#technological influence

@elgnart, original artwork, “Self Labyrinth”, 2025

Whether or not Andrew Hussie consciously made the decision to follow in the footsteps of previous hypertext authors, hypercomics have a place in Homestuck’s technological genealogy. Just like comics have a place because they introduced the conventions for storytelling through sequential art, the creation of hypertexts and hypercomics using the affordances provided by the Internet paved the way for Homestuck's existence. For more information on hypercomics, you can visit the wikipedia or read the posts (here and here) by Sam Keeper about Homestuck’s relationship with hypercomics on Storming the Ivory Tower ( @stormingtheivory ).

In the first of the aforementioned Storming the Ivory Tower posts, “Hyperstuck: Homestuck, Kickstarter, and Experimental Comics,” Keeper examines Homestuck’s place in the hypercomic genre and its use of hypertext tools, many of which we mention in this genealogy, such as multimedia affordances and the benefits of reader participation.  Hypercomics, by definition, utilize these or similar elements of the Internet to make texts that are fundamentally tied to the Internet.  Hypercomics cannot be printed without altering the experience of reading the text. Homestuck falls into this category, although as Keeper and other comic theorists point out (in this post, for instance), other elements of Homestuck make it difficult to categorize as a comic at all, which complicates attempts to couch it within a genre. But Homestuck’s flexible nature, both in its obstinate refusal to stick to the conventions of one genre and its experimental use of Internet affordances, are significant factors that distinguish it from other texts, even those that may have anticipated its existence.  Although Homestuck is following in the footsteps of other hypercomics, it does so in a way that blazes a new path for itself, refusing to limit itself to previously established conventions and sometimes even its own.  Keeper provides a deeper analysis of Homestuck’s experimental nature and Hussie’s artistic and technological choices in making Homestuck in “[S]A6:A6:I1: Homestuck vs Tech Demos, or How To Write Hypercomics Like A Boss.” 

Another point of interest in Keeper’s articles is their examination of the role pop culture references play in Homestuck’s success as compared to other hypercomics.  Since part of the goal of our genealogy is to identify and discuss these references, it is interesting to note how they factored into Homestuck’s notable success.  This observation is in line with our discussion of the cultural elements of remixing at play in Homestuck, which draws on significant cultural shifts in media-making and the nature of creativity and storytelling.  As this cultural shift is also directly tied to the Internet and its role in reestablishing R/W culture, it seems fitting that this aspect of Homestuck would take it beyond other hypercomics as a text that fully embraces the Internet in its creation.

According to Hussie on the mspaintadventures’ FAQ page, only one panel in all of mspaintadventures was actually created in MS Paint, and that panel was the first of Jailbreak, one of Hussie’s earlier works.  The stylistic influences of MS Paint can be seen throughout all of Hussie’s works, however, in the pixelated lines and shapes of most of his artwork.  

All of the panels of Homestuck, except those that required Flash (and the few panels of Caliborn’s claymation masterpiece), were constructed in Photoshop, as stated by Hussie on the FAQ page.  This includes the .gif images that pepper the narrative, which were animated in Photoshop as well.  Hussie states in the FAQ that although MS Paint was a stylistic influence, he needed Photoshop’s ability to organize layers for his art, which is understandable, given the complexity of some of his images.  He also frequently repurposes and remixes images for props and backgrounds, which is not an undertaking anyone would want to attempt extensively in MS Paint.  Photoshop as a tool for shopping photos lends itself to a significant and somewhat underappreciated aspect of Homestuck, as Hussie’s use of pre-existing images in his art is undoubtedly a crucial component of his unreal upd8ing speed.  Therefore, we not only see the more obvious influence of Photoshop as the literal tool Hussie uses to build Homestuck, but we also see its more general and cultural role in popularizing and simplifying the digital collaging and shopping of photographs and images, which in turn influenced the collage-like art style Hussie sometimes employs to build his environments and parody various aspects of pop culture.

Homestuck was originally released in its beta form as a text created entirely in Flash, but Hussie found the program to be too difficult to use for the entire text, so Homestuck was re-released using Photoshop as the main art program of creation.  Making all of Homestuck in Flash was originally meant to enable more interactive elements to appear, and if it had been used for the whole comic, the line between Homestuck’s status hypercomic and video game would have been further blurred.  Flash is still used to create most of the longer animated sequences in Homestuck, which allows Hussie to incorporate music into the text as well.  Animated sequences are often used to mediate pacing, ramping up tension and pace during a pivotalmoment.   The incorporation of music and short animated sequences is a huge element of Homestuck that sets it apart from other texts that combine static art and prose, and the infrequency of the Flash animations also sets it apart from animated texts such as cartoons.  Arguably, the inclusion of music also strengthens readers’ engagement in the narrative, since musical themes are often repeated in reprises that heighten dramatic moments and build attachment to characters and themes.  Flash was also used in the creation of the mini-games and walkarounds.  Perhaps the most well-known Homestuck Flash animation is [S] Cascade, which infamously funneled so much traffic to Newgrounds, the popular Flash animation site hosting it, that the entire site crashed.  A list of all current Homestuck Flash pages can be found on the wiki.

Homestuck incorporates influence from role-playing games in a variety of ways.  For background information on RPGs, check out the wikipedia article.  While Hussie likens himself to a text-parser in this interview, here he refers to himself as a Dungeon Master for his readers, which suggest there’s a good amount of RPG influence in the construction of Homestuck.  Rather than having a direct impact on the form Homestuck takes, however, RPG influence is more present in the story.  The game Sburb involves many elements common to RPGs: non-player characters, classes and aspects, fraymotifs (powerful attacks, mentioned here by Hussie the character and explained in more detail on the wiki), boss battles with powerful denizens, class-specific quests and puzzles, customizable weapons and items, experience-point based leveling (the echeladders), in-game currency, and the list goes on.  On top of these elements of RPGs, which guided the creation of the fictional game Sburb, tabletop RPGs and LARPing also factor in the creation of the trolls.  [S] Make her pay., an important conflict that greatly affected the plot, happened because of an incident related to LARPing, and several characters are also generally influenced by LARPing and tabletop RPGs.  Without the tropes and conventions set by RPGs, both live and digital, Homestuck would be a significantly different narrative, one that probably would not be able to capture the complexity and richness that Homestuck possesses in terms of lore.  And Homestuck would also probably be significantly less marketable and relatable to fans who obsess over their claspects.

In the early days of Homestuck, it was strongly modeled after text based adventure games.  Some more information on text adventure games can be found on wikipedia.  For Homestuck, readers would submit commands, like they would in a text adventure game, and the command would yield a result.  In this interview, Hussie describes himself as the text-parser for the readers’ commands, and he also mentions in this interview that this interplay between himself and readers created a lot of the absurd action that takes place in the early acts.  These acts are of course the ones that most readers have difficulty with when they begin to read Homestuck, and Hussie speculates on this topic in this interview: 

He also mentions in this interview that this method of storytelling, in which he took commands from readers to create the story, had to be retired after a year because of the unmanageable number of readers and suggestions he was receiving.  But on top of that reason, he explained that the narrative itself had developed needs that couldn’t be met through this style of storytelling: 

We can see in this explanation the ways in which Homestuck defies category or genre even while it parodies texts from fixed categories or genres, as well as the technical questions that arise when constructing a new genre of fiction.  Even though Hussie did choose to move away from the text-parser style of storytelling, some conventions stick around; for instance, “Character: Be another character” is still a transition often employed to change scenes (except when characters refuse to allow you to “be” them, which is clear example of the parody aspect of Homestuck).  Text adventure games continue to be a strong influence on Homestuck, despite the changing needs of the narrative.