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{{trope}}
[[File:comictime.gif|link=The Order of the Stick
{{quote|"In conclusion I would recommend to not get hung up on birthdays or aging."|'''Pete Abrams''', author of ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', on how much time has passed since the beginning of the story}}
{{quote|"Here's hoping for a few more decades! I'll get these jerks into college yet."|'''Dan Shive''' of ''[[
Related to [[Comic Book Time]], Webcomic Time takes place when time taken by the story of a [[Web Comic]] (or other form of serial media) takes place over a shorter (in-universe) time than the (real-life) time it takes for the comic to actually be produced.
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Secondly, of course, is that updates are often [[Schedule Slip|late or skipped]] for personal reasons, delaying the in-continuity time further.
Over time, this slippage can add up to years; topical references early on may become incredibly dated later, even if it was supposed to take place on the same day. This especially affects [[Two Gamers
There are several ways webcomic authors compensate for this:
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== Webcomics ==
* As of December 2010, over 40% of the entire run of ''[[
* [[Bittersweet Candy Bowl]] had an entire summer arc... that took over a year.
* ''[[Something Positive]]'' sets entire plot arcs on the day the arc is supposed to end. This is usually done for holidays (for example, an arc set on Valentine's Day will start early in February and hopefully end on the 14th).
* ''[[Books Don't Work Here]]'' As of [http://booksdontworkhere.thecomicseries.com/comics/60 Page 60] where this is [[Lampshaded]] the whole comic has taken place in one day. that same page also mentions that there will be two flashbacks coming before the day is done.
* ''[[
** Additionally, one fan humorously pointed out that one character had been carrying [http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=631 another's dead body] [http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=5843 for three years].
* All of the posted comics of ''[[
** As of Thursday, Jan 21, 2010 we wrapped up the day that began on Thursday, Mar 12, 2009. That's only about 10 months for a day.
*** For a complete timeline, check out [http://elgoonishshive.wikia.com/wiki/El_Goonish_Shive_Timeline the Wiki.]
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*** [[Webcomic Time]] is even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2012-06-04 this comic]: "June 7th continues. Again. It will never end."
* Similarly, five years of ''[[Megatokyo]]'' cover just over two months of plot (''one day'' per chapter, plus 52 days for 'Chapter Zero', six weeks of which was skipped over entirely while a main character recovered from injuries).
** It gets especially bizarre when you consider that, despite ostensibly taking place in 2000, characters will make references to whatever is going on whenever the strip they're in came out. For example, strips that supposedly occur only a few days apart reference [[Metal Gear Solid]] II and IV, which came out ''years'' apart. Perhaps the most extreme case is Ed (a Sony employee)'s shirt, which promotes the as of then unreleased [[
** Parodied in [[Mac Hall]], [http://machall.com/view.php?date=2002-11-01 when Ian and JM are dressed up as Piro and Largo, respectively, for Halloween]. "Largo" asks if "Piro" can get him a beer, and "Piro" responds that it'll take at least three months.
** You've got to give credit to author Fred Gallagher for being aware of this, and keeping the continuity where possible (Yuki's iMac). This even gets lampshaded in Chapter 10 with Yuki's "very old cellphone."
* [[Grey Is
* ''[[College Roomies
** Hilariously explained in [http://www.crfh.net/d/20100827.html this] guest strip, nine months into a very, ''very'' long day that didn't actually end until the strip was [[Retool|Retooled]], ''seventeen months later''.
* [[Lampshade Hanging]] on technology datedness in [http://cutewendy.com/go/41 this] ''cutewendy'' strip.
* Comics like ''[[PvP]]'' and ''[[Unshelved]]'' avoid this by having all comics (save the rare [[Story Arc]] ones) set the day they are posted. Time moves naturally and each strip is a snip from their daily lives in our timeline, allowing the characters to instead inhabit [[Comic Book Time]].
* Although ''[[
* Amusingly averted with [[Ciem Webcomic Series|Ciem 1]]. It is set [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]] (2019-2021 to be exact.) [[Anachronism Stew|Possible future anachronisms like CRT monitors]] aside, the story took two years to make and takes place over the course of three years.
* ''[[
** The 2050 comics since its start in 1998 span about [http://www.crosstimecafe.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18&p=7486#p7486 twenty-two days in-comic].
* Likewise, though ''[[Dominic Deegan]]: Oracle For Hire'' doesn't have to be slaved to our calendar, taking place in a different, magical world, occasional jokes about how the characters' several-hour-long adventures "felt like months" crop up.
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May we all live to see Saturday. }}
* Parodied in ''[[Tsunami Channel]]: [http://www.tsunamichannel.com/index.php?date=2005-10-12&comic=ExCoKo Experimental Comic Kotone]'', in which a character causes a [[Temporal Paradox]] by buying an iPod Nano even though the story takes place in 2001.
* [[Bellisario's Maxim|Don't think too hard about this one]]: late in the course of ''[[Fans
* In ''[[Questionable Content]]'', the [[Not a Date]] between Dora and Marten was established as under a year after their first meeting, almost two years before in real time. The two years since have covered a matter of weeks. This is made stranger by the strip's up-to-the-minute indie music references.
** ''QC'' is remarkable in that nearly every day of story time has a clear beginning and end, shown both by story (daytime vs evening activities) and by changes of [[The Merch|t-shirts]]. As of October 2008 about 58 days have been shown, with gaps of unknown duration. The longest continuous sequence so far was 13 days (strips 396-750, 16 months in real time).
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** The breakup between Dora and Martin [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1799 as of November, 2010] illustrates the problems that occur around this trope; in [[Webcomic Time]], it would count as an Autumn/Winter fling, though in real time they've been together for ''years''. Everyone in the comic is treating it as if it were very much the latter, not the former.
* In ''[[Between Failures]]'' 488 comics from to March 2007 to July 2009 covered around 1 1/2 days, with the 1st day taking 305 strips.
* An infamous example was ''[[Avalon (
* Something of a [[No Fourth Wall|fourth wall-breaking]] plot point in ''[[Bob and George]]'': During the ''[[
* Subversion: In ''[[Achewood]]'', Philippe is five years old. He will always be five years old. However, all the other characters are forecasted to eventually age and die.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[One Over Zero|1/0]]'', especially near the end of the comic.
** Notable example: when {{spoiler|1=[http://www.undefined.net/1/0/?strip=971 Max comes back]}}.
* The first 14 chapters of ''[[
* The [[Final Boss]] battle and ending in ''[[
* Belatedly pseudo-averted in ''[[Least I Could Do]]'', where there's a mini-arc in which the author and artist send a letter to the characters stating that they will no longer be "forever 24", and that they will begin to age like normal people do. It's not truly averted, since several minutes happen during days or even weeks, but the characters aging still counts.
** It can be insinuated, though, that several days to weeks can occur in between story arcs, with the stand-alone gag-a-day comics being only a snippet of the daily lives of the characters. Then again, maybe this is just [[MST3K Mantra|thinking a little too hard]].
* ''[[Loserz]]'' ran over six years ([[Series Hiatus|with breaks]]), but the characters are still in High School.
* Avoided in a rather novel fashion by ''[[Sins
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' is a classic example. One storyline titled "5 Minutes at a Party" took roughly a month. Lampshaded: [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=071112 "You've been gone for 4 weeks but it feels almost like a year!] Implicit jump-forwards over boring bits allow keeping the stories' time roughly but explicitly parallel to the real-world date (and bonus stories to be inserted earlier in the continuity retrospectively).
** Combined with a dash of [[Comic Book Time]], as once explained by [[Word of God|Pete]]:
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* ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'' [[Lampshades]] the fact that ten years passed between the end of its run as a print strip in a club newsletter and its revival as a webcomic by [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20061230.html having all its characters get in a fight about the events of the last printed strip.]
** TIAOB recently announced that it will be introducing ''seasons,'' that particular strip involving a [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20090811.html giant robot knocking over a pile of freshly-raked autumn leaves.] It's also notable that Molly the artificial monster is still anticipating her first birthday, despite having been running around in the strip since 2006 (or since 1995, if you count the print comics version). Most of the strip's story arcs (the longest of which lasted a year) appear to take about a day or two.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* [[Tweep]] spent about 10 months on a single evening where two characters went on a date and three others went to a club. That's not counting the rest of the day before that, which took nearly 6 months.
* Although not as significant as some of the other examples, it's still very real in [[Slice of Life]] comic [[Gender Swapped]]. It was even [[Lampshaded]] on page 34. That's right, not even 50 pages in and the author was cracking Meta.
* As [http://www.freakangels.com/?p=77 pointed out by the author], [[
* ''[[Khaos Komix]]'' has some odd timeline problems, but according to [[Word of God]], it's intentional, and the timeline isn't set, [[Comic Book Time|it's all just happening "right now"]]. Even the flashbacks, and [[The Rashomon|revisiting previous events]].
* On at two separate occasions this has been [[Lampshaded]] in [[SSDD]] when Kingston [http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20021115.html notices] that he doesn't recall anything that happened during a timeskip after a lengthy story arc. The other characters usually attribute it to his [[Immune to Drugs|massive drug use]].
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* The cast of Sugar Bits have been fighting for well over a year.
* ''[[Beyond Reality]]'' suffered a long delay in early 2009, and posted [http://orion.comicgenesis.com/d/20081001.html this] on its five-year anniversary.
* ''[[
* The entire Battle of Azure City of ''[[The Order of the Stick
** Then spoofed in the panel at the top of the page, where the all-seeing Oracle knows the difference between Real Time and Webcomic Time, and makes sure the readers do, too.
** Another sequence where we're given the exact time is the whole "Darth Vaarsuuvius" sequence, from strip 634 to 653. According to [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0667.html this,] it took just over 20 minutes. Included was several weeks during which Durkon cast the 10-minute Resurrection spell.
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* In [http://www.flyingmanandfriends.com Flying Man and Friends], the characters begin a journey (with an elephant pulling their house) in [http://www.flyingmanandfriends.com/?p=244 this strip], and don't actually seem to go anywhere until [http://www.flyingmanandfriends.com/?p=272 nearly a month later].
* The [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/eddurd/everydayheroes/series.php?view=single&ID=113529 "VilAnon"] chapter of ''[[Everyday Heroes]]'' had Jane telling her life story over the course of one evening, but took 15 months of real time to complete.
* ''[[
** Similarly given an epic lampshade [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005039 here], and [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005073 here], the latter being posted on Christmas, 2010.
** Homestuck has to be the best example. Although there is a lot of time travel, in [[San Dimas Time|the actual timeline]], less than one day has passed. It is ''still'' his birthday, one year later. In fact, if you went on an [[Archive Binge]], the time taken to read through the archives might well be ''greater'' than the time depicted onscreen. At the end of Act 5, it finally is no longer his 13th birthday.
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* In ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'' the Light Warriors are given 24 hours to prepare to fight {{spoiler|Chaos}}, which in real life took from October to February of the next year. However, it's then played with when they realize (too late) that [[RPG Mechanics Verse|it only became night once one of them slept at an inn]].
* Although ''[[Scary Go Round]]'' was not immune to [[Webcomic Time|this trope]], it has always managed to even out comic time vs. real time in the end. It remains to be seen to what extent its [[Spin-Off]] ''[[Bad Machinery]]'' will stick to this, considering that the story there starts three years later than the end of SGR, ergo in 2012.
* It's hard to tell, but it seems like only at most two months have passed in the last seven years of ''[[Dan and
* Lampshaded in this ''[[Ménage à 3]]'' [http://www.menagea3.net/d/20100624.html strip].
* Due to its very sporadic updates, an arc in ''[[Sexy Losers]]'', set during a single day, started in 2004 and ended in 2011.
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* ''[[Between Failures]]'': running for 4 years and counting, its 700 or so strips cover a grand total of ''three days''.
* In [[General Protection Fault]], most of the action in the To Thine Own Self arc, which lasted over a year of real time (With [[Schedule Slip|some delays]]), took place over the course of a day, and the climax took place over a few minutes.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Enjuhneer]]'' has lampshaded this as the result of "[[Timey-Wimey Ball|putting Pocky in a time machine]]."
* ''[[Think Before You Think]]'', in [http://thinkbeforeyouthink.net/?comic=20110211-becky-sings this comic].
{{quote| '''Julia:''' It's like every day is several weeks long. }}
* [[A Loonatics Tale]] solves the problem by ignoring it. The comic is set more-or-less in the modern day, but in a completely different world, using a calendar that puts the events of the comic somewhere around the year 3000 (by which I mean, they're not using the Gregorian calendar). As of this writing, it's the beginning of summer, but the current story arc is taking place sometime in autumn (except for the bit at the very beginning, which is a flashback to the beginning of summer about twenty years ago).
* ''[[
** Book 12, the current arc, has taken almost 11 months, and only a few hours have passed in the comic.
* Inverted in [http://www.rhjunior.com/GH/00388.html this] Goblin Hollow strip.
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* The infamous [[Potty Emergency|bathroom break]] from ''[[Pawn]]''. The act therein, and the conversation between Baalah and Ayanah occurs in what looks like, the span of a few minutes. The actual progress of the comics release, meant it lasted for ''almost a year.''
* ''[[Red String]]'' already had a reasonably slower pace, as it started in 2003 when Miharu and her friends were 10th graders and they've yet to finish their final year of high school. However, it hit a slow point even for that when Miharu's final summer vacation started in the summer of 2009. And even then, {{spoiler|the break up arc}} is still ''recent'' in story time, despite having started in the summer of 2008. As of the start of 2012, the end of their summer break is finally in sight. Some of this is related to the author's pregnancy in 2011, which slowed updates to two pages a week for most of the year. Some of this is also due to a broader focus on the supporting cast, which led to many of the summer break stories taking place concurrently, necessitating a slower progression of in-universe time.
* ''[[
** Comes up [http://www.the-whiteboard.com/autowb051.html here] first.
** Later, it comes up again in [http://www.the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1497.html this] strip. For those at the paintball field it's been only a few minutes, but for Pirta it feels like it's been [http://www.the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1491.html two weeks.]
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* In ''[[Bleach]]'', the back-to-back Hueco Mundo and Fake Karakura arcs took over three years in real time, but in-story happened over the course of ''less than 24 hours''.
** Before that the Soul Society Arc took place over two years and covered around three weeks of in-world time, mostly focused on the last few days.
* [[
* Late in the [[Rurouni Kenshin]] manga, a subtle [[Fourth Wall]] gag slips in as Sanosuke tries (not too hard) to remember a pair of villains from the beginning of the series.
{{quote| '''Sanosuke:''' Yeah, I guess I remember that... four years and a half ago, wasn't it?<br />
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* The first 76 comics of ''[[The Word Weary]]'' take place over the course of one day even though they took six months to update.
* ''[[The World God Only Knows]]'' took six months of chapters to cover three days.
* ''[[Wandering Son]]'''s been going on for nine years at the time of this writing, but has only taken place over the span of about six years. The series tries to stay contemporary for the best of its abilities though. A calender in volume 11 clearly states "2010", though earlier chapters seem very early 2000s. We've seen the [[
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* Over ''ten'' years of ''[[The Saga of Tuck]]'' have produced one calendar year of plot where it is still canonically 1997.
* The [[Whateley Universe]] handled this by starting out way back in 2004 with a school year supposed to be starting in fall of 2006. Six years later, they've gotten all the way to January 2007 in the stories.
* [[
== Live Action Television ==
* ''[[Lost]]'' has explicitly covered 108 days (not counting flashbacks and flashforwards) in four seasons. Michael and his son Walt were [[Put
** An even better indication of this trope: Aaron was played by 57 different infants between the character's birth and leaving the island, because of how quickly the babies grew out of the part.
*** After the three year [[Time Skip]] between the fourth and fifth seasons, the remainder of the series consists of a couple of weeks which is a little over a year real-time.
* Each season of [[24
* Every episode of ''[[True Blood]]'' takes place over about twenty-four hours with each episode picking up the minute the previous episode ends (With the exception of a two-week time skip in Season 1) The first two seasons take place over 43 days.
* ''[[Breaking Bad]]'': The show has run for 5 seasons since 2008, but has only (at least through season 3) covered a period of a few months.
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