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Considering Recap Options for Earlier Chapters
🕑 Added 2025-11-01 00:32:24 +0000 UTCI'm planning to at least have a go at writing recaps of early EGS chapters.
I don't mean in the style of "hello, I'm John Wikipedia, behold my reputable sources," but rather recaps done in my best attempts to make them entertaining for new and existing readers.
(Not that Wikipedia isn't entertaining. I'm just referring to a more informal style!)
Depending on how well tests of that go—I'll be trying the basic writing part out either way—I will consider more elaborate options such as including new illustrations and short comics.
If I go down the bonus illustrations and short comics path, however, I will most likely need to make those images between EGSNP storylines, and those breaks would potentially be longer than they would be otherwise. I'm not certain the breaks would be longer—it's possible planning ahead would prevent that—but I consider it probable they would be longer.
Which is why I'm bringing this up here. I'm wondering if there's much interest in such recaps, and whether there's enthusiasm for them including illustrations (keeping in mind that there'd potentially be larger gaps between EGSNP storylines at times).
As this is very much a thought in progress, I don't have any more specifics to give at the moment, but I'm interested in people's thoughts on it.
Comments
Maki
I have been reading the comic since the early days and I can still vividly remember some plots but not all of them. Having a little recap to precede new chapters might be helpful for new readers or those of us old farts who are starting to have trouble with our memory. On a side note, have you ever considered putting EGS out there again as a paper comic? There are two Keenspot paperbacks which were released and which I have sadly never managed to obtain. Perhaps a little introduction of "What happened in the previous comic"-style introductions could work both for the site and such a paper (or e-book) release format?
Dan Merget
I agree with Chronos Cat: recaps wouldn't help me personally, but they could be useful for new readers. I find it hard to recommend a series by saying, "I know the early chapters aren't as good, but it gets better later." IMHO, this series started hitting its stride with the "Grace's Birthday Party" arc, and everything from "Sister 2" going forward still holds up very well. So I think recaps would mostly be useful for the story arcs prior to that point. If a new reader doesn't like "Sister 2", I doubt they'd like the rest of EGS.
Chronos Cat
If the goal is to refresh the memories of long-time readers, some might find it helpful, but I doubt it would benefit me personally all that much; I remember the early comics quite well (thanks to rereading them many times), and for the more recent stuff I usually find your links in the commentary sufficient. However, If the summaries were geared to new readers, it could be huge. One of the weak points of EGS has long been that the earliest strips aren't up to the later quality, and there's no good jumping-on point once it does get good where a reader doesn't risk being confused due to missing out on important story beats. Either way, I don't mind you taking the occasional longer break from NP, so long as we're talking no more than a few weeks (or maybe a month or so) at a time every so often. I'd hate to see another multi-year gap between strips!
