#(bathearst)

[davekat-sucks]

You know how you can tell Sonherst is better than Davekat? He becomes batman and uses the mechalegs to get revenge.

A better character arc than what Davekat has.

[zincbot]

bathearst is the best problem sleuth character

[jumblewoodcomic]

Anyway I guess if I’m starting a whole sideblr for my funny little possum comic I should start with the image the icon image and header image came from

This was when I was initially working the design for the main character Appy, and the central one wound up capturing what I envisioned for her energy best. The left design was a leftover from the sort of pre-Jumblewood project that Jumblewood mutated into, where Appy was both more malicious and more directly visually related to Mickey Mouse; she was initially conceived as the lead character for an infocomic in a punk zine. Eventually the entire zine fell through, but I still wanted to do something with a cartoon possum, and eventually starting building a narrative that would become the basis for Jumblewood. The right design was rejected for looking too “simple,” since I was dead set on some things at the beginning once the comic started to take shape--one of which was that while these characters were, largely, firmly backwoods country folk, none of them were clueless yokel stereotypes. I should probably take the time to watermark stuff next time. Might reupload this later with that. For now, expect mostly a trickle of production material, behind the scenes stuff, and silly little side things. The comic is well underway, but I’m not posting it anywhere (except to select Discord friends) until I feel I’m ready to. Once I am, though, this blog will become one of the places to read it, albeit probably not the most ideal place to given how tumblr formats things.

[dailyproblemsleuth]

Problem Sleuth, page 1,352

Next.

BATHEARST slips and falls into the river and is carried away by the current. Dear, sweet, precious BATHEARST... there is nothing you can do to save him.

Author commentary: Well... he COULD jump in after him. I dunno. Guess he must not love him that much.

[juno-platoono]

pesterchum smilies

this took me longer than id like to admit, if youre using pesterchum type this shit to get some smilies :} 

:rancorous:

    :apple:

    :bathearst:

   :cathearst:

    :woeful:

    :sorrow:

    :pleasant:

   :blueghost:

   :slimer:

   :candycorn:

   :cheer:

    :duhjohn:

    :datrump:

    :facepalm:

    :bonk:

    :mspa:

    :gun:

    :cal:

    :amazedfirman:

    :amazed:

    :chummy:

    :cool: OR :smooth:

   :distraughtfirman:

   :distraught:

    :insolent:

    :bemused:

    :3:

    :mystified:

    :pranky:

    :tense:

    :record:

    :squiddle:

    :tab:

    :beetip:

    :flipout:

    :befuddled:

    :pumpkin:

    :trollcool:

    :jadecry:

    :ecstatic:

    :relaxed:

    :discontent:

    :devious:

    :sleek:

    :detestful:

    :mirthful:

    :manipulative:

    :vigorous:

   :perky:

   :acceptant:

   :olliesouty:

    :billiards:

    :billiardslarge:

    :whatdidyoudo:

    :brocool:

    :trollbro:

    :playagame:

    :trollc00l:

    :suckers:

    :scorpio:

    :shades:

    :honk:

[loathemetc]

Some assorted icons from the other MSPAs! Jailbreak, Bard Quest, and Problem Sleuth of course. Free to use!

Homestuck Icons Masterpost

[dukeofriven]

Guys you may not be aware just how exactly accurate you are being with Dirk/Bro being Hussie’s real self-insert. I’ve been doing a deep, deep, deeeeeep dive into his early work, including trying to compile his 2005-2006 TSO blog into some kind of master document because the day a court injunction shutters the Wayback machine - foom! Dirk/Bro was Andrew Hussie in that era: layers of nested ‘irony’ that masked a lot of heinous shit labeled as “comedy.” You make a shitty joke, the a joke about it being a joke, and then a joke that joking about it being the joke itself a joke,  and then a joke being the joke about that being the joke - but really it’s just cruelty buried under a mountain of eye winks. “Funny” racism, “funny” misogyny, “funny” homophobia, “funny” neuro-atypical jokes etc. Hell, I would be lying if I said that my disapproving quotation marks mean that I never laughed - of course I laughed. Hussie is a funny guy even when he’s being shitty. But just because it got a response out of me doesn’t make it a good joke. Which, natch, is the point - the ouroboros of ‘ironic’ heinous humour that makes trying to find the sincerity in Dirk Strider so exhausting. With Hussie it’s all part and parcel of the “everything goes” fever dream of ‘practiced edgelord insouciance’ that dominated mid-aughts internet culture. Which is why it’s all the more jarring  when right in the middle of it all he drops the most cogent, righteously furious take-down of white privilege and white-media journalism that was so ahead of its time it almost reads like it was written today. Not only does he predict the rise of unhinged right-wing rage, it accurately predicts the trends of next fifteen years of white fragility, demographic pearl-clutching, and the rebirth of yellow journalism.  You get the sense of just how aware he is that the tower of ‘irony’ that he built is leaning precariously. Like a hyper-vigilant episode he is almost frighteningly aware of the performance he is putting on. an actor playing the part of an actor playing the part of an edgelord playing the part of an edge king. Like the proverbial man who leapt upon the tiger’s back, however, he is trapped by the exigencies of his own choices, imprisoned in his own acting persona and the momentum that imparts. I do not exaggerate when I say that you can see that two paths that lay before Hussie in those 05/06 years on TSO. He faced two different futures shaped by the two warring factions of his psyche. One faction is his incredible depth of empathy; something almost totally suppressed in his S_O persona but not quite extinguished. The other path was his mastery of mockery, cruelty, and the cutting word - the path of the villain. There’s at least one iteration of reality where MSPA never happened and Team Special Olympics just got darker and more cynical until, like Glenn Beck, the line between personal belief and performed belief disappeared. The  “ironic” barbarism would have lost the last vestiges of irony, the self-aggrandizing would have ceased to be countered by the self-deprecation, and the performer would become the performance. There is at least one future where Andrew Hussie washed-up on the same shore as Jordan Peterson and all the other alt-right pseudo-intellectuals, people with a certain raw intelligence warped by self-absorption and grievance at the universe, whatever good they might have done in a better life eaten by bitterness, rage, supremacy doctrine, and a history of ex cathedra pronouncements of unshakable belief. Divorced from reality, they live in a world where no fact or logical argument has any meaning save that which they choose to give it. That really could have been Andrew Hussie. He could have been Dirk “Bro” Strider, only with less puppet fucking and more ‘ironic’ calls for hate crimes. This sounds hyperbolic, I am sure, but I mean it honestly: it’s all there on the page. The man had a gift for being incredibly shitty and yet really funny at the same time, the exact combination you need to develop a ‘he tells it like it is’ following among the disaffected and the self-oppressed: coating shit in the candy-coating of a joke makes swallowing it so much easier, until before long you’re writing a shit-eating diet book wittily advocating the benefits of an all-shit diet. (Man I am scatalogical today). But something happened when Hussie made the decision to make a dumb little forum thread the basis for a new website - it put him in a position to shape content with his fans in a very intimate way. Jailbreak and Bardquest merely laid-out the rules and form that his next artistic project would take: they’re mostly a host of fellow mid-aughts internet edgelords throwing scat and gore at the wall to see what stuck - hey there’s no rules on the internet so let’s get a guy to pee on a corpse to try and escape prison. Man, comedy gold! Jailbreak and Bardquest are fun, sort of, but forgettable. The meaningful change began when Problem Sleuth started to take-off: fans began to care about the characters. They wanted good things to happen to them. They wanted a victory that was both meaningful and satisfying. That meant Andrew couldn’t just drop the story mid-way and start over like he had with the first two stories - there was a demand to see the arc to conclusion. On the way to the PS finale Hussie and his growing fan base created a curious hybrid of edgelord boundary-pushing and genuine empathy. The same story that starts with the protagonist sticking his wang through a painting to pee in a hated enemy’s office, the same story with Hunk Rump and a sword crafted of gay pornography that makes elves cry, is also a story that contains moment of genuine pathos. Ace Dick and the Game of Life, Bathearst’s escape from the land of death, the continued safety of candy corn, the recovery of the Snoop Dog Bust. These things were irreverent, yes - but they were not irrelevant. (This is a common mistake for new readers, and some old ones too.) They had meaning, real emotional import imbued by fans as intoxicated by the heady combination as the youth of the sixties were by the counter-culture of their own day. [There’s almost nothing in mainstream culture that quite manages that balancing act of transgression, absurdity and empathy like Problem Sleuth. I think certain properties try - Deadpool, Rick and Morty, and South Park jump immediately to mind, but they all fall flat on their faces. There are but reflections in a mirror darkly, their attempts stymied by demands of studios that require marketability, a lack of writing talent, or an innate cynicism that ends-up drowning the empathy in a bathtub full of nihilistic tears. I think only Bojack Horseman quite manages the feat, though I don’t know if I’d call it a ‘mainstream’ work. Despite rave reviews and a strong cult following it remains somewhat niche, loved by critics but - like Hussie’s œuvre - not universally recognized. That is to say that Mike McSchwhite and his suburban friends and family in the sprawl outside of Houston all went to see Deadpool, bought a Rick Funko, grew-up with South Park, and definitely think Cards Against Humanity is funny - but if they know anything at all of Bojack it’s “that horse cartoon” they watched one episode of, didn’t understand it, and never went back.] So in the villainous timeline Hussie remained safely ensconced in the bubble of TSO, making grotesque comics, writing increasingly vitriolic blog posts, and hanging-out with fellow edgelords in dank forums until one day they crowned him King of Irony because he made just the funniest comic about... I don’t know, a mob of camp gay Mexican bakers lynching Denzel Washington’s talking severed phallus. Dude if you don’t think it’s funny it’s because you don’t understand irony, idiot. The dark timeline starts to get a little hazy after that, but I can say that it’s a short step from being crowned a king by trolls to wanting to be a troll emperor and subsequently leading an army to conqueror the non-ironic places of the internet under the banner Imperiales Languidæ Mentulæ Contra Mundi. But that didn’t happen. Instead Problem Sleuth begat Homestuck, which is the triumph of Hussie’s better angels over his own demons. Andrew Hussie’s favourite character is Jade Harley. He loves Jade so much he kind of frequently screws-up her storylines because he is an over-protective  helicopter parent who gets sudden authorial anxiety attacks, feels like he’s being a bad writer in keeping Jade so safe, and then over-corrects by dropping a house on her (At which point he feels so guilty that the moment she’s resurrected he goes right back to confining her to her room so she can’t get hurt again - see Cascade, her entire plotline post-retcon, and Adult Jade’s Sextacular Adventures Off-Camera Safely Away From All These Emotionally Disturbed Maniacs in the Epilogues Who Might Hurt Sweet Precious Harley). Obviously I am using hyperbole here - most of the time Andrew never shies away as an author from subjecting his characters to meaningful change out of some parental instinct to treat them like real, fragile babies instead of characters. But he does love Jade - loves her so much it come across in every line of commentary he writes about her in the books. {Warning: Wild Speculation About A Private Person’s Private Life Ahead] The Beta Kids can be though-of as a quaternary division of Andrew’s Hussie psyche. John is who I think he saw himself to be at thirteen: striving to be cool, a total dork, instantly smitten by heroes, a loser who is maybe actually secretly pretty great because he hasn’t yet abandoned giving a shit. Dave is who he tried to become - a suave, disinterested, shit-talking cool-kid who doesn’t care about nothing (but is also pretty sad when viewed objectively, talking aloud to himself in a room for fifteen minutes unaware everyone else has left.) Rose is the intellectual pretensions he adopted as armour in high-school: if you can’t fit-in with the popular crowd then being the smartest, snarkiest son-of-bitch in the student body - someone who can safely feel superior to everyone else because they have an immane and prodigious vocabulary - will have to do.(Rose being someone who absolutely acts like they’ve read every classic in the library and can quote all sort of heavy-sounding shit, and who never lets on that she mostly just re-reads Lord of the Rings to worship Gandalf even though wizards are stupid with their dumb beards and their dumb robes and their dumb stupid cool magic.) And Jane? Jane is his sense of delight. The part of him untouched by cynicism and irony - the part he most wants to protect. I mention all this because Homestuck on a meta level can best be thought of as the triumph of Jade over Dirk. Hussie chose the better road, one that let him tell a story that mattered to him. The guy who said:

and

is one who is morally opposed to Dirk Strider. Dirk is a villain not just because he’s a asshole, but because he rejects the values of teamwork and friendship in favour of singular control: of not listening to other people, of not learning from the, of not working together with us except as one who commands and those who obey. It’s no different from Caliborn or Lord English. And it’s no coincidence that the traits of this villain are the traits Hussie sees as being opposed to the above values: the traits he used to have in 2005/2006,  the person he used to be, the person he wrote a million words about rejecting as terrible, shitty person. AltCalliope isn’t fighting Dirk Strider [well, Doc Scratch, technically] while dressed in a Jade suit just because there was a spare Jade cadaver lying around. AltCalliope is fighting a villain while cosplaying of the embodiment of all that is good and virtuous in the world.

Anti-Authors and Authorial “Barriers”, part 4 of 4

[bangkaching]

bathearst replied to your photo: Happy New Year with a New Burger from Wendy’s (ft...

maggie

[daily-problem-sleuth]

Hey AD, how’s your relationship with Bathearst going? Is he stayin’ outta trouble?

AD: “He’s doing better, yeah. Staying out of trouble is a whole other issue though hehe.” AD: “Kid’s real excited to help Pickle for the day too.”

[burningthemidnightcityoil]

QUITE THE PICKLE WE’RE IN

More Problem Sleuth, as promised. More stuff the fandom doesn’t speak there of in their very very thirsty fanfics or discussions, or even extensions or thoughout stories...

But I’m gonna add some considerations...

Madam Murel. (as pointed out by a viewer in the last list)

The fact that Whore Island also connects to the Real World.

The fact that Kingpin kept the Female Alter Egos (and AD the Third) in a Doll House.

The fact that not only did he keep them in a Doll House, his very presence scares the hell out of them (and the Male Egos)

HD and NB earn autonomy when their male counterparts “stop being aware” of them. Because they’re no longer defined as simply “Problem Sleuth but with Boobs” or “Pickle Inspector but with hair”.

The fact that AD united himself with his other ADs, then those ADs got separated again...? [I like to think that their reappearance in the Imaginary Realm means that they’re, in fact, extra imaginary lives for our AD; or maybe when he Imagines now, he inhabits one of them]

The fact that the Megaton Key is also a pair of Knuckles.

The Skeleton Brush, and the fact that its Pallette can make it into different weapons depending on the color paint 

The Skeleton Brush is also the Skeleton Key.

The Four Fuckin Kingdoms

The fact that Elves canonically kidnap kids and eat babies.

Most of Sleuth’s alter egos are all Female.

Most of Ace’s Alter Egos are all Gay.

Ace’s God Ego is the Devil.

Sleuth’s God Ego is apparently a Goddess of Prostitution [Wait, does that mean that Sleuth and Ace have a Kismesistude? Is their rivalry all suppressed Sexual Tension? ... That might Explain why HD has an AD-like Temper or rather a temper PS only thinks AD has]

The fact that all the Beasts / Monsters that appear when Fenestrated Windows turn off are not, in fact all Horrorterrors, and all appear to have AD’s face...

The fact that all the Monsters are likely from Hell, as AD’s Alter Ego is the Devil. [So... wait, does this mean that the comic didn’t go off the rails into fantasy, but in fact became fucking DOOM meet Noir Detectives first?]

Sleuth’s obsession with Busts.

AD is competent in balancing finances and making anything useful.

PI was canonically trapped in his office longer than any of the other detectives. Long enough to have the glass equivalent of a poop bucket and that was a lot of waste...

The Bully Truncheon, as wielded by the Surly Thugs.

AD’s Romance Novel is also a Two-By-Four thing of Wood.

AD’s Wig is a Military Prussian Helmet

PS’s Smith Corona Typewriter is basically a tommy gun.

The fact that Problem Sleuth and Jailbreak are part of the same Universe.

The fact that Death’s realm can lead directly into such adventures like Bard’s Quest.

PI doesn’t appear to have a favorite candy.

AD keeps a chillipepper in his hat.

The Hair Pin Machine Gun

Let’s consider Life as a Box of Chocolates... which are also grenades.

The Honeybee Professor, the Worker Bees, and their Counterparts, Professor Wasp and the Laborer Wasps.

The Candy Mecha

AD’s two sons; Bathearst and Christhearst

... the fact that AD fathered what appears to be an Antichrist.

The Four Heroes of the Four Kingdoms

Just... Just the whole of the Kingdom World; surely there are other nations or species? [I’m working on fan stuffs for that too]

AD can summon a Whale.

More to come as things arise.

[missfinefeather]

Bathearst has went full rorschachhearst.

[muffintopcomics]

MUFFINTOP 5 OPEN FOR PITCHES

It’s a new year so it’s time for a new Muffintop! For those of you just joining us, Muffintop is a regular collection of fat erotic comics by some of the Internet’s best connoiseurs of the larger female form.  The first four volumes were big successes, including such quality contributors as:

@leeloodallasmultigrain , @poundforpoundcake , @betweenfailures, @agoutirex, @royaljellysandwich , @eggheadcheesybird, @morbiomatic, @ichorcomic, @happy-go-ugly, @shyguy9, @brainfarto, @splithares, @jellirolled , @kastemel , @scobellsays , @ninpuchan , Ladiesman217, Alan Bathearst, Sigilgoat, and Garoben

Now YOU have the chance to join that illustrious list, because we’re putting out the call to all people who appreciate zaftig ladies and love to draw them – The Time Has Come.

Things will be a little different in Muffintop 5 than in previous collections, though! Because where previous collections were pretty free form, we’re going to experiment with having a THEME for this anthology. And that theme is: HISTORY. Your comic can be set anywhere from the prehistoric past to the far distant future. The only requirement is that it be a distictive period -- whether we’re talking Heian Japan, Weimar Germany, stylized middle ages with dragons and unicorns, cavemen, biblical times, space-faring future with aliens, 20s jazz age, 70s disco shit, 80s synth, whatever, it’s up to YOU. We just don’t want any stories set in the GENERIC PRESENT, because the book is going to be arranged chronologically from most prehistoric to most futuristic.

If you’re interested in proposing a comic for Muffintop 5, please send your idea to muffintopcomics@hotmail.com.  Be sure to include:

1- A brief synopsis of your comic proposal. 2- A rough page count (We prefer comics to be between 5-10 pages, but will consider longer or shorter projects) . 3- Links to examples of your art or, if you’re a writer working with a separate artist, you artist’s work. 4- A list of any previous comic work that you might have done. This is a COMIC anthology. We’re not interested in bringing any new pinup artists on board, so anything that will show you’re capable of finishing comics would go a long way in your favor.

We’ll be accepting proposals until June 13, 2017.

This is an anthology of erotic comics featuring fat women, eating/stuffing, and weight gain, so a proposal MUST include one of those topics to be considered. Submissions featuring male gain will only be considered if they ALSO include female gain. Explicit sex is acceptable but not required.  

Thanks for your interest! If you have any questions please contact muffintopcomics@hotmail.com.

[plotholetsi]

Me And Alan Bathearst will be at table 31 for the comics expo! :)

Did you know that a collage of art by Craig Thompson, Emil Ferris, and Benjamin Dewey would work this well?  Us neither!

[dailyproblemsleuth]

Problem Sleuth, page 1,350

Next.

It looks like you will have to brave the frontier while short on supplies. Your dear BATHEARST will have to go hungry another night. To compound your troubles, there is a river ahead. You face the eternal question: to caulk or to ford?

[gumheel]

god tier: death, demimonde semigoddess

top tier: hysterical dame, nervous broad, wifehearst, son/bathearst

mid tier: ace dick, pickle inspector, the gentlemen, higgs bonehead

low tier: madame murel, mobster kingpin

shit tier: problem sleuth

[odificus]

diehellarache replied to your photoset “2016 was a shitty year for me, my family, my friends, and the world at...”

ODIE YOU'RE SO HANDSOME

always the handsomest 4 u, rach

clover-thursday replied to your photoset “2016 was a shitty year for me, my family, my friends, and the world at...”

I nearly screamed when I saw your face on my tumblr. A good scream tho~~

imagine your scream had i included the other half of the last picture...

who could that be ohoho

bathearst replied to your photoset “2016 was a shitty year for me, my family, my friends, and the world at...”

LOOKIN GOOD LOOKIN FLY

my good fly style is my only solace in a cold, uncaring world