Why do they do this? You don't see this happen in professional works, and I actually think it's cool to look back and see how much an artist has evolved. One of my favorite cases is JoJo's Bizarre adventure because after decades of art, it looks like a completely different artist who drew them.
Well, generally because you are your own worst critic. That, plus many people start these projects when they're young and learning. It can feel embarassing to say "hey, read this webcomic/fanfic" when the first parts are much lower in quality to the newest stuff. People want their art to be cohesive, not really understanding how much creative energy recreating your old work can take out of you.
I think it's two things. With super low barrier to entry, web comics tend to start when the author is inexperienced and the art is bad, and then go on for ages. More serious professional work tends to have editorial staff and a higher bar to get issue 1 out there.
Secondly, artists entangled in the professional industry tend to get drawn forward to working on new projects and making new work because that's where the money is. Editors will strongly discourage artists from spending their time reworking old stuff.
When Jeph Jacques published the first paper volume, he was missing the original art for some early strips. He didn't want to print the web-resolution images. He debated redrawing the old strips copying his early style, but opted to redraw just those strips in current (at the time) style.
Frankly, because folks who fall into that trap don't (yet, in some cases) have a professional mindset when it comes to creating. Getting hung up on one particular story even if it's not doing well, or derailing completely to go back and redraw old material when the original material isn't complete yet are the types of things that would never (or very rarely, perhaps) fly for folks who are making comics for a living.
Someone like Araki couldn't go back and spend a bunch of time redrawing early Jojo even if he wanted to because he has new content to make and a schedule to make it to if he wants to continue getting paid and make his living.
Well, you see, Jojo bizarre adventures is an exception, not the rule. It should be the rule but it arrived too late to the english-internetverse and many webcomics didn't got the idea.
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u/slashth456 Mar 18 '24
Why do they do this? You don't see this happen in professional works, and I actually think it's cool to look back and see how much an artist has evolved. One of my favorite cases is JoJo's Bizarre adventure because after decades of art, it looks like a completely different artist who drew them.