Weekly Updates vs Batch Updates - Pros and Cons? How Does It Affect Pacing?

[erma]

Hi all, I wanted to get opinions on different update schedules, and which one you prefer, both as a reader and as a creator.

I didn't update my comic very often this year to begin with, and I recently went on another hiatus for personal reasons. During this time I'm going to be preparing for 2021 and assessing what works about the comic, and what needs to change. Pacing is at the top of this list. Based on feedback from people and from re-reading it myself, pacing is a BIG problem for my comic. There's stretches of the comic where not a whole lot is happening, and I want to improve this aspect of my writing.

Up until this point, I had aimed for weekly 1-page updates. I've never really experimented with batch updates, but I wouldn't mind trying it out. For long-form stories, do you prefer seeing shorter weekly updates, or less frequent updates with more pages? And what are ways you have worked on story pacing?

[Rhonder]

I'm in-between this transition currently- my previous series was a page-a-week format one, but the new one is going to be vertical scroll format with updates once a month and episodes that are roughly equivalent to 3-5 pages. It hasn't started posting yet so I can't talk results just yet but...

Per my experience reading webcomics, I think these new, longer episodes will be more pleasant to read tbh. The consequential downside is hitting the "Fresh/Newly Updated" sections of Tapas/Webtoons less frequently, but after weighing the pros and cons I'm hoping it will be worthwhile @u@ It was always a little disappointing to get to the middle of a tense conversation or fight scene in the prior comic and have to drag it out for a full month piecemeal page-by-page. Having more control over where to stop is nice!

[nostalgicroxas]

As a consumer of comics of both styles, I prefer waiting 2weeks for more than 4 panels to read. However, there are a few that have really nice artwork that isn't just flat cellshading that clearly takes more time - and those each are on both styles: 1 page/4 panels, OR several pages.
If someone is just constantly uploading just 1page/4panels then I'm more likely to skip reading for weeks, months, and likely forget about it even if it's sitting in my notications to be read. That's just simply so I can go back in and binge. Conversations and scenes with many of these 1pg updates do not make sense read weeks apart.

[DualDragons]

Currently doing weekly updates to get ch4 done but as soon as I start chapter 5 of my webcomic I'll start doing batch updates to keep readers hooked

[DelythThomasArt]

I'm hoping to try and do 2 pages a week or two with my future project, as much as I like doing Mythic Mayhem which is very much in the scroll format it gets tiring doing so many panels in one go XD That and doing pages with the next project hopefully means I can make a printed version down the line.

I do know some do page format but then modify it for scroll so I'm still on the fence how I will approach it. But A good back log is key to being able to do more regular updates.