So let's say, hypothetically, that you've gone to your favourite webcomic's site only to see last Friday's update still on the page and a message in the blurb saying "Happy New Year, see you tomorrow!". Assuming it's not mid-April, you don't exactly stop to ponder. "That makes sense," you think, "after all, webcomic artists need holidays too!" and you move on. There's nothing wrong with that, right?
Well there's nothing morally wrong with it, but something isn't quite right. The artist took New Year's day off? But doesn't this webcomic automatically update at midnight in its local time zone? Obviously the comics are drawn at least the day before, and possibly weeks in advance! So what's really going on?
Well, it's hardly malicious. When something that would have updated or aired on a holiday doesn't and was obviously created earlier, it simply means the creator took a different day off — or they used the day they would have written the holiday comic to write the next one instead. It's hardly rude not to provide services on a holiday when people expect things to be closed down, but it could easily be considered rude not to update in the middle of next week when the buffer is short an entry because the creator took Easter off. So long as there isn't a Schedule Slip when that date hits, no one will really care which day the actual break was taken, and your favourite artist get a rare break when it's at least slightly more convenient for them. D'aww.
Examples:
- Dinosaur Comics likes to do this.
- Far Out There completely inverts this. Special
holiday pages are posted in between regular updates, resulting in more updates rather than fewer. The only time holiday pages actually replace regular ones is Christmas, and that's because the comic (which usually updates twice a week) posts new material every day for nearly two weeks straight. Clearly, someone doesn't understand the meaning of "Holiday Break".
- GirlGenius: Tends to upload a Christmas or Halloween themed image of the characters if the update schedule lands on those holidays rather than a proper page.
- Gunnerkrigg Court has done this exactly once so far. Readers visiting the site on January 1, 2010, expecting the Chapter 26 title page, were instead greeted by this.
- Leif & Thorn has done a Christmas update, about the comic's in-universe winter holidays.
- A Moment of Peace actually tends to update more often during the holidays, though it generally does so with errata and amusing randomness. The website itself tends to come out looking prettier as well.
- The most recent page of Starcommand was posted two days before Christmas 2009.
- Web Video example coming from Zero Punctuation:
"Oh, what the fuck are you doing here? It's Christmas! Haven't you got families to resent? This is my one week off, I'm going on holiday. (Beat) That's summer holiday, by the way. Hope that northern hemisphere's weather's working out for you."
