What's your stance on these? When the artist is running late on an update or something and they post a little picture and say "place holder" when a full comic should have updated.

On one hand, it's still nice to get something. On the other hand, people were expecting a comic, not a single picture. Also, this can be used to up your page views when readers have to go back to your page whenever you upload the final comic.

Opinions?

I think if you're going to be late, you should let your readers know. (Be it filler or a news post) But I also don't think filler updates ought to be left in the archive if you use them regularly. They should be cleared out and put in a gallery page once your regular update is up, or maybe in a few weeks. (I know I have one filler pages in my DrunkDuck comic... I knoww...) I do filler over Christmas and I leave it up until mid-January... it's nice to post fanart and nice to have the little break, gives my die-hard readers something to look at. But I don't think they should be left there just because they disrupt the reading experience.

Metruis
I think if you're going to be late, you should let your readers know. (Be it filler or a news post) But I also don't think filler updates ought to be left in the archive if you use them regularly. They should be cleared out and put in a gallery page once your regular update is up, or maybe in a few weeks. (I know I have one filler pages in my DrunkDuck comic... I knoww...) I do filler over Christmas and I leave it up until mid-January... it's nice to post fanart and nice to have the little break, gives my die-hard readers something to look at. But I don't think they should be left there just because they disrupt the reading experience.

I'd agree with that. The question of fan "entitlement" is a thorny one. I don't agree with those who believe readers have a "right" to receive new pages on scheduled update days (so don't fret about what they're "expecting"!) but, at the same time, you should treat your online readers with the same courtesy and respect as any of your real-world friends.

In practice that means yes, if an update is going to be more than a day late, it is a good idea to post something to let readers know. As Metruis suggests, however, once the real page goes live, it's probably a good idea to delete the filler (or move it elsewhere) because filler pages can be very annoying for those readers who prefer to read the comic in chunks or for anyone who joins the comic later and is reading through the archives to catch up.

Leaving the filler in place just to boost page views is, I think, a bad idea. In practice, it will make little or no difference to your comic's overall ranking and the annoyance factor may even lose you fan or two!

I generally use filler as just a way of saying "I'm not dead and I haven't stopped making this comic; I'm just really busy right now." Since I don't have an update schedule, I only put filler up if I feel it's been too long since the last page and I know it's going to be a little while until the new one's finished.

hmm....this comes just after I used exactly that type of filler for my friday update. I was rather proud of the way the filler looked so I left it up when I truly updated this morning.

I'm not a hater of fillers that actually look decent. If it is all scribbly and ugly, then, yes, I'd say delete it. If it looks decent though, I'd say it is up to the author.