Retcons. Have you done one?

[Rkolter]

I have retconned in Reasoned Cognition when someone has pointed out a serious problem with one of my answers or when new data comes to light that makes my current answer incorrect.

But that's me answering a science question, not a fantasy story. I have a real hard time swollowing retcons in stories, particularly stories that I have really gotten to know the characters in. I would rather see the writer come up with a way around the dilemma, even if it is a bad way around in the writer's mind, if I as a reader don't know there's a problem that needs a retcon, I'm likely to accept the path the writer comes up with.

[Jekkal]

None so far!

Thanks to the "luxury" of a buffer, I do sometimes get the ability to slip additional pages into the stream before they post, but that's more editing than retconning.

And while the designs of certain characters have changed a bit, it's more a matter of artistic evolution /new outfits than a specific change.

[Phact0rri]

no not really. I routinely change hair styles and clothing. but I doubt yer talking about that at all.

[Inshue]

If by "retcon" you mean "completely restarted my comics more times than I can count," then, yes. It's something I'm trying to avoid right now, though. Although, I moved my comic to a different URL recently, and I must admit I've redone several pages so far, and plan to do a few others. But once I get to where I have a more solid script, I don't think I will anymore.

[Metruis]

But that's me answering a science question, not a fantasy story. I have a real hard time swollowing retcons in stories, particularly stories that I have really gotten to know the characters in. I would rather see the writer come up with a way around the dilemma, even if it is a bad way around in the writer's mind, if I as a reader don't know there's a problem that needs a retcon, I'm likely to accept the path the writer comes up with.

Which is why, for Between Places' retcon, the only real alteration is that I'm altering the order of the pages and only redoing what's necessary to make those scenes flow into one rather than being disjointed into 2-7 page scenes, like I was doing in the beginning. I gave myself this to work with, I have readers, I'm not stopping updates in the current time (now chapter four) in order to change chapter one and two's ordering... and all it does is sort of make the beginning slightly more coherent. My "retcon" basically involves stitching all the scenes with one character into one scene, taking the other scenes and rearranging them to fit that narrative pattern. The first scene needed a few new pages to make that coherent and to change the way I'd cut from scene to scene, so it got those and no new ones. (I'm in the middle of that right now) All of the original "data" is staying. Anyone who decides to only read the original can keep reading and they'll still make sense of what happens, it just means the beginning happens in a more logical, less cut and jump around way.

Plus, the original-original archive's staying up on ComicGenesis for anyone who feels that the original way is the best way to read through it. Woo. (It's not. Trust me. I didn't know a thing about comics when I started. Hah.)

[SailorPtah]

I went the lazy route. A couple of years ago I had a time-travel storyline, which ended with a complete reboot of the timeline. So all the inconsistencies and plot holes in the strips up to that point can be explained away with "That didn't actually happen."

I've thought about redrawing some of the early storylines to explain the canon-compliant versions of those events, but realistically, it's never going to get done. I've just tried to be more careful about continuity since.

[Lostmind]

I have been considering it, I'm always changing my characters look and age. When I started I didn't have anything really planned but as I keep going I added bits to my characters past that now I don't like or find conflicting with what I want to do. So maybe I will.

[Deathbringer]

The new version of Felney, which is on my own site rather than CG, was intended to "revisit" the first few strips and show "what really happened" (Originally the two other characters just appeared at a house and decided to live there, in the new version they are looking for somewhere to live and pay rent). I also updated the main character to reflect my very altered political alignment.)

Then, like somebody else in this thread, i retconned the fact i did a comic, and so it's stuck with the very start of the pencils for the last "previously on Felney" strip sitting around waiting to be finished... for 2 years.

On a non-CG front my boys' own comic Eugene Manx got completley re-started when i decided to put it into print, it also took quite a different direction, with the name of the minor first-story villain in the original version becoming the name of the big bad guy in the new one. Well a name like "August Karven" is far too good for only the one episode!