Retcons. Have you done one?

[VinnieD]

Let's face it. Very few of us have started off with everything we end up doing already planned. Some of us start off silly and turn serious, others just want a simple action comic but as it keeps running the plot has to get more complex so you have to wedge meaning into early stories that wasn't originally there.

So what retcons have you pulled? Furthermore did you go back and change the original or leave it intact and explain it away later?

[Bustertheclown]

For the most part, I actually do plan out and let my stories gestate before I show them off. I'm not one of those meandering storytellers; I don't like to start a story unless I know it's at least going to end. That's one of the reasons why I've always updated my various webcomics so sporadically over the years. I think of my works more globally than a single page at a time.

Although, I will tell you that a current character, Stuart Tickman, used to be a stick man named Sticky, who I created about fifteen years ago, and used to help myself get a stronger grasp on graphic storytelling about seven or eight years ago. I liked the narrative I'd created with that exercise so much that I've begun to revisit it, and do it better justice than poorly-drawn stick figures. So, Stuart was created. Check it, yo:

Sticky, circa about 2000-ish.

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Stuart, circa about six months ago.

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[[geoduck]]

Way back when I started my comic, it was mostly "toss out whatever goofball idea that comes to me", giving little thought to background or planning. Then I moved to CG (then Keenspace) rebooted and redrew all the early strips. And plot started creeping in. And more plot. And I started working out a consistent backstory for everything, masochistically based on the older goofball stuff. And more plot. And more world-building. Sigh.

After coming to CG, the only time I went back and actually replaced stuff was scrapping the overt fourth-wall-breaking piece of hackneyed tripe I originally started with.

[Redtech]

I was tempted to create a "show off your worst" thread, but the thought of diving into my archive terrified me. I haven't retconned ideas, but I pick-and-choose what works and what didn't. I don't plan on going back and re-doing the art or story (which I felt was far weaker) although the temptation is quite strong to visualise what may have been.

Could always compromise and just use an everyplot or flashback or something similar.

[Fishies]

I once almost did.

I'd decided I had too many male characters. So I figured I could change two I'd just introduced into girls. But a friend said "no I think the redhead is hot " so I didn't.

Oh wait, I did once. I decided Ince was an older woman a few pages after she was introduced because of the 'too many guys' thing.

So sometimes I change people's sex. Snip snip.

[Cope]

I had to redraw a panel once to conform with a costume redesign, but that's about it. I prefer to work with the continuity I've established, no matter how much of a contorted mess it's become. Redrawing stuff seems too much like work.

[Toxic]

I retconed on the fact that I draw a comic.

[McDuffies]

No retconning that I know of, usually I have at least a vague plan of important things I intend to do in the future, and on occasions I wrote entire thing before starting to draw it. Retconning is a clear sign of wannabee-writers underestimating how hard writing is, and overestimating their own limits.

[Pimpette]

I have never gone back to change any strips from P&A... but with some later storylines I've come up with more complex plots than what it started with (basically inside jokes and "tee hee implied penis"). Recently we discovered that a drug ring was being run in the back of the nightclub, and I took one of my first strips about a random kid shooting a cop for no real reason... and turned it into something relevant.

I treat P&A like a solo jam, really. I make it up more or less as I go along - I do have vague storylines and partial scripts for future strips, but for the most part I write each page as it comes. I'm having a lot of fun rewriting it for the print version, which I consider the "good copy" of the comic. And I'll never go back and delete or replace the old online strips... simply because some of them are just too hilarious.

[Dr Legostar]

nope, no retconning, i just change my work as I go along. If i retconned now it would be horrendous to go back and deal with all the comics, it'd just be easier to start over.

[TheSuburbanLetdown]

Nope. My outline is skeletal, but I know where I'm going with it. I also have the final scene written.

[RobertBlake]

Not that I know of. I try my best to maintain some semblance of continuity in my comic.

[Dragonkingdoms]

I've considered doing a retcon to remove a cameo before because the author of that comic was an ass, but I decided against it. (It's none of you guys)

[VinnieD]

There's more ways to retcon something than simply rewrite the past mind you. One of my favorites is the "Cerebus Retcon" wherein a writer expands ideas and incorporates new ones. It's actually quite common in webcomics even the big ones like Sluggy Freelance. Early wackiness is explained later on, given reason behind it not originally present, and smooths out the transition from a simple comedy driven comic into a story driven comic. It can be a good thing when properly executed making the whole work more consistent with its self.

Of course we're often used to Retcons being a negative thing because of their use in popular media where writers disagree with one another, or the writer just changed his mind, or maybe the next writer just plain didn't like the previous one and sought to wreck up his work.

For instance some bad retcons we're used to.
Spiderman A new day. Completely erased everything Spiderman has ever done post teen years, and undid some very brave storytelling from Civil war.

Castlevania: When Koji Igarashi took over as the producer of the Castlevania series he deleted pretty much the entire body of work of competing development team KCEK and the team was shortly after dissolved. This retcon was so unpopular with the fanbase that Igarashi actually retconned his own retcon restoring the majority of the games he deleted from the series timeline. A point still of contention on Castlevania discussion boards.

But there are some positive retcons as well, and the best examples are in webcomics if you ask me. My personal favorite was Bunbun's origin being retconned from a 4th wall breaking introduction of a talking mascot for no apparent reason to actually being the result of a time loop in the "Oceans Unmoving" story arc concluding with Bunbun meeting his past self from before meeting Torg, getting kicked out of timeless space and ending up in a pet shop with no memory where shortly after he was purchased by Torg.

And if that hurts your brain good luck diving through ten years of Sluggy archive.

[Dr Legostar]

according to tvtropes I'm guilty of Cerberus Syndrome, but i don't know if it's a Cerberus Retcon.

[Terotrous]

Well, there's a story I've been developing most of my life that has never really seen print which is constantly altered and expanded in my head, but that doesn't really count.

Comic Creatorz had a comic that was about retcons, and I think there were a fair amount of comics in "How Not to Run a Comic" that were about it, too.

The continuity in most things I write is pretty loose.

[Turnsky]

personally, i'd like to do some retconning, but that'd involve a LOT of redrawing

[McDuffies]

But there are some positive retcons as well, and the best examples are in webcomics if you ask me. My personal favorite was Bunbun's origin being retconned from a 4th wall breaking introduction of a talking mascot for no apparent reason to actually being the result of a time loop in the "Oceans Unmoving" story arc concluding with Bunbun meeting his past self from before meeting Torg, getting kicked out of timeless space and ending up in a pet shop with no memory where shortly after he was purchased by Torg.

And if that hurts your brain good luck diving through ten years of Sluggy archive.

If that storyline hurts your brain, that's just because Pete Abrams is pulling a prank on you.
Bun Bun's "origins" have no impact on basic Sluggy Freelance universe, it's one complicated thing that is ultimately not very important. Banging your head over it too much is like trying to figure out importance of Torg Poter in Sluggy Freelance continuity.

In any case, any plot change that is a result of an afterthought is bound to be contrieved.

[Cortland]

I didn't come up with the idea of having a certain villain in my comic unmasked until I'd already been drawing it for a year or more. By that time, I'd already established the character a bit and had to rewrite some dialog from a comic where he blows up a little Macintosh. He originally said, "Let's see if you really do have autographs on the inside." Early Mac computers come with embossed autographs of the original Mac development team on the inside (and I've seen them myself). Since I decided later to have this character revealed to be a certain someone who would most certainly know that there were autographs on the inside.

It's a minor thing, but I always wondered if this was how George Lucas got started "fixing" with his original Star Wars trilogy.

[VinnieD]

That's a pretty clever one there. Though retcons can be done just as well without changing existing comics but rather offering new explanations for past events. When done badly they're glaringly obvious and obnoxious. When done correctly it looks like you planned it all along.