Monday, November 28, 2016

A Horizon of Jostling Curiosities: Homestuck and Form RELEASE


Homestuck made headlines in 2012 when it earned 2.5 million dollars to fund the creation of an adventure game based on the series, but few commentators were equipped to discuss the most remarkable part of Homestuck's success:

Homestuck was arguably the first truly successful hypercomic, a comic that can only exist on the web.

A Horizon of Jostling Curiosities analyzes Homestuck in the context of the new hypercomics boom that it inspired. Containing newly revised and updated versions of five articles from Storming the Ivory Tower on Homestuck's formal techniques, the book places them alongside brand new and exclusive reviews of works like Awful Hospital, Ava's Demon, and Neokosmos, digging into the techniques and technologies that make these comics possible. 

Laying out the history of hypercomics for the first time, this book is an essential read for anyone looking to better understand why Homestuck is successful, and the possibilities that its formal techniques offer.

You can instantly access the fully illustrated ebook of A Horizon of Jostling Curiosities, as well as my previous three books, through a $5 subscription on Patreon, or access the text draft for just $1. Additionally, becoming a backer gets you loads of other perks:

$1 Backers: Prequel Adventure Review

Is Prequel Adventure a story about making a cat cry, or is it more a story about coming together to dry her tears?

$1 Backers: Ruby Quest Review

Ruby Quest is uneven as hell, but might it offer a glimpse into an emerging rhetorical mode for fiction?

$1 Backers: Neokosmos Review

Could Neokosmos represent hypercomics becoming the most attractive medium for professional visual storytellers?

$1 Backers: Ava's Demon Review

Does Ava's Demon represent the future of how hypercomics are produced?

$1 Backers: Alastere Review

Does a JRPG actually need an active player at all to tell its story?

$1 Backers: Awful Hospital Review

Does Awful Hospital's blending of form and theme surpass even that of Homestuck?

$3 Backers: Sleuth And His Problems

In this StIT Podcast, I ramble in dazed fashion about Problem Sleuth and get distracted by researching the entire history of HTML development.

$2 Backers: Original Art

Download the original Krita file I used to paint the cover image!

FREE: Problem Sleuth Review

Problem Sleuth, Bard Quest, and Jailbreak may not be as renowned as Homestuck, but they helped put Andrew Hussie on the cultural map. But is Problem Sleuth really a comic? Or is it a game? Or a hypertext? Or is it something else entirely?

$5 Backers: A Bodyless and Timeless Persona

$5 Backers: A Horizon of Jostling Curiosities

1 comment:

  1. I'm not sure I should ask here but... I'm pretty sure my epub reader is making wonky things to the images of the HS collections as I change its window size. From changing the disposition of two images in the same page (Red's laughter in the Ruby Quest section from being on the same row to the same column) to arbitrarily divide a series of them in two different pages (The I'M ALREADY THERE speech) to leave gaping voids in some pages (the Paradox Space section begins with the title in an otherwise blank page/blank page/two John staring at each other/blank page/caption and remainder of the text). Is there a recommended (and possibly free) epub reader and/or setting that lets me enjoy the books as Keeper designed them? Consider that it's the first time I use epubs.

    Thank you in advance.

    ReplyDelete

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