I think gag and longform webcomics both have different strengths.
Gag strips need less content to be interesting, and grow in popularity faster. It's easier to become popular fast with a gag strip, and people stumbling across a random strip on social media/reddit/imgur are more likely to become readers than if they had found a random OoC page of a longform story.
But longform comics tend to do better in the long haul; comedy strips rely on regular updates, and readers will be often more frustrated with a couple weeks' hiatus of a gag strip than of a several-month hiatus of a longform story. There's a story comic that last updated in sept. 2014 that I'm still awaiting an update for; I can't think of any gag comics I'd still be a reader for with a 5-year gap in updates.
As for updating larger chunks of story less frequently, I think you'll be fine. I (and plenty of other readers) will often wait for a chunk of pages to be released and read them in one go; There's even comics like Call of the Sentinel that update by chapter instead of by pages, going months or even years between updates. (it is a lot harder to gain/keep readers this way though, and to maintain motivation to keep working on it, so unless you feel strongly I can't say I recommend doing it this way though)
