alias_sqbr | First Draft of Homestuck Panel Notes

What is Homestuck

A webcomic in the style of a computer game. It starts with four teenage friends getting into the beta of a Mysterious Computer Game... at which point the world starts ending and they realise they have to beat the game to survive.

Started as just the latest in a series of relatively niche webcomics by Andrew Hussie on his site MS Paint Adventures. Each was in first person and used audience vote to decide the answer to questions like "What do you do next?" to create a surreal and disjointed story.

As the story grew more ambitious and complex and the audience got larger he stopped directly asking the audience for direction but there's still a very interactive vibe. It's become a complex narrative involving time travel, aliens, paralell universes as well as pop culture references and seemingly random humour that all makes it's own weird kind of sense.

The main format is static images with text descriptions or chat-style dialogues, but there are also animations and minigames combining music, programming, and art from an ever expanding pool of talent.

A more thorough summary of the plot and background:

(insert summary here, not TOO spoilery but introducing main characters and themes for the curious)

(a bit about Problem Sleuth, then how and why Homestuck got so popular)

Things that are noteworthy about the webcomic:

It's VERY LONG: over 6000 pages!

The multimedia format. The animations and games aren't just minor digressions, they're often really long and complex. It also uses hypertext to allow the reader to choose which order to view parts of the plot in, and plays around with the medium by breaking the fourth wall and messing with the links themselves.

(You can buy it in book format but I'm pretty sure it doesn't capture the experience)

Lots of interesting queer, female, and disabled characters, though they are not always written in the most thoughtful way.

It's very complex: A non linear narrative with time travel and alternate versions of events and MANY different points of view. Has been compared to Ulysses.

Manages to include fannish opinion/new ideas/random injokes while still holding together pretty well as a moderately consistent if weird story.

A huge range of tone: will flip between surreal humour, horror, tragedy, heartwarming friendship and long dry exposition without warning. You never know when to take it seriously: the death of a major character will be played for laughs, while ridiclous meta humour will turn out to be deadly serious (like the evils of the Betty Crocker corporation)

The way fans with an interest in art/design etc get drafted into the creative team, and then are able to spin off their own albums/merchandise etc from that. This can cause drama eg the characters are drawn in a very stylised way and Hussie has said they can be whatever race/body type etc the reader would like them to be, but "official" art tends to draw them as all skinny white people. The line between fan and creator is blurred at the edges, though Hussie is still in overall creative control.

(More direct examples of how fan interaction affects/has affected the story, aside from the limited official fan artists/musicians (although this could be a little spoilery maybe?) eg Tavros and PM)

Things that are noteworthy about the fandom:

Huge: millions of people looking at the site at once has been enough to crash hosting sites for animations etc.

Creative: Beyond the typical fanfic and art there's computer games, webcomics, original music and remixes (other stuff?). Fans can be a bit evangelical and obsessive.

There is going to be a Homestuck game made by the Homestuck creative team, the kickstarter raised 2 million dollars.

Has had an influence on webcomics eg that webcomic whose name I can't remember >.>

(Tumblr’s role in everything
Fan communities (e.g. Perthstuck) and what they do)

Advice for anyone thinking of getting into it:

Personally I think you should just read it from the start, but the first few acts are very slow and a different tone to the rest, so some people reccomend starting in Act 3 or even Act 5 and then going back to read the start later if you feel like it. There are summaries and wikis to help you keep track of characters and plots (which you will probably need even if you don't skip anything).

The comic changes constantly. The current tone, point of view, plot etc is going to change so don't get too attached (but if it's currently annoying you wait it out and things will probably improve)

Hussie is a massive troll and will piss you off at some point (either in the comic or something he says beyond it). He's become more thoughtful as time's gone on but still likes messing with fans epecially when they bug him for details about canon. Always take anything he says with a grain of salt and expect him to post updates in the most deliberately infuriating way possible.

Questions/discussion

Any criticism/advice etc? It's possible the comic will actually be over by then which would change the nature of the panel but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I already have some co panelists but if you're interested in being involved contact the programmer.