I'm in the early pages of my current comic, but because it's a very hard reboot of an older comic I drew about like.... ten years ago and even printed as small press books etc. I naturally went back and read through it to get a sense for what I'd done well and poorly, and what elements I should try to keep or remove.
It was pretty rough going, because me in my early twenties was clearly a lot more impatient, with lazy, sparse backgrounds, unflipped artwork (ughhh), not particularly well thought out palettes and...er....pretty much just making up the story as she went along.
All that said, I actually laughed at a lot of the jokes, I thought some of the action scenes still held up, with good timing and flow and clear sequencing, and generally I could follow what was happening, it was just that what was happening wasn't really all... going towards a conclusion.
So here's the point I'm driving at: Past me reread her comic a lot because she cared about continuity with past pages. "Does Sarin still have those injuries? Who has their sword out on this page? Where is everyone in relation to each other?" and yes, that is something I still care about a lot. BUT: Current me also regularly re-reads her script that she made of upcoming pages and chapters (past me pretty much just wrote bullet points, and they were of what the reader needed to learn about the setting and characters, not what needed to happen to move the plot), and her thumbnails, which aren't drawn just three or four pages ahead; the entire ~30 page (I allow myself some leeway to add or cut on a small level, sometimes you only realise you need an extra page or to change a couple of pages when you're drawing them full size) chapter is thumbnailed. I have more of a mindset where I've already made the story and can re-read it a bunch to check continuity, but I haven't drawn the pages in their presentation form yet.
If you keep painting yourself into corners, I can relate a lot. I used to do it all the time.
I found that studying story structure, and thinking of story as a predetermined framework of key "beats" I need to hit, so should block in first, then fill in how to get from one to the next, was really helpful. I absolutely swear by the book "Save the Cat!" by Blake Snyder for understanding how screenplays (which have similar pacing to comics) work on a mechanical level.
Reading back is great for keeping visual continuity, but to make sure your story stays on course, it's helpful to be able to read ahead too.
