Let Me Tell You About HomestuckFollow

This is the internet's equivalent of a pandemic, based on what I've seen, and it's high time we have a thread about it.

So, what is Homestuck? Well, it's a web comic. Kind of.

Remember those text games, where you would input the commands and either get a "command not available" error, or the character would Go North or some crap? Well, the series before Homestuck, Problem Sleuth, started when the author would take the very first command posted on the forums, no matter what, and make it cannon and draw/animate it (each page is a single .gif image).

As the story evolved out of that mess, he began picking and choosing commands to better fit where he wanted to go. Eventually, Problem Sleuth finished. It was awesome, hilarious, and still well worth a read.

Soon after, the author started Homestuck, this time still using the text game mechanic, but he's the only source of commands, giving him full control. You know, like a typical webcomic author. He's done some stuff a lot of other webcomics haven't, though.

Like include a freaking soundtrack. That is actually epic.

Every now and then, at certain points in the story, instead of the typical panel the author will do a full flash animation. No voice acting, but very awesome music. (He doesn't do the music himself, he actually has a whole music and art team for the animations)

Anywho. Story. The story follows a boy named John, first showing him on his 13th birthday, the 13th of April. He and 3 friends soon start playing a game that's a lot like the Sims, except he and his friends are both the Sim and the editor of the environment. From there it evolves into a homage to 8-bit games, RPG mechanics, and a massive overarching plot with epic scenes and holyfreakingcrapamazing animations. It also updates with a running average of 5.5 pages a day (though not at the moment, see below).

If you've heard the name Homestuck somewhere on the internet before, it was probably someone gushing about it, and for good reason.

Start here.

You know a work is popular when the TV Tropes page has had to be split into 8 pieces because it's just gotten too damn big.

By the way, now would be a good time to read Homestuck. I neglected to mention above that it is HUGE. Considering one page typically = one image with often a large chatlog, or an animation, Homestuck recently broke 6000 pages. The author is taking a break to get some stuff done at the moment, so there won't be updates until November 11th. Between Skyrim and Homestuck, I'm actually thinking Homestuck would win. The fandom accidentally killed the Newgrounds servers a few days ago, but that's another story.

Edited, Oct 28th 2011 2:47am by IDrownFish

I just finished Problem Sleuth after about 4 days of on-and-off reading. Wow. That was epic. And hilarious. Awesome find! Gonna start Homestruck... maybe sometime next week, when I have more time

It was a cool webcomic before its author decided doing webcomics blows and he's only going to release animated movies every two months. I just can't muster the enthusiasm any longer.

You're right about it being a plague though.