creators have become the norm rather than the exception. This has led to some [https://web.archive.org/web/20120719085731/http://www.butternutsquash.net/2009/12/05/bns-by-chuck-harrison
* ''[http://www.choppingblock.org/ Chopping Block]'' has had several of these throughout its run, many of which last several months. At the end of one such hiatus, there was a short set of strips involving [[Satan]] looking for Butch (the star of the comic). ''Another'' schedule slip caused that to become an [[Aborted Arc]]. One example: February 21, 2008 to January
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] [http://chaospet.com/2008/01/11/69-hiatus/ here] at ''Chaospet''.
* ''[http://www.captainsnes.com/ Captain SNES]'' went for about a year without any substantial updates, except for a few filler strips, before resuming. Some statistics, just for fun: First year: 163 story comics. Second year: 197 story comics. Third year: 90 story comics. Fourth year: 40 story comics. Fifth year: 45 story comics. Sixth year: 9 story comics. Seventh year so far: 21, with the anniversary in one month. Particularly frustrating since it has one of the most complex plots of any sprite comic around.
* ''[[Casey and Andy]]'' had several very long hiatuses during its run, although it has now ended for good.
* ''[[Chugworth Academy]]'' had multiple slips in its MWF update schedule before stopping to update for almost two years. A series reboot lasted three strips, never to be updated again to this day.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' fan comic [http://thecobradays.net The Cobra Days] started out as a Monday/Wednesday/Friday comic with occasional misses, slipped to three or four comics a month... then one or two... August 2008 saw the posting of the fourth new comic of the year.
** Officially cancelled as of January 2011 after almost 11 months of sitting stagnant.
* ''[[
* Clay Yount's ''Cosmobear'', despite still proclaiming that it updates on Fridays, has been more known for going on hiatuses either announced or unannounced, then posting one or two pages before falling silent again. The last update was in late 2007, and the news box is still promising an update "next Friday".
** Clay Yount's ''other'' webcomic, ''Rob and Elliot'', was originally running twice a week, then knocked back to once a week one the launch of ''Cosmobear''. Despite the latter not having updated in over two years, it still stays at once a week and has grown increasingly sporadic about whether it updates each week or not.
* ''[
* One member of a similar contest to the Daily Grind mentioned below which had previously had a really bad history of schedule slips was ''[[Elf Only Inn]]''. When it finally slipped after a rather good showing, the Lazy Grind runners were a bit slow to mark it off on the page, while some people mused in the shoutbox on the Lazy Grind page that, now that there had been a single slip, the comic creator (Sortelli) would probably not update for months. The shoutbox was removed and replaced by a temper tantrum by one of the Lazy Grind staff. In the end, Sortelli proceeded to not update ''Elf Only Inn'' for months immediately after his slip, and continues to post an average of one comic every three months or so.
** To make matters worse, apparently the Grind itself has had a bit of a schedule slip. ''Kell Hound'' apparently won the contest when its last fellow competitor missed an update... back in ''April'' of '08. (Example added in August of the same year.)
*** Lazy Grind itself has finally been taken down, but it exists (somewhat) on the [
* ''Dragon Tails''. The original run of 2000 comics never had a late one. Then the author ended it, then restarted it, and ever since the update schedule has become entirely random and unpredictable.
* ''[[Dresden Codak]]'' is exceptionally bad at this. The update schedule was completely random until the author promised weekly updates as part of making the comic his full-time job... upon which the update schedule continued to be completely random. Following the announcement, the next comic took six weeks to arrive, and since then the strip has been updated about once every twenty days. The fact that the author was in an accident that has left him unable to draw ''and'' broke his computer, erasing the sketches he had in progress, putting the series on temporary hiatus. Few noticed.
** Lately the comic has reached epic proportions of slow updates. Now its a near-certainty that you'll have to wait several months or more for another comic. But when the next one comes around it's usually worth the excruciating wait.
* Brian Clevinger generally did a solid job with ''[[8-
** Clevinger grew defensive after one of those update-less weeks, the result of computer issues at his new home. ''I've given you eight years of some of the most consistent* work you've seen online. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for a little patience from you here, in the final hours, when I miss an update for the simple reason that it's impossible to make one. Thank you.'' He did say in the asterisk footnote that "terrible work is still consistent work."
** His ''other'' webcomic, ''[[Warbot in Accounting]]'', however, is hit by this ''hard''. First it was updating once a week, but quickly spiraled into "once very few months, if you are lucky." Supposedly this is because the artist has terrible luck and either loses all of his work or has severe financial problems. He seems to have learned from this however, as his other ''other'' webcomic is openly stated to have a one-month buffer, and ''will'' update on Mondays and Fridays, ''no exceptions''.
*** Clevinger's case is somewhat amusing in the sense that the vast majority of his delays are caused by a [[Plague of Good Fortune]]. Specifically, it seems every time he makes progress on a project his various partners become too busy from other obligations (that actually provide a means of paying the rent, unlike the released-for-free Warbot and HIKYM) to actually do anything with Brian's projects. For instance, Zack Finfrock became busy with art commissions he pays for his lifestyle with and later got a job as a host of a webseries, and the co-writer/artist (can't remember which) of HIKYM got hired to work on actual print comics. Clevinger himself has [[Atomic Robo|his own highly popular print series]] to contend with, as well as the fact that [[Marvel Comics]] has thrown him at least two miniseries to write for in the last year.
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** In a reversion of this trope, he has started regular MWF updates, a promise of defeating [[Cerebus Syndrome]], and frequent sketchpage and NP updates.
** NP is basically dead (claiming to go on a one-week hiatus, but still not updating after over a year), but everything else is still good.
*** Starting in April '11, Shive started [[Inverted Trope|inverting]] schedule slip. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|He]] '''''[[Inverted Trope]]'''''
*** So far his only real delay have come from unavoidable computer failures or power outages, which he has rectified by the next day or two at the latest.
*** And now he's back in Schedule Slip territory, missing an update per week on average, sometimes missing up to 3 updates a week.
* ''[[The End of Things]]'' last updated June
* Prior to getting its own site, ''[[Erfworld]]'' claimed to update three times a week on their comic page, but actually updated three times a month. It's an [[Egregious]] example because it started out being hosted on the same website as ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' and was originally brought in to compensate for its Schedule Slips.
* The webcomic adaptation of ''[[Erikas New Perfume]]'' just sort of updates when it will, though it generally updates every eight days. There have been slips in this though, which wouldn't be too bad except it's only 9 strips in. Still, it so far seems more reliable than most.
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* ''[http://everwander.deviantart.com/gallery/3843886 Everlasting Wanderers]'' started in 2002 with a 2-per-week schedule. It kept this for nearly a year, then slipped into once per week, then once a month... then once every few months. Then the website it was hosted on disappeared and it seemed to vanish from the web, only for the author to have reposted it on his deviantart. The longest break between comics has been ''3 years''. It's more or less considered an [[Orphaned Series]], although it a new comic seems to have come out once in a blue moon. The author [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] this with his latest update: "see you next year!"
* ''[[Exterminatus Now]]'' has suffered this steadily. Now it updates weekly at the weekend, though it's still spotty at times.
* ''[[The Foxfire Chronicles]]'' is lucky to have two updates a month. As of this December 2011 edit; the last update to Foxfire Chronicles was March
* ''[http://girlyyy.com/ Girly]'' had a regular schedule once upon a time, but (as of the final chapter) updates as pages are finished. The author, Josh, acknowledges this and often apologizes on his Twitter, and took a stab at himself in this update. https://web.archive.org/web/20130613093652/http://girlyyy.com/go/760
* ''[[Goblins]]'' has run a bit late pretty much since the creator refined his art style back in Book One, but four days late was considered unheard-of and newsworthy when most of the party came to Brassmoon. Two years and eleven months later, the Brassmoon story arc finally came to a close. Updates a week late were practically the norm for most of that time, until Thunt made the comic his full-time job.
** In March 2009, in response to emails requesting him to just post what he has instead of trying to make it perfect, Thunt published a series of blank panels.
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** ...Aaand have slowed down again to about one or two comics (or related drawings, like the Valentine's cards) per month since December 2010.
*** There has, as of December 2011, been no updates to the site since mid-February, and no actual comic updates since the end of January.
* [[Andrew Hussie]] has an ''extremely'' ambitious update schedule with ''[[Homestuck]]''. (There's a reason why ''[[MS Paint Adventures]]'' is the longest-running webcomic ever despite only being a few years old.) However, there have been many cases of flashes and important events coming out much later than they were planned - of course, these almost always happen because he realises he wants to write a lot more in between, and almost invariably the webcomic still update in the meantime. However, straighter examples have happened a few times: the whole comic was put on hold for over a month to create Cascade (it should be noted that the general fandom reaction is that [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|it was worth it]]), and a couple of times in 2012 Andrew has halted updates for a couple of days to work on merchandise and the official books.
** A completely unavoidable example happened with the second intermission - it, as an appropriately creepy flash, was supposed to come out on Halloween, but a freak snowstorm blew into Andrew's city, cutting out all power for him for a few days. He was not happy about it.
* ''[http://instantclassic.net/ Instant Classic]'' and ''[http://genrelove.com/ Genrezvous Point]'' alternate between 10 strips per week (seven IC, three GP) and posting ''nothing'' for months at a time. To be fair, the artist is a filmmaker and his bursts of "inactivity" are usually when he's working on a project.
** As of November 2009, Carroll seems to have jumped back on the comics bandwagon for good, though only time will tell.
* ''[[Lackadaisy|Lackadaisy Cats]]'' update schedule is probably the only legitimate criticism that can be directed towards the comic. Rolling in at a little under 100 strips in 4 years (2006-2010) in the form of sporadic updates every few months, Lackadaisy's periods of inactivity drove some fans to declare the comic legally dead only to be proven wrong time and again. Luckily the comic has been updating with something resembling regularity since 2010, presumably when the comic was picked up by a publisher and became a meaningful financial venture rather than a pastime. Many fans agree that the new update schedule (roughly 4/p/month) is perfectly acceptable given the jaw-dropping quality of the art and writing remains the same, which it has. Squee.
* ''[[LeveL]]'' updates as infrequently as once a year. The readers keep assuming it's finally become an [[Orphaned Series]] before being proven wrong.
* ''[[The Life of Nob T. Mouse]]'' had a major bout of this when the series went on an unannounced hiatus between the final part of the ''Nasties!'' storyline in 1999 and the first episode of ''Pie Noon' in 2007, i.e. eight ''years'' later.
** This will hopefully not happen anymore however, since the comic reportedly now has a [[Strip Buffer]].
* [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Lewis Lovhaug's]] webcomic ''[Lightbringer (web comic)|[Lightbringer]]'' was always sort of erratic in its update schedule, often posting filler strips and missing the Wednesday update, and in December 2011, posted its first update in over a year.
* '' [https://web.archive.org/web/20140103131911/http://forbez.net/ Life on Forbez]'' updated once a day for a long time before updating less and less before going on long hiatus. It took almost 10 years to finish the first big story arc. The fans (and the author) know that updates can be fleeting. Since then the updates have become more regular.
* ''[http://www.rockpapercynic.com/littleworlds/ Little Worlds]'' updated twice a week for the first few months, then lapsed to once a week, then went a multi-month hiatus (without warning or explanation). It has since returned and begun posting once a week again. The head writer, Peter Chiykowski, claims that University got in the way.
* After some slip ups, earlier this year ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130914230208/http://www.livingwithinsanity.com/index
* ''[http://longestsojourn.comicgenesis.com/ The Longest Sojourn]'' fell into a year of non updates in April
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in [https://web.archive.org/web/20101213193908/http://bukucomics.com/loserz/go/159 this] ''[[Loserz]]'' strip, among others like [https://web.archive.org/web/20101213213412/http://bukucomics.com/loserz/go/328 this one].
* Much like the ''Pokémon-X'' example from later on the page, John Joseco also insists on having [http://thelounge.comicgenesis.com/ The Lounge] pages appear on the days they were supposed to. The last page (Which has been up for months) was February 16, 2009.
* ''[[L's Empire|Ls Empire]]'' is a strange example of this trope. Why? Because the authors ''weaponized'' it! {{spoiler|Dark Star had become an author and, as a result, he could see the strip buffer. So the authors purposely posted the page showcasing his defeat late to keep him from planning accordingly.}}
** They were already suffering from this, which was lampshaded in both the first and third anniversary specials.
* ''[[The Meek]]'': Author announced a new job just before the comic stopped updating. No word since
* One of the major criticisms of ''[[Megatokyo]]'' is its erratic update schedule. On a good month there might be two of twelve scheduled comics produced. This is particularly grating to critics who claim that the "simpler" artistic style - light pencil drawings - suggest a sacrifice in artistic quality for the sake of regularity... which means it fails on both accounts. Naturally, there's a lot of ''detail'' in those pencils, so it can be argued either way.
** Also worth noting is that Fred Gallagher, artist of ''Megatokyo'', decided to quit his job and make the comic itself his profession. (Way before ''[[Dresden Codak]]'' did it.) However, unlike ''Dresden Codak'', the update schedule didn't remain the way it was after Fred started devoting all his attention to it... it ''got worse''.
** Since the birth of Gallagher's son, updates have become even more infrequent and unpredictable, with the average as of the end of 2008 hovering somewhere around one comic per week. The creator even changed the schedule to a two-per-week Tuesday/Friday schedule, and he can't even keep ''that'' up.
** [[It Got Worse]]
*** And worse. [http://megatokyo.com/strip/1290#rant1042 Piro's most recent rant] reveals one of the reasons for the most recent horrible schedule
* ''Modus Operandi'', a fairly new comic that began in mid-November
* ''[http://www.msfhigh.com/ MSF High]'' has suffered from this a good few times, and has actually orphaned the previous version, HSCM, twice.
* ''[[Neglected Mario Characters]]'' from 1997 until around 2004 updated regularly on a generally weekly basis. But after the creator graduated highschool he got less and less time for the site, and eventually vanished completely without any signs of what happened to him. The last six years or so have basically been nothing but comics made by fans wanting to continue all of the many stories he left hanging.
* Will ''[[Never Never]]'' ever ever continue?
** Not likely. Its main page has been declaring a temporary hiatus since July
** Starting in October
* ''[http://www.tomorrowlands.org/art/#maad My Afternoon: A Dramatization]'' doesn't even bother ''pretending'' to have a schedule -- [http://baxil.livejournal.com/267686.html the 2009 update] (yes, ''the'') comes with a note calculating the mean time between updates as ''484 days''.
* ''[http://nopinkponies.com/ No Pink Ponies]'' still claims to update 4 times a week, but there hasn't been a new strip since mid-January (2008). The author announced in mid-April that he was "bogged down by multiple other jobs", which were to be done by the end of May ([http://www.marrymemovie.com/ ''Marry Me''] only finished in late June).
** NPP was going again for a while, with the author promising to post a strip a day to make up for the break. The revival so far (as of Sept 2008) has consisted of 9 regular strips plus one "Sunday" strip, a news post from the author promising not to take a planned month's break, then an 8 week (and counting) hiatus...
* ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (webcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'' has repeatedly fallen into long, unannounced hiatuses since 2008, each one long enough to make it ''appear'' to be abandoned...right before it comes back from the dead again.
* ''[[Not in My Backyard!]]'' started off on a schedule that, while somewhat irregular at times, averaged out to a reasonable number of strips per week. However, there were no new strips between June 16 and July 3, 2000, and from then until January 2001, there were only 17 updates (including only one strip between August 7 and October 3). The strip finally got back on something resembling a schedule in 2001, but abruptly ended that August.
* ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' once had a fairly strict three-times-a-week schedule. The author reportedly has a chronic illness, which lead to an "updates without warning" schedule ''hoping'' to average out to three times a week.
** Before his "unspecified chronic but non-life-threatening" illness progressed to the point where it could randomly leave him bedridden for ''weeks'' at a time, he was extremely consistent, to the point of occasionally apologizing for being an hour or so late.
* ''[[Ozy and Millie]]'' once updated every weekday, Monday through Friday, with minimal interruption. Towards the end, the comic updated irregularly; creator [[D. C. Simpson|DC Simpson]] attributed this to waning interest. The series has now semi-officially ended: the main storyline has met a satisfying conclusion, but occasionally Simpson updates the site with a new drawing, and she has left open the possibility of more stories in the future.
* Fans of ''[[Pawn]]'' had to wait ''2 friggin years'' and for a site move before Anderson finally posted some new pages.
* ''[[Peter Is the Wolf]]'' has a once-a-week schedule; due to the writer and artist working on the pages separately, both of them having other projects to work on, and the comic itself generating little to any revenue for the creators, it's a pretty frequent occurrence to find out that a page is being delayed for the week.
* ''[[Planet Zebeth]]'' had a fairly regular MWF updating schedule, along with several bonus strips celebrating anniversaries and the like. Activity has dropped off, mostly due to [[Real Life]], especially when the author gets new video games, which is often explicitly stated by [[Author Avatar|Kabutroid]] himself to the other characters. It also doesn't help that he's had to re-install Linux several times throughout the run, which actually [[Real Life Writes the Plot|drove a few story arcs]].
* ''[[Pokémon-X]]'' insists on dating the comics on the days they ''should've'' come out (M-W-F update schedule)...which means that on March
** To make things worse, the author has also begun writing the newsposts to go with when the comic should've come out. As of March 2010, the newsposts are anticipating the author's return to school in August 2009. This is especially ineffective in regards to announcing the author's appearances at conventions that happened half a year ago.
** Lampshaded in [http://pokemonx.comicgenesis.com/d/20090817.html the strip for August 17, 2009], which was posted on April 2, 2010.
* ''[[Pokey the Penguin]]'' didn't see a single update in 2009. As of July 2010, the comic is updated daily again.
* ''Post Nuke'' hasn't updated since New Year's Eve 2010. The author's still sending us "news" type updates, though.
*
* ''The Saga of Earthsong'' started out at two days a week before running into occasional hiatuses. It now painfully creeps ahead at about one page a week, made only the more excruciating because two years into the comic's storyline, a publishing deal led the author to decide to * completely* reboot the entire comic...publishing at an even slower pace then it originally started. So despite cutting a tremendous amount of filler and excess exposition, the update schedule means the comic has actually taken * longer* to get to the exact same point in the storyline that it was at when the story was rebooted.
* ''Scandal Sheet!'' seems to alternate between periods where Troy Smith swears he's turned over a new leaf, has a [[Strip Buffer]] going, and sticks hard to a thrice-weekly schedule for a few months...then declines...leading to month-long (or longer) gaps in the archives - and then he's back, "No really, I mean it this time!" This would be far less frustrating if Smith didn't like to write enormous, extended story arcs that take months of real time to complete even with regular updates.
** Although lately it seems the comic is more-or-less dead, with the last installment being dated Feb 16th 2009 and nothing since (despite posts from Troy claiming an imminent comic in April, then May, then late June, with very little heard from him since)
* ''[[Secret of Mana Theater]]'' has had this happen a lot in the last few years. Heck, one of the bouts lasted ''almost three years'' before the series updates again. Now there seems to be another snag that's been hit, as the series hasn't updated again for the last four months.
* ''[[Shadownova]]'' has missed a couple of updates in its MWF schedule so far but this is always followed by an apology, explanation and several pages uploaded at once to cover the missed updates.
* Similarly, ''[http://www.somethingpositive.net/ Something Positive]'''s header used to read "Updated <s>Five days a week</s> <s>Seven days a week</s> A lot!"
** Sort of. It said that because he [[Inverted Trope|sometimes updated more than once a day.]]
* ''[[Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki]]'', always erratic at best, has gotten even worse now that the artist has shifted her attention to her paywalled erotic comics site, not that you can blame someone for prioritizing something that helps pay the rent.
* ''[[Unwinder's Tall Comics]]'' at one point promised updates every Saturday, but the gaps between comics are usually [https://web.archive.org/web/20131207121455/http://www.tallcomics.com/archive.php several weeks].
* ''[[Venus Envy]]'' has had this. It hasn't updated since March 2010. Given the last strip posted, it may *never* update again...
* ''Stage Select When Robot Masters Attack,'' suffers greatly of this.
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** ''Fantasy Realms'' started off as a free comic, turned into a Wirepop launch series, gave a few months of regular updates, then fell into a black hole. It departed the site and has rarely updated despite multiple promises of new regular updates. A few notable mentions:
** Similarly, ''Directions of Destiny'' ran three chapters, moved to Wirepop and started a reboot, then left Wirepop and stopped updating for two years before finally updating a few times in 2008. Yet another promised relaunch date has come and gone in January 2010.
** In fact, the only comic that was there when the site launched that is still regularly updating and has done so without a single unannounced hiatus is Dan Hess' ''Realms of Ishikaze''.
** There was also a short series named ''Xamra'' that did at least complete its storyline, but not until after it had been rebooted into a completely different series and it still suffered from this the entire time it ran.
* Both ''[[The Wotch]]'' and its spinoff ''[[Cheer]]!'' had a highly erratic schedule that could drop out for months at a time without notice, and even in normal times easily missed half their updates on a poor week. Then [[The Wotch]] crashed entirely, due to [[Creator Breakdown]]. It returned after more than a year with a new artist, if only to complete the orphaned story arc. In the meantime, ''[[Cheer]]!'' stopped updating only returning for one strip after more than a year before finally fading away
* ''[[WTF Comics]]'' has, at times, gone for months without an update.
* ''[[Xylia Tales]]''. Classic example – regular updates gave way to irregular but frequent, then to less frequent, then a two-month pause, and then an official "hopefully" one-month hiatus... which never actually ended. The site is still very much alive, and BL Jacobs blogs, posts "concept art" (sketches) occasionally and keeps personal contact with her fans. But the last actual story page was posted on 12 January 2010.
* This has happened to ''[[Zebra Girl]]'' so often that author Joe England changed the comic's header from reading "Updated Fridays" to "Updated Unpredictably".
* ''[[Question Duck]]'' slipped for a month. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130607160459/http://questionduck.smackjeeves.com/comics/1387643/277/ Then, it then had the duck and main character show up with WildHair]. For the third time in the comic's run, someone other than the duck speaks: Where have you been?
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** Seeing as both the writer and the former webmaster (who used to upload the written chapters and podcasts) have been moved onto other projects, and a new law keeps them from getting in touch with the fanbase on-line, fans have by now stopped waiting for updates. The writer also leads a busy family life, and while not exactly worthy of a [[Creator Breakdown]] designation, he has expressed grief over the toyline ending, and even held off from watching the final ''Bio''-movie. These are no conditions for creative writing. Suspiciously, LEGO ''still'' hasn't deleted the website, so there's that for a glimmer of hope.
* ''[[Alice and Kev]]'', the ''[[The Sims|Sims 3]]'' Reality Webcomic Thing, was updated regularly until the proprietor admitted a [[Creator Breakdown]] and abolished his schedule... at which time, posts ceased entirely. After about a month or two, he continued updating up to the blog concluded its story.
* ''[[Avatar: The
* '''[[The Best Page in The Universe]]!''' Initially, Maddox would update his site on a weekly to monthly basis. Now, it's almost a running joke, with updates coming biannually ''at best''. As of January 2010, there has only been ''one'' update for the ''whole year'' of 2009. Maddox himself is well aware of this, often teasing his readers with comments like, "Now that my book has been published, I can get back to regularly not updating my site".
* Team Four Star's ''[[Dragon Ball Abridged|Dragonball Z The Abridged Series]]'' normally has no set schedule but has flirted with this trope in the past. The team announced that episodes 7 through 9 would all be uploaded before the end of 2008, but only episode 7 was released during the last week of the year, with episode 8 coming a month later and episode 9 a month after ''that''. Later, it was announced that episode 10 would be split into separate videos to be uploaded over the course of a week. Episode 10 Part 2 (of 3) was uploaded about two weeks after Part 1, and the prior announcement made by Team Four Star was "mysteriously" deleted in the interim. Since then, the team has made no promises regarding release dates, presumably having learned their lesson from these instances.
* [http://emotioneric.com/ Eric Conveys an Emotion's] last update was on April
* ''[[Gaia Online]]''{{'}}s Evolving Items are ''notorious'' for this. Since the site never officially releases a schedule or declares when the next evolution of any given item will occur, they're free to ignore complaints about the lack of updates. This causes TONS of [[Internet Backdraft]] when users (who pay real, actual money for the items in question) express their outrage on the site. The most egregious of these are probably "The Case of Pietro", jokingly named "The Cold Case of Pietro" ''by its own creator'' due to lack of updates, and the Kottan Bell, which saw a 75% drop in its marketplace value because of the several months-long wait between evolutions, stuck on phases with dull items. The Catastrophe! item has evolved twice, with the latest evolution having happened in ''September of '09''.
** Justified in the last case, in that Catastrophe is a $0.99 EI that is specifically billed as a side-project with occasional unannounced updates (there have been four 'evolutions' thus far, only one advertised) and, unlike most [[E Is]], has no Generations. The update schedule for most items is "once the art is finished." The update schedule for Catastrophe is "when I feel like it/when I've got absolutely nothing else to do except eat and sleep."
* ''[[Happy Tree Friends]]'' has also taken this to ridiculous extremes. The third "season" started in 2007 and has only had 15 episodes, with three in 2010. The only uploads since October have been mini-episodes or compilations.
* Originally, the ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' website was updated with new material twice a week. However, the creators gradually dropped back to every Monday, then to once a week as their schedule dictated, to "if we're putting up anything new we'll let you know three days in advance". This eventually led to an unannounced hiatus of several months in late spring/early summer 2006 (possibly new baby related, like a similar break in 2007), after which they went back on a mostly-weekly schedule.
** As of April 12, 2010, they haven't properly updated since November. They didn't even do a Christmas toon, but they did add and subsequently remove more links to their store, and celebrated Trogday (Trogdor's anniversary) and April Fools' with a parody intro and a new main page based on it.
*** They did announce in December that one of The Brothers had a new baby (explaining the lack of Decemberween toon). Presumably the ongoing hiatus is similarly related to their growing family concerns.
* Chris Bores, aka [[The Irate Gamer]], took this to ridiculous extremes, in part due to his [[Attention Deficit Creator Disorder]]. In 2009, he only released ''two'' retro reviews, three videos on "video game history", and five "Neo" reviews. In 2010, he's released even fewer.
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** And there was that incident where a troll harassed him to the point where he temporarily ''canceled'' the series. The troll went on to brag about it... [[Internet Backlash|to his dismay.]]
** Part of this is because the quality and length of the episodes have both increased drastically since the beginning. When the creator is packing in roughly six times the material per episode and spending time doing custom sprites, artwork, 3-D models, etc., it's going to take more time. Still doesn't account for that year-and-a-half break, though.
** After a long 2-year hiatus between episodes 8 and 9, episode 9 is [[Saved From Development Hell|finally back]] in production.
* Many of the contributors to ''[[That Guy With The Glasses]]'' have trouble keeping to a schedule.
** [[Marz Gurl]] can be erratic with her output. Though she has escaped this and is putting out weekly content.
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* The [http://www.agonybooth.com/agonizer/Mr_Mendos_Hack_Attack/Ishtar.aspx third episode] of [[The Agony Booth|Mr. Mendo's Hack Attack]] came about eight months after the second.
* The [[Yogscast]] and [[The Cynical Brit|Total Biscuit]] had promised to release a pair of episodes of their ''[[Magicka]]'' co-op [[Let's Play]] on [[YouTube]] each Friday and Saturday, or Saturday and Sunday if they were slightly delayed; the three had increasingly busy schedules starting after Part 8, and they slowed down release to the point that some weeks had no episodes or only a single episode. Total Biscuit explained that he had to do the editing and that Part 14 had severe audio issues, which ''still'' weren't fixed when the episode was released ''two months'' after recording.
* ''[[The Sims]] 2'' [[Machinomic]] [[Strangetown, Here
* [[Metal Gear Solid 2 The Sons of Abridgerty|Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Abridgerty]] was progressively moving towards this trope. It has currently not been updated since April.
* [[True Capitalist]] tends to stop broadcasting for a few days after especially trollish episodes, usually as a sort of prolonged [[Rage Quit]], although sometimes it's for other reasons.
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[All Grown Up!]]!'': The fourth season took two years to air. Not just that, but there was 11 months between the airing of that seasons premiere and the next episode, and a year between the second and third episode of that season. As well as a 9 month gap between the seventh and eight episodes of the fifth (and final) season.
* Ankama, the producers of ''[[Wakfu]]'' have serious deadline issues. Firstly, the show was meant to be the [[The Anime of the Game|The Cartoon Of The Game]] only the game itself [[Vaporware|has been in closed beta for years]]. Secondly, the first season aired with significant gaps between episodes, sometimes as long as three months, because Ankama couldn't get it ready on time. Their deadline issues seem to be motivated by perfectionism rather than laziness, given the consistent quality when they do release something.
* While true reasons for [[John Kricfalusi]]'s firing from the production of ''[[The Ren and Stimpy Show]]'' remain vague, there are rumours going around that he would purposefully slow down the process of making episodes, so the censors would have less time to go over them. This is also supported by the fact that the ''Adult Party Cartoon'' spinoff was cancelled by [[Spike TV]] after a month of airtime because he only managed to produce 3 out of 9 episodes on time.
** FWIW, Ren and Stimpy's first season ended with only 6 episodes, while the first seasons of ''[[Doug]]'' and ''[[Rugrats]]'' before it and ''[[Rocko's Modern Life]]'' after ended with the standard 13.
** Parodied by ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' when one of the nominees for "Outstanding Writing in a Cartoon Series" is the season premiere of ''Ren and Stimpy''. The clip isn't done yet.
* ''[[The Fairly
* ''[[Hey Arnold!]]'''s last season took 3 years to finish.
== Exceptions ==
* ''[[1/0]]'' never missed a day in its 1,000 comic run, and Tailsteak tells the characters that he does not take breaks.
* ''[http://abominable.cc The Abominable Charles Christopher]'' updates once a week, every week, Wednesdays, and has never missed an update.
* ''[[And Shine Heaven Now]]'' has remained pretty much consistent since it started ''seven years ago'' (started five days a week, later expanded to six), delays only happening when the host site, [[Comic Genesis]], goes crack.
** Which got pointed out by [[Jon Stewart]] [http://hellsing.comicgenesis.com/d/20100607.html here].
* ''[[Angband Tales From the Pit]]'' started with the plan to update three days a week. During its five-year run, the only deviation from that came when the author decided his [[Strip Buffer]] was too ''big''; for the next year or so, it updated five days a week instead.
* ''[http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/ Arthur, King of Time and Space]'' has updated seven days a week, without missing a strip, since May
* ''[[HC Bailly]]'' updates every day, taking a day off on occasion (Usually after episode 50 or [[Wham! Episode|a massive turn in plot]], whichever comes first), but even then he at least updates his side [[Let's Play|LP]].
* For the last three years ''[http://www.jaynaylor.com/betterdays/ Better Days]'' has only ever missed one of the Monday/Friday updates due to a server crash, probably due to its own buffer. It also possibly has to do with the fact that most of the pornographic art folios that the writer sells are based on the ''Better Days'' universe, thus making it more lucrative to keep regular.
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** It should be noted that the way the strip turned out was itself the result of a schedule slip to launching his original comic plan, but the ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' filler strips ended up being more popular so transposed the titular characters into them.
* ''[http://brat-halla.com Brat-Halla]'' has yet to miss an update.
* ''[[Brawl in the Family]]'' tends to avoid this for the most part, too. Creator Matthew Taranto often slows down during holidays, but only because he likes to make enormous elaborate comics that have musical accompaniment. Leading up to Christmas 2010, he produced ''three''.
* [[Chuggaaconroy]]'s [[Let's Play
* Happens some in [[Collar 6]], but not to a ridiculous extent. Since the comic began, every month has had between 7 and 16 strips, averaging about 10.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140409232710/http://www.commissionedcomic.com/ Commissioned]'' started with a three-times-a-week schedule, but slowly evolved to the now strip-per-day schedule. With art evolution. And multiple storylines.
* Say what you want about ''[[Ctrl+Alt+Del|Ctrl Alt Del]]'', it hasn't missed an update in years. That said, [[Dada Comics|Chef Brian]] was invented entirely due to an almost-schedule-slip.
** [[B-Side Comics|CAD Sillies]], on the other hand... Lets just say that asking when they're updated is a touchy subject on the forums.
* ''[[Cinema Bums]]'' updates regularly without fail, but benefits from a slightly less taxing Monday/Thursday schedule.
* ''[[Cyanide
* The [https://web.archive.org/web/20131111225019/http://www.crowncommission.com/dailygrind/ Daily Grind Iron Man Challenge] is an ongoing contest to see whose webcomic can go the longest without missing an update (required updates are Mondays through Fridays). Out of 56 original contestants on February 28, 2005, four are left. (''Arthur, King of Time and Space'' was eliminated in June 2008, but not for missing an update; it was for having two single-panel strips too close together.)
* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' stays on schedule no matter what. Probably because the author set things up so it auto-updates and just takes the appropriate comic from the buffer. Hence, he could (and did) go on vacation for a few weeks and not have any problems.
* ''[[The Descendants]]'' started with a schedule listed as "whenever the hell I feel like it", which included anything from two pages a week to two five-page chapters in a week. It later changed to "Weekly" before the site was redesigned with a rather groveling newspost from the author saying the fans "deserved better". Since then, the site gone through two years with a banner proclaiming "Updated Mondays with at least 5 pages" and has stuck to it.
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* ''Drowtales'' has kept on schedule in airing one page a ''day'' since the reorganising, and has missed on this schedule EXACTLY ''once'', when the artists left home before posting the strip. The strip in question was up by the end of the day.
* Both of Sarah Ellerton's narrative comics, ''[[Inverloch]]'' and ''[[The Phoenix Requiem]]'', have been known for updating consistently to completion on the days promised. The author keeps a steady buffer of strips to ensure that real life never intrudes on her update schedule. ''[[Inverloch]]'' ran from 2003 to 2007, and ''[[The Phoenix Requiem]]'' began in 2007 a few months after the end of ''[[Inverloch]]'' and completed in 2011. The author's next project isn't yet known, though in the middle of ''[[The Phoenix Requiem]]'', she also worked as the artist on Bobby Crosby's ''[[Dreamless]]''.
* Ryan Smith successfully completed the entire nine-year run of ''[http://www.funnyfarmcomics.com/ Funny Farm]'' (another [https://web.archive.org/web/20131111225019/http://www.crowncommission.com/dailygrind/ Daily Grind] contender), taking the story from gag-based beginnings to densely-plotted conclusion while keeping to the published M-F or 7-day schedule throughout.
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' updates precisely at midnight, three days a week, without fail. The art doesn't seem to suffer much for it, either. It probably helps that the [[Phil Foglio|Foglios]] had been professional artists for 20 years before taking their comic to the web.
** No, seriously - WITHOUT FAIL. Their colourist had a freaking heart attack, and the only noticeable change was that the comic was in grayscale until he was better. Then he went back to colour what he missed, without missing a beat on the new material, either. When these folks make a schedule, they damn well KEEP that schedule!
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* TL Welker's ''[[Heartcore]]'' has maintained a very consistent schedule for as long as it has run, with only very few slips (and plenty of forewarning ahead of those slips).
* And let's give a big hand to Bill Holbrook, who currently writes ''three'' separate comics (''Safe Havens'', ''On The Fast Track'', and ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'') and has yet to miss an update. The first two are both print comics, complete with editors, which probably help keep him disciplined, but the third was purely on the web when it started in 1995 (but now features in the Atlanta Journal Constitution), and upped from five-a-week to daily around 2000. Needless to say, though, Bill is a professional cartoonist of the first order, and was back when he launched ''Kevin and Kell''.
* [http://www.jaydenandcrusader.com Jayden and Crusader] has updated every monday at precisely midnight GMT since September
** This comic suffered a slip of 2 days on
* As far as most of us recall, ''[[Keychain of Creation]]'' hasn't significantly missed any updates.
** It's having a 2 week break for Christmas 2010, though. Announced in advance.
** But sadly, Jukashi started slipping heavily - almost every comic is late and sometimes the problem escalates to entirely missed strips.
* ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' is an inversion. It started on an irregular schedule, hence the name... but [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/339.html quickly settled into daily updates].
* The updates to ''[[Juathuur]]'' went from 5 to 3 a week thanks to every panel now being in color rather than occasional special panels. However, the updates are still very punctual in this regard, and by no means below average by most web comic updates rates.
* ''[[Last Res0rt]]'', despite having a significantly slower once-a-week schedule to compensate, is notorious for keeping buffers several-months long in order to cover updates during college semesters (when considerably less time can be spent on the comic for obvious reasons).
** However, it did have one heck of a hiatus / slew of guest strips in early 2010.
* ''[[Legostar Galactica]]'' never misses an update and even has time to run a second-string expanded universe comic on weekends due to its ''[[Crazy Prepared|one year's worth]]'' of buffer.
* ''[[Least I Could Do]]'' and ''[[Looking for Group]]'', made by Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza, miss their updates by an hour tops, and if they do, the artist makes a thread on the forums to apologise.
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* ''[[Loading Ready Run]]'' can be counted on to maintain their schedule(s). Since they began in 2003, the number of late updates has been vanishingly small, and not a week has gone by that a video hasn't been posted.
** In addition, the move to The Escapist means that LRR content is submitted, then posted by the Escapist staff per an actual contract. Add in [[Unskippable]] and ENN, and the LRR crew are now - reliably - posting video content as often as many webcomics post cartoons.
* ''[
** In February 2009, the comic finished. As far as this editor knows, it never missed an update.
* ''[[Minus (Webcomic)|Minus]]'' had 130 strips and ran for just about that many weeks.
* ''[[Misfile]]'' keeps true to the "updated every weekday" statement.
** The only thing that can stop Chris from posting a comic is his wife having a kid.
* ''[[MS Paint Adventures]]'' actually manages to ''invert'' this trope: [[Andrew Hussie]] [[The Rant|once posted]] that he would be busy and update less than usual for the next few days. Then he posted ''eighty'' new ''[[Homestuck]]'' pages in the ''next seven days''. Let's just say that it's quite possibly the fastest-updating webcomic in existence.
** ''Homestuck's'' updating schedule is weird. Hussie usually updates with one to several pages at least once or twice a day. But nobody knows when, leading to people hovering around the site and others shouting [[Crying Wolf|"UPDATE!"]] on [[Image Boards]]. ''Homestuck'' fans have become so spoiled by the schedule that Hussie not posting something in a day makes people antsy [[Wham! Episode|(or suspect that something is about to happen)]].
*** By his own standards, he had a heavy schedule slip in spring '11 due to a combination of mild burnout and a series of technical problems and moving, in addition to cons. However, the site ''still'' updated more frequently than daily comics. Because of the sheer insanity of Andrew's work schedule, the site has become [[Webcomics Long Runners|the largest webcomic in existence]] despite being only about 3 years old.
*** The end of Act 5 animation's delay played this trope straight, to the point that its release date ended up falling on an [[Arc Number]] date a month later than its original projected completion estimate. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130312061114/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11938555890/about-eoa5-part-1 He explained quite at length why this was so]. That delay, and the one following it in anticipation for the launch of Act 6, was pretty much enough to undo the fandom's spoilt approach to updates at least temporarily.
* ''[[Narbonic]]''. Six days a week, one weekend special, every week, six years, with rare, rare exceptions.
* ''[http://www.nukees.com/ Nukees]'' has held to three updates a week for a decade straight. Looks much the same, though.
* ''[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]'' is put out on a ''schedule''. While they used to be very late on it, now they might be a few minutes late, or a few minutes early, and Tycho might not get his newspost up at the same time as the strip, but they ''will'' update Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, barring everything except total computer failure while they're away from home (and they still manage to get it up the next day). This is even more remarkable when you consider that, being topical, they ''can't'' have a buffer.
** It bears mentioning that when they suffered total computer failure when they ''were'' at home, not only did the strip go up on time it [[Take That Us|made fun of the cartoonists themselves]] for not keeping backups. Other minor distractions that do not affect the strip's update schedule include the ''births of their children''.
*** They ran a series of guest strips in order to keep up their
* ''[[Questionable Content]]'' and ''[[Scary Go Round]]'' are renowned for updating every weekday without fail, and maintaining a consistent level of quality in art and writing.
** Well, [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1140 mostly consistent].
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** Nobody's claiming that it's an impressive schedule, only that it is published and adhered to.
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' has had a new strip posted every single day since it started on June 12, 2000, all but one of them being within the first hour or two of the day. The one time it was a few hours late? It was caused by the server farm on which it was hosted exploding, literally , with the author's blog being used to post the new strip while the hosting company was recovering.
* ''[[Silent Hill: Promise]]'' an [[Interactive Comic]] [[Fan Sequel]] to ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'' updates daily, and has not missed a day since it began in June 2010.
* ''[[Shortpacked]]'' is a weird example. It used to have a regular MWF schedule. Then he started to slip. Soon he started posting every weekday with occasional misses (though he still avoided long gaps between updates). Now, as of April, 2010, he has posted one comic a day Mondy-Friday on a perfect schedule since October 2008.
** In late 2010 he had a few guest strips fill in for him. Why? First he and his wife were going to visit family for the holidays. Then they were going on the honeymoon they should've gone on 2 years before. His other comic, Dumbing Of Age, had a fairly large buffer, so it kept a normal schedule for the whole time.
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* [http://survivingtheworld.net Surviving The World]: Updates daily, hasn't missed a comic since its first strip in 2008.
* [http://taoofgeek.com/ The Tao of Geek]: Not an exceptional webcomic, but it's put out a strip ''a day'' six days a week for several years, and that's saying something.
* Many of the [[That Guy With The Glasses]] talent have an admirable ability to update on a consistent schedule.
** Two of the site's biggest draws, That Guy himself and [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] always post ''at least'' one video a week. Nostalgia Critic on Tuesdays and Linkara on Mondays.
*** Funnily enough [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara's]] [[History of Power Rangers]] retrospect, which he said at the start never had a set release schedule, had so many people asking and complaining about the series schedule that he spent the first 6 minutes of the HOPR review for Wild Force explaining in ''very'' clear terms exactly why he didn't have one. Interestingly enough a lot of explosions and violence played in the clips over this voice over (it was footage from his previous review of ''[[Power Rangers Time Force|Time Force]]'', similar to what he did for his reviews of ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy|Lost Galaxy]]'' and ''[[Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue|Lightspeed Rescue]]''). In retrospect [[Hilarious in Hindsight|the time he spent out of previous videos to plead with the fans NOT to ask about the release schedule anymore make a lot more sense now]].
** Some of the contributors like [[Noah Antwiler]], [[The Spoony Experiment|The Spoony One]], don't have a precise "schedule" per se, but they still post regularly. Despite delaying the sequels to a couple of review series (particularly ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy X|X]]''), put up at least a vlog, review, or something of interest instead. Despite no having an actual schedule he still updates regularly, and he has been doing this continuously for the last couple of years, despite the site crashing in 2009. However, during the last few months when he got sick, there have been a few weeks of understandable schedule slip (one of which concerned him going to a ''hospital Emergency Room''), and he ''still'' got on with his vlogs and even ''apologized for the lack of updates'' on more than one occasion. However, having a slightly [[Unpleasable Fanbase|Bipolar Fanbase]], you still have people [[Fan Dumb|complaining about the lack of updates.]]
* ''[[User Friendly]]'' has updated daily for ''ten years'' straight. He actually calculated how many comics he'd made at that point, too.
** Currently, the comic is on hiatus due to deaths in the author's family. It still updates daily with a strip from the archive.
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** Sometimes it updates more often, usually during a story arc (Yes, xkcd does have occasional story arcs)
* ''[[Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic]]'' has been running since May 2006 and has only missed ''one'' of its daily updates, due to the birth of the author's first child. (He did a double update the next day.)
* ''[[Zero Punctuation]]'' always has a new episode up on Wednesday afternoon.
** Better than that, they're always uploaded within five minutes of noon EST.
* ''[[The Zombie Hunters]]'' updates weekly, and has done so for several years. Also includes occasional Thursday updates. While this strip updates slower than the others mentioned here, it is notable in that only Phil Foglio's strip ''[[Girl Genius]]'' can compare in terms of strip size and quality of artwork- and Foglio himself has over 20 years' experience advantage over the artist of ''The Zombie Hunters''.
* They're not actually webcomics, but the fanfiction series ''[[Ultimate Sleepwalker|Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams]]'' and ''[[Ultimate SpiderWoman
* [[SF Debris]] has a new episode of ''[[Star Trek]]'' every Saturday, and re-uploads at least one other day a week, along with various other properties on other days. He only misses updates when he takes pre-announced breaks, or when a ''tornado tears through his front yard and knocks out his power''.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Webcomic Tropes]]
[[Category:Trivia Trope]]
[[Category:Creativity Leash]]
▲[[Category:Schedule Slip]]
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