Erfworld, a web comic by Rob Balder and various artists, is no more.  Rob and Linda Balder announced the permanent end to Erfworld as a webcomic as a result of a string of personal tragedies.  You've probably never heard of Erfworld.  I wouldn't have either except that I follow with another web comic, Order of the Stick (OOTS) which you've also probably never heard of, and they hosted Erfworld's first book.  Both are continuous stories set in separate fantasy worlds.  Both sites had a supporters option that would give the subscribers extra access.  That isn't for me but I tried to be a good citizen by purchasing the "hardcovers" of each book when they published for both of them.

OOTS has been fairly consistent with new releases and has been going strong for 10 years, although one does wonder if there will ever be a conclusion to the story.  Erfworld was always a problem child with periodic "tragedies" that prevented anything close to a release schedule for new panels.

I follow several web comics, most of which are the "funny comic of the day" variety but all but the two above are through Go Comics.  I'm not sure it's worth following a new episodic web comic knowing that it may go on for years or just shut down one day.  I know these gig artists look their noses down at the old syndicated newspaper comics (of which Go Comics is just the electronic version of) but Garfield is still going strong and I don't even know if Jim Davis is still alive (he is, I just checked).  I do know that it doesn't matter either way as he has a whole studio of people churning out various Garfield property.

I'm wondering if we're seeing the first death knells of independent web comics.  I'm also wondering if I even care.

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs