Homestuck

Homestuck is an interactive webcomic started in 2009 that talks about a 13 years old boy named John Egbert and his friends playing a mysterious video game called Sburb. This video game causes an apocalypse and the group of friends will need to rely on each other to make it through all the adventures they have to face up and to win the video game.

This webcomic was one of the most successful ones of the past decade thanks to the interactivity and the animated images, opening a new world for the latest webcomics. As said previously, this webcomic is a particular one as it has a lot of GIFs and animated images that create a sort of movement to the story and makes it possible for the reader to actually “participate” and “interact” with the story [1].

The comic is also said to have an infinite canvas, which is described as an infinite and limitless space that is available in digital comics; in this case, Homestuck is considered to have it and to prove it is that it has, in every new page, a button that leads always to another page of the comic, making it looking limitless [2].

Plus, this webcomic is really convenient and is one of the most famous ones. As most of the digital comics, Homestuck is completely free as is online and has an own website; but the difference that makes this comic unique and different from the other ones is that it had a really big success also with the printed versions too; actually, Homestuck has four different, separate books. All of these books can be bought online and a link in the website is provided for the purchase of these. Yet, the fact that the comic had this big success with the printed books doesn’t cover the fact that the digital version of it is inimitable, but actually makes this version more noticeable, as the animations and the interaction are not possible for the book readers and the reading of the online version is completely cost free [3].

1. Samanci, Ozge. “Impact of Digital Media on Comics”, Evanston, IL, Northwestern University, 2014. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2656298

2. Hodgson, Kevin. “Why Webcomics Matter (And How they Push Literacies)”, Digital Rhetorical Collaborative, October 16, 2015. http://www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org/2015/10/16/why-webcomics-matter-and-how-they-push-literacies/

3. Dale, Brady. “The Webcomics Business Is Moving on From Webcomics”, Observer, November 16, 2015. https://observer.com/2015/11/webcomics-changing-business-model/