Under which circumstances do you think it's appropriate to reboot comics?

[avalonmao]

Especially if they're serial/narrative/aka not a gag a day?

[gateofselidor]

I'm generally against rebooting webcomics, because too many creators who do it get stuck in an endless cycle of being unhappy with their work and never finishing anything, but I can think of a couple of situations when as a reader I would be less bothered. As a creator, I can't imagine myself ever doing it.

1. You're still in the first chapter, so the loss is minimal.

2. The reboot is so drastically different from the original that it's almost unrecognisable.

[jmhenry]

The general consensus in the webcomic world is never, due to mistrust of the author, sadly.
Personally, if you have a plan, and the reboot is a vast improvement on the old work, either art or story-wise, it's worth doing. I had to stop working on Chapter 3 of my own comic to rework the first 10-12 pages b/c the original version was terribly written and I was mostly spitball-ing.

If you do plan to reboot, remember to communicate with your audience! Tell them what your planning to do, why you're doing it, and keep them updated frequently. The readers that really love your work will understand that you're working hard to make it the best you possibly can.

[indagold]

I find it very lazy and shows how the author cannot plan well. They tend to give up in the middle of it or a few pages in. It shows how little confidence they have in their work. Usually they never go through with it either, they post "ugh it's awful, I'm gonna start again" then delete all the pages and it never updates again. They move onto another piece and on goes the endless cycle of giving up on work, deleting it or revamping it then giving up. I think you need to have a solid plan before you start any piece of work.

The only time I see it necessary is remastering old work. Many times the original was made years before the artist could even draw or write and the old piece is forgettable.

[60Six]

Alright, speaking as someone who is currently in reboot land! I got through 8 chapters of my comic before starting it over and beginning what's on Tapastic today. I'm now about half-way caught up to where I left off in the original.
And despite what everyone here is saying, I'm SO GLAD I DID.

Now, I do agree with the above comments that a reboot should only be necessary when you're changing so much that it's practically a different comic. In my own case, my comic is essentially the same. Same characters, same setting, same story, just told and shown much better than the original. I changed things around, moved character reveals til later. For example, my comic takes place in a world where everyone wears masks. Face reveals are suppose to be a big deal in my story and in the original version, I showed the main character's face in the very first page. This time around, I held it off until chapter 4 so I (hope) it made for a much stronger impact.
In addition to that, there were some drastic changes that NEEDED to be made. For example...I was probably losing hundreds of potential readers because my comic was written right to left because...idk, I started it in high school and it was a "manga!!!!1!"
This time around, it's written left to right and I'm sure my few old readers from the original version appreciate that. :'D

I think another good time to start a reboot is when you're trying to have a "fresh start." My original comic sort of crumbled towards the end. I wasn't updating frequently, my readers were slowly dying off (it was posted on DeviantArt originally which is dying a slow death. I mean to give you an example, I use to get around 100 favs per page, now I get about 9). Everything my comic was sort of grounded on was kind of dying. I had done so many rewinds and edits that I'm sure people that were reading every page (all 15 left on DeviantArt) were confused as hell and it just got to a point that it was easier to go "Okay guys. I'm starting this over and doing it right this time."
Keep in mind, this was a HELL of a time pass. I started my comic in high school and started the reboot after college.
The reboot revived my passion for my dying project and it showed in my new pages which I think my remaining readers saw too.

I think that's another time a reboot is acceptable: If it revives your passion. Continuing the old version of my comic would have been beating a dead horse that was dead because I didn't take care of it. The reboot is a new horse that I'm gonna take much better care of after learning my mistakes with the old horse. In the end, it's gonna be a stronger and healthier horse than the last one.

And while my old readers are still waiting for things to catch up to where the old version ended, I think most of them are happy to see it at all. Plus with a rewrite, they are seeing some new content as well as just better presented content. The old version is so old now that they get some nostalgia trips when old parts come up but at the same time they're excited when new things come around. And on top of that, my passion for my comic is so rejuvenated that for the first time ever, I'm actually capable of sticking to a schedule of two pages a week, versus when my old version was ending and my passion was dying and they were lucky to get one page a month.

Sorry for kind of rambling here, but as someone who is basically working on a giant reboot and still will be for 4 more chapters, I kinda feel the need to defend them. Now once again, I agree that I don't think they're always the right thing to do. If you ARE gonna make a reboot though, really do make it something fresh. Take a year off or something to make the proper planning you need to in order to make an actually SUPERIOR comic (Okay, a year might not be necessary for everyone). Only do it if you truly believe you're gonna come out with something better in the end, something that's better in more ways than just the art. If you really feel like you're getting no where with your comic right now, the readers that do stick around will like it more in the end. If your passion is dying for your current comic, it will show and your readers will know. A reboot should be a fresh start with a revived passion in my opinion. And if rebooting revives that passion, it will show, and your readers will see it and enjoy the comic even more.

[Pandastrophic]

My comic is a reboot of my older one back in 2011, but for me I changed so much it's a completely different comic. Back then the characters where so flat and boring, there was no planning, no story, comic was in black and white, I was still developing my art style so it kept changing throughout the comic. There were just sooo many problems with it but I stuck with it for a year until I couldn't work on it anymore and I just lost my passion for making comics all together. Only last year I found Tapastic and kinda felt the urge to have another go at this comic thing, I always liked my characters from back then and started to slowly develop them again and build a story around them.

If it's just rebooting it to update the art then no, I don't think you should reboot but if there are deeper problems with the story, characters, etc then yes. but don't just decide to reboot and start the next month, take your time working on it, learn from your mistakes, plan better in terms of story and your art style too. Do research and take a lot of time to develop and prepare so that you don't fall into the dreaded 'reboot loop'.

@Riko Couldn't agree with you more and I relate to you so much too, I struggled with similare things while making my older comic as well. Rebooting my older comic revived my passion for making comics all together, after my older comic just didn't go anywhere and I absolutely dreaded working on it, when I started to reboot I sort of remembered the love I had for making comics when I was younger.

because my comic was written right to left because...idk, I started it in high school and it was a "manga!!!!1!"

ommmggg mine wasn't even done with screentones! it wasn't even a 'manga' style comic it was in greyscale but it read from right to left for some reason!! XDD

[60Six]

It's always nice to see someone in the same boat!
My old version was a dying mess and needed to be put down. Since rebooting, my passion for making comics has come back 10x stronger than it ever was mostly because I have so much more confidence with this new version than the old one.

I totally get you on the "dreading" working on the old version too. My old pages became suuuch a chore with no satisfaction to pay off.
Even if I'm redoing a lot of pages (Some are same, panel for panel, just flipped and with better art), I actually like working on them now and it just makes getting to where my old version ended even more exciting. That's one of my biggest goals that motivates me right now: Finally getting to completely new content that even my oldest readers never saw.

[keii4ii]

I agree with what @gateofselidor said. Extrapolating from their second point, I would like to add:

"Reboot to change the future, not to fix the past."

For example, if you've written yourself into a corner and there's no way to salvage that version of the story, it's time for a reboot. That story no longer has a future.

My own comic got rebooted for that reason. Because I hadn't been paying enough attention, the comic was turning into a story about self doubt/ self worth. That's NOT what I wanted to write about. I wanted to tell a story about resentment/ love. After 20 chapters completed, there was no way to steer the story into the desired direction. I had to stop, go back to the beginning and start anew from page 1.

I know some people get tempted to reboot just because they hate their old art so much, but I personally have never felt that. Sure, my old art looks bad, but that doesn't stop the story from going where it's meant to go. It's just stains and dents on the past, not a roadblock in the future.

Also, make sure you know what went wrong the first time, so you don't make the same mistakes again. You don't want to reboot only to wonder, "should I reboot... again?"

[NickRowler]

I feel reboots only really work if they have enough to stand on their own.

I think most of the successful films/shows/etc. reboots were of something that was 15+ years old. Stuff can be updated to apply to current day and having things in the style of how movies and shows are made.

I don't know much about webcomic reboots. But I feel like it could be appropriate if the original comic is old and the creator felt like they have improved as a writer or artist and they can make what they did better.

However, I feel that lazy reboots is what some comic books do where superheros stories split into many timelines and origins stories keep changing because people keep rebooting the same character over and over. And next thing you know you have like a thousand reboots for like one character.

[J.Z.Castillo]

I am not really big into reboots, but I am not opposed to redrawing pages. I will start redrawing soon, just because I was silly and dumb and my first pages were done in 940x1280 pxls size files, and they are horrible, LMAO. I'd rather have them print-ready, even though I do not want to print my comic, having the option would be nice. Other than that, I think story rebooting is point less. Just sit down for a couple months or a year and write a story out to make sure you are happy with what you have.

You can always add more to the story as you go, anyway, tightening loose plots and making the story better overall.