12/25/2022: The Gift of Webcomics

Every holiday season, I get nostalgic for Homestuck. I used to read it regularly when I was in highschool, and I always thought it was really cool. My family didn't have internet when I was growing up in the early 2000's, but we got very cheap, very spotty internet in the 2010's. Homestuck started on April 13th, 2009, and I started reading in 2012 after a new friend recommended it to me. Three years had already passed for the comic, and it had really formed a strong fanbase by that point in time. The comic ran until April 13th, 2016, exactly six years after it started. April 13th is a very important date in the comic, as it's the date of multiple big events that take place. However, since I heard about it in the Fall, I feel like reading it just as the weather turns cold and the days grow dim.

I used to get bad Seasonal Affective Disorder as a teenager, and the holidays used to make me feel more sorrow than joy. Homestuck was a fun escape from what was bothering me, and it made me feel strong when I needed it. As cheesy as that is, it's the truth. I also had strong positive feelings about being in high school band, and I still associate our arrangement of Green Sleeves with Homestuck, even though it doesn't appear in the comic at all; it was just the timing of when we would play Green Sleeves and when I would get a craving to read Homestuck.

Now, because of the fall of Flash, the original Homestuck comic website is... iffy, to say the least. Homestuck was bought by Viz Media, and the attempts to preserve and restore it have been unpopular at best. Therefore, if you choose to read it, I recommend using The Unofficial Homestuck Collection, a custom-made program made by fans, for fans. I've just downloaded it, and I plan on re-reading it. It's a very faithful restoration of the comic, with New Reader settings and returning reader settings, native Flash support, the Easter Eggs, Extras, and peripheral comics originally on the MSPA website, and a lot more. It's the best way to read the comic, even better than the official site during the original run.

This holiday season, I also got nostalgic for other webcomics I used to read. Dinosaur Comics, Bug Martini, and Awkward Zombie are all self-contained comics, while Order of the Stick, Lackadaisy, and Sequential Art are more story-driven comics. Both styles are awesome, and these are comics that I read consistently when I got my own laptop towards the end of high school. These comics were either my homepages or one of the first things I checked when I went first went online for the day.

I'm branching out and trying new comics this holiday season as well: The Perry Bible Fellowship, PREQUEL, and Spinnerette are on my TODO list. The Perry Bible Fellowship is another self-contained comic with surreal art and dark humor, which is something that I tend to avoid, but I want to try something new. PREQUEL is a Homestuck-style adventure following an alcoholic Khajiit in Cyrodiil, and (if I heard correctly), it's called PREQUEL because it's supposed to lead into the Homestuck timeline. Spinnerette is a story about a woman who gains spider-like powers and learns how to use them. I haven't read much of any of these, but from what I have seen, they're awesome!

I hope that you're staying safe, staying warm, and having a wonderful time, whatever you celebrate! I'll see y'all in 2023!