One thing many comics struggle with at some point in their lifespan is the issue of complexity. This can take a number of forms: growing ensemble casts, increasing number of plot points, artistic complexity, and combinations of these. While growth is an important aspect of any comic, complexity can easily grow out of control and strangle a comic until only the richness of the archives remain to show how the comic went wrong. Nor do they occur alone. Comics can suffer from increasing complexities in artwork and growing cast numbers, or more often a cast growth and an increase in dangling plot points.

Few comics manage to survive long without increasing their cast at some point. Even such notaries as Count Your Sheep have had minor animal characters appear to supplement the antics of the core three members. However, the longer a comic runs, the greater the chance of new cast members appearing to add new plots into the existing story. Character Complexity Syndrome is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you. The problem lies with using new characters to deal with a lack of story ideas.

Think of the character as akin to a vein of precious metal. It starts out rich and helps stimulate the economy. But the longer you mine the vein, the greater the chance of the vein declining in quality. If this new character was actually carrying the story due to what he or she brought to the picture, the comic itself starts to falter. Further, relying on one or two new characters can result in shifts in the direction of the comic, which can alienate fans of the old cast, who have often been relegated to background detail while the new person takes center stage.

Perhaps the oldest example of this trope exists with Sluggy Freelance. The comic started out about the antics of two men: Torg and Riff. Within a year, the cast has ballooned out to include Gwynn, Zoë, Bun Bun, Kiki, Aylee… and the sad thing is, this trend has continued. Fortunately the character growth rate leveled off, but new characters keep cropping up like weeds (and a number have been cut down, either to vanish unseen for years or literally killed in an increasing number of cases).

Sluggy Freelance is an excellent example for the second form of complexity in comics, though it’s not even the biggest offender in this: an excess of plot baggage. If you look at the number of completed plot points and compare that to dangling plots… and you’d find that there are a heck of a lot more incomplete plots in the comic than completed ones. When you factor in the number of completed plots that have some twist allowing for old “completed” stories to reappear… and suddenly that difference becomes far greater.

Indeed, one of the most notable offenders of spontaneously reemerging plots would be Dominic Deegan which in the span of three comics took the completed stories of Celesto Morgan and the Infernomancer and dragged them out of the twisted landscape found in the center of the Universe and returned them to the world. (For that matter, DD is another of those comics that suffers from Character Complexity Syndrome, among other problems.)

Often Character Complexity Syndrome and Plotline Complexity are intertwined. The more characters a comic has, the more potential plots are available. Few stories ever truly end, so it’s tempting for writers to leave loose ends dangling while new plots start to emerge. The problem happens when these plots are abandoned or ignored in lieu of the new stories. Eventually it starts to weigh down on the comic and cause continuity issues to arise.

This problem happens more often with unplanned comics than those with set storylines. Once characters have established themselves, the number of potential stories declines (which is also a reason for ensemble casts… the larger the number of characters, the greater the possible plotlines to indulge in and the more backgrounds can be developed in shaping what stories each member of the cast can contribute). For stories such as Alpha Shade or Garanos, the existence of a set story creates a narrow focus for the story… but in turn becomes incredibly liberating and often reduces the chances of dangling plots or increases in cast size just to allow for different stories.

This is not to say story comics with a set start and end are immune to complexity issues. It is easy to in the story-writing process to let things run out of control or to forget several plot points; fortunately, the editing process can often catch these problems before they get too out of control. But a third complexity issue that few comics can avoid is that of Artistic Complexity.

If you look at a number of comics, you’ll find that the longer a comic runs, the better it looks. I don’t care how good an artist is; the increased practice that comes with regularly putting out artwork will help improve an artist’s skills. One of the ways this will manifest is decreased time in creating a comic. What once took three or four hours to draw may take one or two hours to draw. While I never quite got to that stage in my own artistic endeavors, I can grasp the next few steps, though it may not be the same for every artist.

The cartoonist very well may feel a sense of guilt, like they’re robbing their readers of something. They’re not putting as much work into the comic, even though they’re still putting the same level of effort into it. They feel they owe their readers. So they succumb to the temptation to increase the complexity, by adding crosshatching or shifting to a color format. And from there, new levels of complexity lie just a step beyond, tempting the artist to, since they’re already putting in that extra effort, to do just one more thing. Thus soon after colors are added, shading appears, along with highlights. Lens flares and other photoshop effects will often make an appearance as well as the cartoonist gets carried away with the sheer potential that comes with these tools.

The problem is that each new increase in complexity tends to quadruple the time it takes to do the comic. Artists need to start keeping track of colors and the like, including skin tones, hair color, eye color, specific pieces of clothing… and so forth. There’s an added expense as well in purchasing software tools that can be better utilized in adding graphic effects to the comic. And then of course there’s the process of learning these new tools… and before the artist knows it, they’re spending more time working on the comic than when they first put out that initial strip.

Before the artist knows it, they’ve missed an update. Something comes up in real life and the comic has to take second billing. And there’s immense guilt that comes with missed updates (and I know this part quite well, having gone through it with the Tangents webcomic, as well as with this review site). The temptation then is to apologize to the readers with something special… often an increase in complexity for an update. And once that genie has been released, it’s nearly impossible to bottle again. Thus the comic takes longer once again, and more updates are missed.

A comic that originally may have taken three or four hours an update is now taking upward of nine hours. Productivity has slipped. Updates are missed. Readers are grousing. And what was a work of love becomes just work. A number of comics at this stage succumb to hiatus as the artist takes a break… and then finds it increasingly hard to return to a comic that just isn’t fun to create anymore.

The best example I can think of in this is El Goonish Shive, which even now is mired in the mud of increasing artistic complexity. The list of artistic complexities include shifting to a full-page format, utilizing computer-generated backgrounds to allow for more consistency in backgrounds, shifting camera angles, shading and highlights in greyscale, and most recently plans to shift to flat colors. (Ironically enough, Dan Shive had been talking about shifting to a black and white art style, but after fans stated their displeasure over the style he promised to color the comic instead.) I can easily see what’s coming next. Highlights. And increased shading. After all, once colors have started, why not add extra effects?

EGS has been on a one-month hiatus. It also has shifted from a daily format to updating maybe twice a week. But I could easily see EGS going monthly as Shive keeps piling on extra artistic complexities to make up for missed updates.

This is not to say that cartoonists should avoid complexity in their artwork and storytelling. The secret is to pace these improvements. Conclude plotlines when they’ve outlived their usefulness. Bring in new characters when it makes sense, rather than for the plot potential. Pace artistic improvements. Take things one step at a time.