- Question: What do you say to the few people who read SBaHJ but not Homestuck? I know for a fact that they exist. A friend of mine made his facebook profile pic Sweet Bro, but had no idea what Homestuck was when I questioned him about it.
- Hussie: I find it much more understandable for someone to read SBaHJ and not be into HS. Reading and appreciating HS is a very intensive process which requires a lot of time and concentration.
- Whereas reading HS while not studying (yes studying) SBaHJ is less forgivable. SBaHJ is requisite supplementary reading. If HS was a class, I would automatically fail anybody who didn't get an A on their SBaHJ exam.
June 2012
30 posts
- Question: oh god what is this with sweet bro and hella jeff do you do ANYTHING without tying it into the main plot anymore?
- Hussie: SBaHJ is absolutely inseparable from HS, and has been almost from the start. If you don't understand this, then you don't understand HS very well. SBaHJ is like the mentally handicapped step brother of MSPA, requiring special attention, but no less cherished as a part of the family. It was originally intended as the chief source of in-house memes for dialogue, but this is ultimately a superficial purpose. Though it only has 20+ strips, it contains a pretty dense and internally consistent language of recurring symbols and typo-driven grammars, applicable as a rich sub-cognitive lexicon for highlighting elusive elements woven into the mythology of the story which tend to be shrouded in the unconscious.
- Many times events in SBaHJ "foreshadow" what happens in HS, but this is practically never intentional. It is always retroactive on my part, and quite convenient. Like the vampire strip I drew shortly before Kanaya's death and resurrection. The correlation was convenient, and was emphasized in the comic as a gag. Same with the one with Bro achieving LIFDOFF, passing a cloud labeled "cloun". Soon after, John flew his car by a cloud that showed Gamzee in it. This was unintentional while drawing the SBaHJ, but the connection was soon made in the comic serendipitously.
- SBaHJ as a creative process is probably a pretty accurate reflection of my subconscious at work. This may be why it often ties into HS themes yet to develop. It is like I am a prophet of my own story, and these shitty comics are my cryptic messages. I submit to the trance of the JPEGothics, while quaking in the losseldritch throes of the artifact tongues. The resulting imagery is troubling, and AGGRESSIVELY PREGNANT with meaning.
- Though most aspects of HS's story construction is exceedingly meticulous, with multi-threaded plot connections established months or years in advance, intuition plays a powerful role too, and may be even more important than the maniacal, overly cerebral stuff. There are occasions where something will just FIT, in a weirdly perfect way, even though I didn't quite intend it. I always seems to be working favorably with the grain of positive coincidence. Strange things with numbers happen all the time, for example, and this is certainly not because I'm a skilled numerologist. The troll's number is 612 because I started Hivebent on 6/12, a tale of 12 6 sweep-olds (13 year-olds). Their names are 6 and 6 letters, like mine. Why is one sweep = 2.16 years? Weird. Why is 6/12/11 exactly one sweep from 4/13/09, the start date of HS??? Also weird. These occurrences are everywhere, and I can only assume they have their root in the turbulent void from which all this comes. The story is in part driven furiously by high level cerebral machinations, and in part at the mercy of the whims of my waking coma. And I, personally, am at the mercy of it all.
- Anyway, if for no other reason, this is why you should like SBaHJ, or at least find it intriguing. Frankly, I am quite suspicious of anyone who doesn't find it funny. I am suspicious of their judgment and quality of perception. This is probably because it means their minds are incompatible with mine on a such a profound level. They are at odds with my subconscious.
- Question: B^U <3 8^y
- Hussie: B^**^8 SMOOCH
- Question: what do you do to the SBaHJ pages to make them look so unbelievably shitty?
- Hussie: There is a lot to it. I don't have any trade secrets at all, but if I did, it would probably be the process I apply to those images.
- One major tactic: save as jpg, reduce quality to zero, but DON'T SAVE IT YET. Instead, screen capture the preview. Then paste that into the same document, and repeat this process for a while, until you have grown the desired amount of "loss scum".
- But this just keeps making the image foggier, which isn't good enough by itself. After that, I usually apply other effects, like strategic sharpenings and other misc. filters. I also use a lot of masking through color range selections, and perform meticulous alterations at the pixel-cluster level.
- Question: these updates look suspiciously like you're stalling for time.
- Hussie: It is hilarious how people think this is just messing around when in actuality it will all prove to be ridiculously significant later, as usual.
- Oh well, I'll just keep being over here playing Vulcan mind chess or whatever while all y'all play your games of tic tac dumb.
- 8^y
May 2012
37 posts
- Question: You sure do like your Interludes of Silliness, don't you?
- Hussie: Yes, the interlude is called MS Paint Adventures and has been running steadily for several years.
- Question: Is it Terry Pratchett's success that inspired you to pander to anime nerds?
- Hussie: Pratchett san and his family will be in my prayers during this troubling time for all the fine people of Japan.
- Question: Is it safe to say that "going grimdark" would be the opposite of becoming a rainbow drinker?
- Hussie: I don't know if it's the opposite, but it's obviously intended as an absurd transformation to specifically complement Kanaya's.
- "Going grimdark" is a phrase which itself is silly enough to qualify as a joke. The ramifications of such a transformation are surely on par with becoming a glowing Twilight-esque vampire called a rainbow drinker. And yet, silly though these developments are, no one can argue they are not awesome as well. The result is the magic which takes place when stupid meets badass.
- The whole "going grimdark" thing was something discussed by readers when Rose first started stirring things up with her dark magic. The whole issue was later lampooned somewhat in a conversation with John. In fact, practically every line of the recent updates have been callbacks to this conversation.
- http: //www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004823
- I found the point of controversy kind of funny. It makes one wonder, what does "going grimdark" even mean? Is that even a thing? I guess it is, as long as we understand that it probably refers to the metamorphosis of a vanilla character into a brooding gothic cliche, and this is something played absolutely straight in things which are generally terrible. Please note it is not being played straight in this case. [AND YET IT IS. WINK.]
- Also, who here is keeping tabs on super hero references??
- Rose's shirt has somewhat resembled the Punisher's logo for some time now, without any reason to link her to the vigilante. Let us now note the origin of the Punisher, a guy spurred to vengeance after watching his family get brutally murdered.
- Question: 'There has actually been a clue pointing to this for a very long time, "hidden" in the name of Dave's sword. Caledscratch.' Ok. so, who's Ed?
- Hussie: Your creepy uncle.
- Question: have you ever gone so far as ever to need more to do look more like?
- Hussie: YES
- Question: Mr. Hussie, I'm a huge fan of your work. You strike as somebody who's both very artistically talented any knowledgeable in literature and writing. Do you have any formal education in these subjects?
- Hussie: I have neither.
- I paid money to learn about computers approximately ten years ago.
hey do you know all the Cannon god teir aspects
Hand cannon, Autocannon, Falconet, Minion, Saker, Demi-culverin, Culverin Demi-cannon, Field gun, Howitzer, Mortar, Bombard, Basilisk.
How do you level up?
By answering stupid questions. Every time I answer one I gain a bit more experience.
What if i hit the b button
….you wouldn’t. D:
r u andrew hussie
If I keep on getting experience and leveling up I hope that one day I will be able to evolve into my final form; ANDREWHUSSIE.
- Question: you're going to just have the scratch happen and then the next ==> link back to the first page of homestuck, aren't you? just have this endless loop of a recurring retcon, right? i mean, it WOULD be the ultimate way to troll the fanbase once and for all
- Hussie: I think the easiest way to address questions like this is to say, picture every possibility that is dumb and terrible. Those things are exactly what I am not going to do.
- Also, it's pretty amazing how often people misuse the term retcon. Almost as often as they misuse the word troll.
- Question: Did you know that 6/12/2011 will be the one solar sweep anniversary of Homestuck? (2.166666... earth years)
- Hussie: THAT'S PRETTY SWEET
- It will also be the 1 Earth year anniversary of Act 5.
all right. i have some... a don't know. a gift-surprise for you. it is picturing. it is sort of fanart but it's mostly sort of that fanart. and i want to send it to you. where should i send to andrew hussie got it? i guess there is no way to gmailed you cause you gmail might be ddosed by fans
what. i honestly don’t understand a word you just said.
but if you’re asking for a way to contact Andrew, I don’t know.
- Question: It occurs to many people here that the only way you could have had the ending completely planned out from the very beginning is if you always intended to do a reset. ...Especially considering that the trolls were supposed to be minor characters.
- Hussie: I don't know about having the ending planned from the beginning, but I can say that every time the scratch as been mentioned, and even earlier when it was referred to as the rift, I knew exactly what it was going to be.
- The concept of the reset, though heavily disguised until now, is a very old one, and is completely entangled with every aspect of the way the story has been constructed to this point.
- Question: I've come to really like Doc Scratch in a very short amount of time, and looking back I realize this is roughly what happens with the whole cast. Is there a specific way your formulate your characters that allows all of them to be so intensely enjoyable?
- Hussie: I don't have a formula for making likable characters. But I guess character development tends to help.
- With Scratch, I think one of the fun things about his recent developments is that they came on the heels of learning that he is part Cal. His identity as a creepy pervert wasn't exactly "set up" before this revelation. Not overtly. But if it was I think it would be less entertaining. We get to watch certain traits of his personality reveal themselves exactly when we now have reason to expect those traits. If he had them before it might have weakened the humor value of it now, even though it would have been more air tight from a characterization and plot construction standpoint. We didn't get to say "DIABOLICAL! So THAT'S why he's a perv!" But HS has enough of those eureka moments already for us to be worrying about that.
- Not that his developments are completely off the wall either. He was always a pretty self satisfied guy, with the demeanor of someone who could easily be a coy prankster, who just hadn't revealed those tendencies yet. Much of what he said had the feel of a knowitall who's just messing with someone. Also, he did only talk to the girls. With the exception of the one short line to Karkat. He manipulated them and mentored them in weird ways, and eventually one might ask, why all the attention on the ladies dude??? So turns out that's why, sort of. Of course the original reason was more pragmatic. It was just that of all the trolls, the ones most relevant and dynamic in the story tended to be girls, so that's who he talked to. But later, it struck me as a pretty amusing angle on an omniscient character to be a bit of a creeper, and this is in keeping with his origin.
- Remember where Cal came from in the first place? And why he was thrown out of Dave's dream tower?
