My experience is somewhat different. I've found "webcomics" with weekly release schedules to have sprawling stories that are reminiscent of the first draft of a novel. A lot of times the few arcs are good, but then it loses coherency around 100 chapters in. With the better ones, either they had a planned ending (usually close-ish to chapter 100) they stick with or it's like a very good first draft of a novel series where the author carefully planned out the most important setting details and plot points.
I started to give a lot of examples, but I realized people in this comic's discussion thread probably don't care about that. We tend to have fewer English translations of Chinese works, compared to Korean or Japanese, though. There are still low coherency Japanese works coming out, but it's easy not to read them when there's so many options.
With Artificial Temperature, I'm mainly caring about the relationship between the lead / Android, the edgy prison setting, and how they escape it. What we're seeing is like if Piers Anthony with Cyhthon decided to switch part way through the prison arc into detailing why the protagonist was thrown into a pit on a prison colony planet, starting with the parents' upbrining and how that relates to intergalactic politics. A lot of Piers Anthony's works don't hold up well now, but at least he knew how to stick to the parts of storytelling he did well.
last edited at Nov 15, 2025 11:39AM