What Could Have Been/Web Comics

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of What Could Have Been in Web Comics include:

"Gunnerkrigg Court was originally going to be more adult when I started working on it, but by the time I finished the first chapter I realized it would work better if I made it more accessible to a wider audience."

  • Part of the final storyline in Bob and George summarizes what would have happened if the original hand drawn comic had run its course: a fairly unoriginal superhero comic.
    • An early storyline had George mention some "pesky aliens" that might have followed him to the Mega Man Universe. This was a plot line from the hand drawn comic that Dave intended to integrate into the sprite comics about alien body snatchers replacing people, but it was simply never gotten to. The original idea in the hand drawn comic involved one character getting replaced, then the alien slowly Becoming the Mask. The other characters find out, but the one who was replaced was such a Jerkass that no one cared.
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • The sequence in where Roy wears the Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity was originally envisioned as Roy putting it on to engage in "girl talk" with Miko before discovering he couldn't remove it. However, as Rich Burlew wrote Miko, he discovered that her character didn't really mesh with "light romantic comedy", so the sequence became much more dramatic.
    • Tsukiko almost reanimated Miko after the Azure City battle. This seemed more like lampshading than an actual plot possibility though. There are only so many recurring antagonists you can have.
  • Dinosaur Comics originally had a different template, where a Maiasaurus was a fourth character—she appears in the first two panels instead of the T. rex. Additionally, the pixel art on the characters in the remaining four panels were slightly different, resulting in small yet undesirable details. You can see this early version here.
  • In another world, Doug Walker and Dan Shive might have collaborated on a webcomic.
  • Oglaf describes itself thus: "This comic started as an attempt to make pornography. It degenerated into sex comedy pretty much immediately." It could have made some good porn.
    • Still is, really.
  • In an early strip of Something*Positive Davan takes Monette to a lesbian bar and winds up annoying one of its patrons. Originally that lesbian was going to be a recurring character named Rochelle whom Davan would develop feelings for; the author wound up scrapping the idea and gave the Incompatible Orientation gag to PeeJee==>Jhim instead.
  • In Get Medieval, Ironychan stated that she originally intended for Neithe to be the main character and Asher to be her foil/sidekick. Asher turned out to be more fun and interesting to write for, so she went in that direction.
  • In Dominic Deegan, Mookie himself stated that he intended for Luna to die at the end of the Maltak arc, but realized that Luna's death would pretty much destroy Dominic, so altered things so that Luna is saved at the last moment by Jacob.
  • In Cucumber Quest, Almond originally had blue hair. [dead link] Gigi also considered making a comic with Tartelette and Baguette and their bakery as the focus.
  • Quite a few things in MS Paint Adventures, though in fairness the series is in part Writing by the Seat of Your Pants. Word of God and the commentary for the Comic Book Adaptations of Problem Sleuth and Homestuck explain there were a number of Aborted Arcs - though for most of them none of the readers ever realized it. Some examples from Homestuck:
    • Originally, the comic after Problem Sleuth would have been a Midnight Crew comic. In the universe of Homestuck (the actual comic after Problem Sleuth), MS Paint Adventures actually is doing a Midnight Crew comic. Alternate Universe of the characters appear in Homestuck, and eventually the actual Midnight Crew is revealed to be in an Alternate Dimension themselves.
    • Homestuck was originally supposed to be drawn entirely in Flash. This was cut due to the difficulty of making things in flash. The original all-Flash Beta edition of Homestuck can still be seen on the website.
    • Dave's Inventory Management Puzzle with the hash modus was originally supposed to lead up to a hash-rap battle with his Bro. This was changed to sword fight. Dave later lampshades this afterwards.
    • Rose's battle with Bec Noir was supposed to be a full blown Flash, but the author decided that it would be a waste of time in an already long-running arc. So in-story, the disk of Homestuck gets scratched, reducing the events of the battle to a few panels.
  • Thanks Christian Weston Chandler's ever-changing fleets of fancy, one could say the entirety of Sonichu is full of What Could Have Beens. The most telling is that he left issue 11 unfinished after finishing issue 10 and he told his fans to back off and let him make his work whenever he wants to.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/What_Could_Have_Been/Web_Comics?oldid=1893693"