Ross Campbell, the creator of Wet Moon stopped by to comment on Qiana’s post about comic series and endings. I thought I’d reprint his thoughts here.
great essay, Qiana! and thank you so much for giving some attention to Wet Moon for it, i appreciate it. :) i feel like serial comics ending is something i rarely see people talking about, or when they DO end everyone just kinda shrugs or is sad or says “the ending sucks!” but they don’t get more into it than that.
not to focus too much on my own work here, but i feel like at this point there isn’t any ending to Wet Moon that will ever be satisfying, regardless of whether it ends at volume 8 or volume 30. there will always be something unsatisfying for readers, and i wonder if other cartoonists who do serial stuff feel that way about their work, too, and maybe because of that they’re scared to end it. i’ve actually never really ended anything i’ve ever written, even seemingly standalone books i’ve done were meant to have sequels that got canceled and never happened, so i have no idea what it’s like to END anything. part of me is excited to finally come up with an ending to something, but at the same time it feels scary and sad.
i think i half agree with Vaughan’s quote and half disagree. i feel like some stories definitely need endings, i can think of a lot of serialized stuff where i wished the ending would happen or that it happened sooner than it did, it always sucks seeing a story you love peter out. but on the other hand i also like stuff, particularly TV shows as i don’t read a lot of serialized comics anymore, that go on and on without an ending in sight because it can create a nice “lived in” feeling and i like following characters when there isn’t a big plot looming over them and when the story doesn’t seem to be in any rush to get somewhere. it’s not comics of course but i’m really into Grey’s Anatomy and it’s about to start its 11th season and i’m loving it more than ever, and after watching 10 seasons it’s like you live with the characters and being a drama show it never ramps up to some epic plot or confrontation or something, so it feels satisfying to just leisurely live in that world with the characters. since there’s no big plot and it’s more about exploring the characters and having fun with them, if it ended abruptly i don’t think i would mind that much because there isn’t really anything that NEEDS to be resolved. so in that sense i don’t agree with Vaughan because i think there can be stories that narratively don’t need endings and are better for it.
Grey’s Anatomy is actually a fascinating example. I remember watching the first few seasons with my family, and back then, I felt like I approached the show through larger story arcs. Like the Denny romance, or whether meredith and John would ever get together. GA was major water cooler conversation, especially in high school. I don’t think any one of my friends imagined it was going to go so many seasons, (it makes sense now,) because these major arcs and love triangles couldn’t sustain themselves for a long time. Has the show turns into more of a procedural? Have other procedurals started with big ‘will they or won’t theys?’ to hook their audience? And petered out? I know one comics example– Inuyasha by Rumiko Takahashi.