Research ToDo List

Research Influences

TexTalks CS inspiration in Homestuck


Homestuck is a multimedia webcomic.  It is a story told many ways.

Static images, animated gifs, flash movies, flash games, internet chatlogs, face to face dialogue, website alterations, music albums, first person, second person, third person some say even fourth fifth and sixth person.  Homestuck uses a lot of different formats to tell a story.   Homestuck is an experimental comic that changed how it was presented constantly but the one consistent strand was always the author himself, Andrew Hussie.


Who is Andrew Hussie?  He's some turbo nerd with a computer science degree and an insane work ethic.


Who is Huss?

He's a man of many talents

-Artist

---A.I.D.S. / Neon ice cream headache / Whistles and the starlight Calliope

---His hissy fit about the Volume 7 John arm looking goofy.

--Allegedly his goofy arm was an artistic choice due to the windy thing but Hussie got oddly defensive about it.  Same with when he did the Huss Nasty art style (which I liked!  The Rose one had an awkward facial expression is all)

-Long-time webcomic creator

-Team Special Olympics

--S_O and his 'edgy' comics where he lampoons racism

-Penny Arcade Forums where MSPA style originated with JAILBREAK

-CS Degree

---Influence on the captcha system

---Programming jokes (^cake, ~ath)

---[Computer science in the worldbuilding of Homestuck TexTalks video]


(Do some research on these influences)

Hussie's influences

-Terry Pratchett

--Discworld

-Mark Twain

--Huckleberry Finn

--Andrew Hussie himself

References to things Hussie himself has done

---Wizardy Herbert. He wrote a few chapters of a sarcastic comedic wizkid story but abandoned due to finding it too similar to Harry Potter.  Repurposed it as a story Rose writes in Homestuck.

-Lil Cal taken from S_O comics

-MNC repurposed from an old feature where you could donate money to MSPA and he'd draw panels.

Hussie's personality

General interaction with fans (A lot of this feels like early internet 'don't be so serious' stuff that really died out in 2010 forward when the internet became a more safe space)

-Soul portrait

--Olive Garden "I refuse to ever set foot in Olive Garden"

----People give him a $200 olive garden fund that Hussie spends on a soul portrait from some asshole.  Hussie then makes his own 10x better soul portrait.  He's making fun of some mentally ill guy because its 2008 internet and no one cares.

-Horse painting

-His back and forth exchange with the horse painting guy and haggling the price.

--The start of "lol horses" (Big muscley freaked out monsters that we put a seat on and ride)

-Formspring answers

--Homestuck Fat Camp

--"Your son disgusts me"


MSPA Work

Hussie's projects under the MSPA flag prior to Homestuck

Jailbreak

--MSPA faux text based adventure game originator on PA forums

Bard Quest

--Early experimental take on MSPA formula

Problem Sleuth

--First real story

---Hussie had an idea for the story but would adapt it to curveballs that fan inputs would give him which kept the story interesting to himself.

---Ran for about a year and Hussie started putting together Homestuck as he was finishing Problem Sleuth

Homestuck Beta 4/9

--Experimental 100% flash

---Way too much work.  A fun what-if world where Hs was in flash and MUCH shorter sticking to the original idea.



Youtuber TexTalks theorizes that a lot of Homestuck stems from the authors interest in computer science and Systems of Organization.  Captchalogue data structures, stable time loops being a series of game flags setting certain events into motion, The universe being inside of a biological Genesis frog, the frog's immune system being Cherubs (travel across the galaxy and destroy dangerous materials and clean up the area)


In comic inspirations -> religious story = sufferer



Dirk is a close self insert of Hussie (Formspring -> 'I guess Dirk is the closest to myself')

-AR being a reminder of Dirk's 11 year old self representative of Hussie seeing his earlier work and being embarrassed of it?  Possible but not likely.  It could be representing his feelings towards Homestuck being a pretty bad story in the end.  Dirk is embarrassed of what he made AR into as he got older while AR was always there as an 11 year old version of himself.


Tools the author uses

-Callbacks and references

--Bluh bluh, reusing art assets, jokes repeating, motifs repeating, entire universes repeating actions.

Homestuck's universe repeats itself over and over either directly or adjacent.  Rose's wizard story, Roxy's wizard story, Calliope's fanfiction stories.

Multimedia


Actual in comic writing techniques

---Retroactive Foreshadowing

The author would litter the story with open ended questions.  He would introduce a concept let it sit in the middle of the scene, and continue on his merry way.  He'd then come back later on in the story and elaborate on the item and make it fit into the story.  He would retroactively make an item important to the plot and twist it into foreshadowing.

 - Example: Lil Cal.  Andrew Hussie in the book commentary stated he knew Lil Cal would be important and wanted to make him stand out.  But he wasn't sure how he would be important.  Lil Cal started as a creepy puppet with unnatural glass eyes that Bro would use to torment dave which was a reference to the old S_O comics from Team Special Olympics with the name Lil' Cal.  Later in the story Lil' Cal would be carried around by various characters until Hussie could find a good use for him.  Cal ended up being part of Doc Scratch, the soul juju that holds LE, and being used to cause John's 'clownophobia' which leads to John drawing clowns over his bedroom wall, which leads to the harlequin being dropped into the sprite, jack having the harlequin aspect, tying around to the subjuggalators being clowns.  Things happen to make past events seem as if they were Kojima style ruses planned years in advance.


--Audience Input

-Pantskat, pandering,