If I happen upon a Penny Arcade, or an xkcd, or a Basic Instructions, I find myself reading the entire archive. I am a bit of a completist, so I’ve finished the Noob, Nodwick, etc. relatively soon after discovering them. Other comics such as Monty, Tom the Dancing Bug, or Foxtrot, I enjoyed the archive as far as it went back (about a month) and have kept up ever since.
Most of the time. There is a current thread going on Order Of The Stick which caught my eye. After reading a few pages, I jumped back to the beginning and read 496 installments in 3 days! I did the same thing with PS238.
The only one I can remember reading in its entirety is Questionable Content, though I’ve read considerable chunks of xkcd, Dinosaur Comics, Perry Bible Fellowship, Wondermark, and Sinfest.
I’ve read several in their entirety. xkcd, CTRL+ALT+DEL, many Keenspot-hosted comis, such as Two Lumps, Count Your Sheep, No Room for Magic, Candi, Boxjam’s Doodle, etc.
Pretty much always.
I always start from the beginning when I find a webcomic I like. I usually finish them in their entirety in a day or two (add another day or two for really long ones). I find I can’t maintain interest checking on them regularly, so I then wait for several months and then catch up on them all at once again. I really don’t like following them at the slow trickle they update at.
Comics I really liked, have read in their entirety and still check up on:
Queen of Wands (completed)
CRFH!!! (took me over a week each time to read the archives)
Casey and Andy (discontinued)
xkcd
Questionable Content
Lore Brand Comics
Cyanide and Happiness
Perry Bible Fellowship
Ctrl+alt+del
Ones I liked, have read in their entirety but don’t really keep up on:
Roomies/It’s Walky!/Joyce and Walky (also took a while)
Shortpacked!
PvP
Penny Arcade
I know I’m forgetting several, and there are some I can’t remember the names of. Has anyone read that one about the two robots traveling through the solar system? At one point one of them gets stranded in space in the asteroid belt, and the other one comes back for him 12 years later with a motorcycle gang?
Yes I do. I hate coming in on the middle. Right now I’m trying to work through Something Positive’s archives.
Took a while, but I finally caught up with Schlock Mercenary
Same with Ctrl + Alt + Del
I always plan to, but unless I discover it after its defunct, or soon after it starts up, I usually give up after a few updates and just follow the new strips, occasionally jumping back to the archives if I feel like it/need to to follow the new strip.
Yep, I don’t recall ever getting in on the launch of a webcomic, but when I find one I like I go back and read the archives
I am current on:
Order of the Stick
Scary Go Round
Perry Bible Fellowship
Thinking Ape Blues
Penny Arcade
Dresden Codak
Yes, I generally read all of it, although it may take me a while to complete it. Those I’ve read all of include 8-Bit Theatre, Looking For Group, Goblins, Schlock Mercenary, Girl Genius, Ghastly’s Ghastly Comic, A Miracle of Science,and VG Cats.
I’m partway through others, but intend to finish them eventually.
I’ve read Kevin & Kell, A Doemain of Our Own, and Misty the Mouse in their entireties. Misty’s entirety is no longer online, Dutch changed hosts a while back and has yet to make the old strips active.
If they’re interesting enough…so, mostly no.
I’ve read the entirety of David Hopkins’ Jack. He’s been writing it long enough now that you need the backstory to get a lot of stuff.
Most of the time, yeah. When I find a new strip that looks interesting, I go back to the beginning and read forward. Sometimes I get bored and dump the strip completely. Sometimes I find real gems, like PBF.
I have gone on some serious archive treks that way. It took me a while to catch up on Sluggy Freelance and Kevin and Kell (I started reading them both in 2002). Megatokyo took a while too, but I think it flows better if you read it about once a month. (I need to reread the last chapter because I have no clue how zombies started storming Tokyo and why what’s-her-name is now magic.)
I like catching strips when they first get started best, though. I started reading Something Positive pretty soon after Choo-Choo Bear first appeared, so I didn’t have much to catch up on. I started reading Friendly Hostility, 5ideways and Punch an’ Pie* from the beginning–no catch-up required!
*Although I may drop this one soon. The main characters are starting to piss me off.
Nope. I don’t have the time. I read a few comics online, but I’m pretty busy and can’t go and read the back stories.
Yep. Selections from my current reading list:
Penny Arcade – I didn’t need to go back for this one, I started reading it at Loonygames.
Schlock Mercenary – about 4 or 5 days of catching up.
CTRL-ALT-DEL - less than a day to catch up.
Goblins – new favorite, spent 2 days catching up then ordered the book.
Order of the Stick – a day or two catching up.
Questionable Content – 2-plus days working through the archive.
The Adventures of Dr. McNinja – found it through Questionable Content, spent a couple days reading 3 back issues.
Magellan – spent 2 days catching up.
Hero By Night – 2-3 days to catch up.
xkcd - 2-3 days to catch up.
Looking for Group – 1 day to catch up.
What tends to happen is I stumble upon a new webcomic and flip back to the beginning and read a few. If I like it, I keep reading. If not, I’m done.
I always end up going back and reading the whole archive, generally before reading the current comic. Makes the pacing a little difficult to get used to when you’ve read the entire archive in one day, then need to get used to one strip every couple days.
I’ve done that for Order of the Stick, Two Lumps, Questionable Content, Girl Genius, and a couple others like Penny Arcade that I didn’t end up keeping up with.
Most of the webcomics I read (Order of the Stick, Erfworld, Nodwick, Punch n’ Pie, Breakfast of the Gods ) are ongoing stories, so it only makes sense to read from the beginning. As for the standalone ones (PartiallyClips, Full Frontal Nerdity, XKCD) – if it’s worth reading some of them, eventually I get around to reading all of them.
Every time. After I read a few comics to determine if it’s good enough to be worth my time, I read the entire archive. Sometimes I’ll go out of my way to avoid a new webcomic, because I don’t have the time to read the entire archive.