History Main / GuestStrip

* ''{{Webcomic/Avalon}}'' was once advertised in the Keenspot newsbox as featuring "the most comics drawn by other people."
* In the twelve or so year history of ''PennyArcade'', the need for a guest strip has only come up once, after a PAX convention where the artist came down with swine flu (and then only because he was physically incapable of lifting a pencil to draw). The illness was incorporated into some of the strips.

* For some reason BillTheBarbarian has a '''truckload''' of these.

* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' had [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?arcid=61 a week of them]] after the Painted Black arc and [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2006-10-02 another]] after the Birthday Party arc. Dan has done [[http://litbrick.com/comic/rapunzel/ three]] [[http://litbrick.com/comic/gatsby-shive/ of]] [[http://litbrick.com/comic/gatsby-shive-2/ them]] himself for LitBrick.
* Inverted on ''TheWordWeary'': After weeks of asking for guest comics and presumably getting no replies, John Kossler, the author, made three guest strips for himself and posted them under different names. At the end of the week, he [[http://wordwearycomic.blogspot.com/2011/10/9-october-2011.html admitted as such.]]

* ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' had [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?arcid=61 a week of them]] after the Painted Black arc and [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2006-10-02 another]] after the Birthday Party arc. Dan has done [[http://www.litbrick.com/comic.php?date=2011-01-08 one]] himself for LitBrick.

* ''{{Dilbert}}'' had [[http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Guest%20Cartoonist a week of guest strips]] in 2003.

A Guest Strip is a [[CanonDiscontinuity Non-Canon]] episode of a webcomic that was not drawn or written by the current authors of said webcomic. Due to the communal nature of the Web and webcomics culture, this is much easier to organise than in other media. It is, perhaps, ascended FanArt.

Usually, guest strips are posted as FillerStrips, and entire "Guest Strip Weeks" are often invoked by webcomic authors when they need back surgery, a week in Tahiti, or a chance to attend a [[FanConvention Con]]. Other comics, usually dailies, post a guest strip on Sundays in lieu of an elaborate SundayStrip.

* Inverted in the case of {{xkcd}}'s [[http://xkcd.com/141/ Parody Week]], where Randall Monroe drew five [[TheParody parodies]] of some of his favourite webcomics and posted them as part of his own webcomic.

* ''FiveColorControl'' uses them occasionally.

* ''ElGoonishShive'' had [[http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?arcid=61 a week of them]] after the Painted Black arc and [[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2006-10-02 another]] after the Birthday Party arc. Dan has done [[http://www.litbrick.com/comic.php?date=2011-01-08 one]] himself for LitBrick.

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<<|WebcomicTropes|>>

* Inverted, in a way, in the case of {{xkcd}}'s [[http://xkcd.com/141/ Parody Week]], where Randall Monroe drew five [[TheParody parodies]] of some of his favourite webcomics and posted them as part of his own webcomic.

* And now, a NewspaperComics example: the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_strip_switcheroo Comic Strip Switcheroo]] of April 1, 1997, where 18 pairs of cartoonists drew comics for each others' strips as an April Fools' joke.

* ''{{Dilbert}}'' had [[http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Guest%20Cartoonist a week of guest strips]] in 2003.

* DinosaurComics has a guest week once a year or so.

* AndShineHeavenNow has never missed a day in part because every break on the author's part is filled with guest strips. This has the interesting effect of limiting the length of any hiatus to the number of filler strips the readership can be coerced to produce.

* Inverted, in a way, in the case of {{xkcd}}'s [[http://xkcd.com/141/ Parody Week]], where Randall Monroe drew five [[TheParody parodies]] of some of his favourite webcomics and posted them as part of his own webcomic.

Nearly '''all''' webcomics have done this at some point.

!!Unusual Examples

* In the twelve or so year history of ''PennyArcade'', the need for a guest strip has only come up once, after a PAX convention where the artist came down with swine flu. The illness was incorporated into some of the strips.

* ''{{Webcomics/Avalon}}'' was once advertised in the Keenspot newsbox as featuring "the most comics drawn by other people."