The timing of finding media to consume

So, there are those who like to be at the forefront of discovering new books, comics, movies, and shows to watch; new media to consume, I guess is what I’m saying.

I am not one of those people.

No, I prefer to discover something after it has been completed. I like book series that have already been completed, comics that have all been written, television series that have already had their grand finalies. To find something after it has been completed means that you are spared two of life’s great annoyances. First, you do not have to worry whether this new interest of yours will be completed. You know either that it has been completed, or that it never will be. Either way, you are spared the suspense and agony of, say, Robert Jordan dying. Second, you are spared the agony of suspense, and of waiting.

Now I know there are perhaps some aged folks reading this who may say that waiting and anticipation builds character, and there are things that I would agree with them about. Finding your perfect job or soulmate. Working your way through something until you have the breakthrough that brings true understanding. These are forms of waiting that are essential to the human condition. Waiting for the next installment of your favorite webcomic, however, does not instill character. It instills needless and possibly fatal frustration.

Thus, one of the reasons that the Hyperion Cantos has become perhaps my favorite series of all times is that I was able to read it in its entirety when I first discovered it. It helps you absorb and understand the story so much better when you complete it all at once.

Ironically, my chosen profession and much of my preferred past time (reading things on the intertubes) is in direct opposition to the prefence of not discovering things until they are complete. You see, the internet spreads information, and it does it very quickly. Thus, when new talent arises, the denizons of the net spread the word VERY rapidly. Even when you discover something late, you usually discover it long before it is ended. So it was, this last weekend, with my discovery of Looking For Group. I read through all the back archives…and now I’m left waiting like a starving child for the writer’s semi-weekly handouts.

Now, given that this is the web, it’s entirely possible that this comic will never have an end. Either it will stop, mid story, never to continue, or it will go on for the entire span of my life. But wouldn’t it be nice if it was just a story that was done, and I could read it, and know the whole arc of the story? As a curiousity, not really on either side, I do have a web-comic I read, Ctrl-Alt-Del, where the author claims to know what is going to happen with his whole story arc. Perhaps that is a web comic that will have a discrete ending. And that would be a wonderful thing.

I mean, life works in such a way that you have to wait for the story to end, and most of the stories are ever-going and never ending. Why should my entertainment have to work the same way?