r/comicbooks • u/Marksman1977 • 1d ago
Question Other than Monsters (2021) by Barry Windsor-Smith which was made over the course of 35 years, are there comic books / graphic novels that took a long time to be published?
I’m fascinated by this subject for some reason. Maybe it’s because it speaks of the passion and perseverance of the artists and the struggle to see their work in a published form. Do you know other examples?
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u/TheoryOld4017 23h ago
Nonplayer #1 came out in 2011. #2 in 2016. The artist just showed new pages for #3 this month. It’s a planned 9 issue series lol.
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u/Mekdinosaur 11h ago
Imma gonna be dead by then...but the grandkids are gonna love that collected edition.
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u/chudleycannonfodder 20h ago
Swamp Thing 1989 was started in 1989 but only completed and published this year.
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u/confusing_roundabout 19h ago
Was that when DC blocked the writer from publishing an issue about Jesus, then they finally let him finish it this year?
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u/MPOSullivan 20h ago
Rather famously, Games, the Teen Titans OGN by Wolfman and Perez took nearly 30 years to complete. As I recall, about half of the book had been completed during their original tenure on NTT back in the mid 80s. Wolfman experienced extreme burnout in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths and some projects just sort of fell apart, Games being one of them.
Perez kept his pages, which were shared around here and there over the years. Games became a bit of a legend in the NTT fan community. Finally, Wolfman got his groove back and work was rejoined, and the book was completed and published back in 2011.
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u/darksideoflondon 20h ago
Similarly, JLA / Avengers (which is the reason Games was finished), began in the 80’s and came out in the 2000’s. My Absolute edition is one of my most prized comics.
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u/DontEatMyPotatoChip 16h ago
The original ‘80s era JLA / Avengers was never completed and ended up being cancelled.
The newer version was by Kurt Busiek and did feature Perez art.
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u/darksideoflondon 10h ago
In 1979, Gerry Conway wrote, and George Perez drew 21 pages of a JLA/Avengers crossover.
According to Perez: “Back in 1983 we came close. I actually drew 21 pages of a JLA/Avengers one-shot, but company politics and editorial wrangling torpedoed the project before I ever put pencil to paper on page 22.”
Much of that art is in the second book in the 2007 Absolute edition, a lot of it was owned by Rob Liefeld who loaned it out for photographing for the Absolute version.
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u/spookyhappyfun Jamie Madrox 21h ago
It took Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie about sixteen years to finish Lost Girls.
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u/youllmeltmorefan 1d ago edited 23h ago
Jack Katz's First Kingdom took 12 years to publish its 24 issues. 1974 to 1986. Then he worked on sequels until he died in 2025. There's still like 800 unpublished pages.
Cerebus the Aardvark is gonna be your GOAT though for something continuous. 1977 to 2004. 300 issues. Not all good, but it's an example of perserverance.
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u/howboutthemapples Stephanie Brown Batgirl 22h ago
Cerebus is also fascinating in that, because of the back-of-issue stuff, you can chronicle what's going on in Dave Sims's brain as the comic goes on.
It's not a FUN exercise, but it is fascinating.
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u/the_hefty_lefty Savage Dragon 20h ago
Savage Dragon has been ongoing since 1992 (even further back if you consider the fanzine/Megaton appearances canon) and is currently on issue #281. The series takes place in (relatively) real time and Erik Larsen has consistently written, pencilled, and inked it since its inception. There are even some issues where he handles the coloring and lettering, covering every aspect of the book. While not the uniform masterwork that Monsters or Asterios are, Dragon is a great chronicle of a cartoonist's evolution over (almost) an entire career and a blast to read.
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u/goodwithcolour 15h ago
Not really the same thing imo, it’s an ongoing comic rather than a single continued piece of work.
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u/the_hefty_lefty Savage Dragon 15h ago
Sure but the same could be said about some other comics that have been mentioned here (Cerebus, for instance). It's continued in that it's been one story told by a single author over time but there have definitely been completed arcs and periods where progression is pretty contained within each issue.
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u/washington23 14h ago
Maybe OP can elaborate on what they meant, but I read it as a project that was started and remained unpublished in any format before it was finally released. OP's example of Monsters and Teen Titans: Games would be good examples.
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u/the_hefty_lefty Savage Dragon 14h ago
I don't disagree with you about OP's intent, but when I saw other people bringing up similar long running series, I figured I'd throw Dragon into the mix.
I guess one that fits into the conversation a bit better would be Time Squared by Howard Chaykin. I think only 2 out of 3 issues got released from Eclipse and it wasn't properly finished until the hardcover collection came out a couple years back.
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u/washington23 10h ago
I'm gonna have to check that out. I think I had the 1st issue from back in the day. Really dig a lot of his stuff.
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u/Affectionate_Comb_78 1d ago
Order of the Stick began in 2003 and is currently on it's final volume. It's expected to wrap up around 2028.
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u/Shed_Some_Skin 23h ago
The rate Rich is putting pages out at the moment I'd be surprised if it's done before 2030. There's still a lot to wrap up
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u/DP9A 22h ago
Honestly, I'm impressed it's wrapping up at all. I was sure it whole cutting the nerve of the thumb thing was going to be the end, but somehow all these years later Rich is still going. Slowly, but still going.
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u/Shed_Some_Skin 22h ago
Honestly at this point there are some people who suspect he might be stringing it out a bit because he's worried his Patreon income is going to fall off a cliff when it's finished
Which I can't totally find it in my heart to hold against the guy, he's got a family and he needs an income. But I can't say it isn't frustrating to see the frequency get lower and lower. We're lucky if there's only a fortnight between strips these days. Often it's longer.
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u/DP9A 20h ago
Eeeh, the pace has been slow since like 2015, I stopped checking it frequently many years ago. Also at this point Rich is getting old, the art has gotten more complex and he was already getting slow with the previous art style, peoplr are free to think he's stringing then along, but imo anyone expecting something different to happen isn't being realistic.
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u/Shed_Some_Skin 20h ago edited 19h ago
There's a breakdown here on pages per year from a couple of years ago. It's very clear it's slowed dramatically over the last decade. In 2015 it was still almost weekly (45 strips that year). 2024 had just 21.
He's also not that old. He's only 52 at this point.
The art has been upgraded though, I'll give you that. His layouts and compositions are generally more complicated. It is, to at least some extent, a matter of quality over quantity. And it's still a very good comic, it's not like the writing has fallen off over the years.
It's also not the entire story, as he does work on patreon exclusive content on the side. So he's producing more pages in a year than are published on the OotS site
But yeah, it's slow. That reddit post suggests early 2031 as an end date, based on the fact this will be the longest book by probably a fairly wide margin. I don't think another 4 and a bit years is unrealistic, that's probably going to be around another 80-100 pages. I certainly don't think it's going to be finished inside of 40-50 pages, which is what he'd need to do to finish it before the end of 2028 at his current rate
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u/CyramusJackson 18h ago
Planetary. Issue 1 was publisted in 1999. Issue 27 was the last issue and came out in 2009. Counting the Planetary/Batman crossover, which I'm only counting because its by the same creative team of Warren Ellis and John Cassaday, that's a total of 28 issues over 10 years.
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u/Titus_Bird Manhog 20h ago
Not quite as long, but here are a few that took a fair while:
- "Blood of the Virgin" by Sammy Harkham (~14 years)
- "The River at Night" by Kevin Huizenga (13+ years)
- "Big Questions" by Anders Nilsen (10+ years)
- "Maus" by Art Spiegelman (10+ years)
- "Black Hole" by Charles Burns (~10 years)
- "Ultrasound" by Conor Stechschulte (7+ years)
And those are just things where the finished work is a cohesive "graphic novel". If you wanted to count sprawling series, you could get much longer, like "Love and Rockets", which started in 1981 and is still going (that’s 45 years and counting).
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u/ZombieZekeComic 1d ago
If you consider manga, Golgo 13 has been going on since 1968. The author died in 2021, but the manga is still going on without him I think.
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u/Own_Internal7509 23h ago
i dont think that counts, that one has been serialized weekly, its like saying Spider-man is still going and takes long time to finish lol but in this case, Monster was technically in existence since 80s considering BWS had the idea for the Hulk with an abusive dad
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u/Jetpack-Guy 22h ago
Dave Stevens sporadically made new Rocketeer stories since 1982 and wanted to keep doing it until he passed in 2008. In the end, there were only 8 issues.
Similarly, there were only 15 issues of Peepshow that Joe Matt published from 1991 and the last one was posthumously released this year after he died in 2023.
A lot of these super indie one man show series just take a really long time...
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u/Blackpoll01 19h ago
Jason Lutes' "Berlin" took him 20 years to complete and is a 600 page omnibus masterpiece!
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u/LegalEaglewithBeagle 14h ago
How long did it take for Kevin Smith to finish Spider-man/Black Cat mini??
6 issues in four years is ridiculous and it was 3 years between books 3 and 4 alone.
Its why I will never pick up another Kevin Smith book
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u/Shed_Some_Skin 23h ago
Tom Siddell's webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court has been running since 2005. It's probably approaching some sort of conclusion, although it's not clear exactly how far off the actual ending will be
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u/beast79- 22h ago
Scud the Disposable Assassin from Rob Schrab took almost 25 years to finish as there was a 20 year gap between issues 1 - 20 & 21 - 24
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u/Free_Butterscotch253 22h ago
Saga has been running for 14 years now. It's not even 3/4 done. Vaughn has said he started working on it in his childhood, so early eighties? It's unclear whether actual art has started in 2010 or 2011
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u/detourne 23h ago
I know it took John Byrne only about 4 years to make X-Men Elswhen, but I'm sure the ideas had been stirring around his head for forty years.
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u/Typical-Practice360 19h ago
The brilliant Planetary from Ellis and Cassaday took 10.5 years to complete its 27 issues.
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u/KingxCrimsonx 18h ago edited 18h ago
Berserk. He started writing the book in 1989 and famously died in 2021. He wrote the story for 32 years. The book was unfinished when he died and according to interviews he probably had another 10+ years of story to tell
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u/BoredomFestival 16h ago
Still waiting on Miracleman to be finished. Guess that'll never happen now. Fuck you, Neil.
Would be nice to imagine that Big Numbers would be finished someday but that's definitely never gonna happen.
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u/justintheplatypus 7h ago
This is different since it's a movie, but it also reminds me of Mad God by Phil Tippet who was an old ILM stop motion artist for movies like Star Wars. It was a stop motion film he worked on for decades. Most terrifying film I've ever seen. I got nightmares for weeks and I couldn't even finish the movie I was too scared.
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u/johnjaspers1965 16h ago
Faust: Love of the Damned.
Started in 1988. Took something like 30 years to complete 15 issues.
Almost 40 years to get collected.
....
And it is a masterpiece.
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u/MisterRonsBasement 19h ago
Jason Lutes’ “Berlin” took 26 years, one comic per year, then released as a single graphic novel.
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u/disposable-assassin 16h ago
Battle Angle Alita is on year 36 and still going. First published in 1990 and 4 different titles (original, Last Order, Mars Chronicle, Panzer Kunst Chronicle) but Alita/Yoko is the main character in all four and they are a continuous cannon except the last few chapters of the original being retconned so Last Order could happen.
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u/RiotAct55 11h ago
Warren Ellis' Shoot storyline from Hellblazer. Was supposed to be published in 1999 but was pulled as Columbine had recently happened.
Ellis walked off Hellblazer and Shoot wasnt officially published until 2010.
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u/hondobrode 8h ago
Frankenstein pen and ink graphic novel from the 80’s took Bernie Wrightson 8 years
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u/3rd_Try_Charm 5h ago
Mage The Hero Discovered 1-15 (1985) Mage The Hero Defined 0-15 (1998) Mage The Hero Denied 0-15 (2017) Matt Wagner
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u/suddenvole 17h ago
Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie.
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell.
Hmmm...
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u/phthoggos 20h ago
Every single graphic novel — especially those made by one or two people — is a Herculean effort of sustained labor over a long period of time.
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u/gosukhaos 23h ago
Mazucchelli took the better part of 20 years to finish Asterios Polyp from initial concept to eventual publication