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Have you ever read Unsounded? It is my favorite webcomic and plays around a lot with its medium, like making you unable to click-back from certain pages when it's thematically relevant or having certain pages 'spill over' the margins of the comic and into the webpage itself. A lot of cool stuff there, all in all

I haven’t yet, actually! I have a friend who swears by that webcomic and has recced to me countless times by now, but me being me and being behind on updates for all 30+ webcomics I try and keep up with at the same time, I’ve not started it yet. Those features sound super cool conceptually, so I’ll definitely give it a look and see if I can fit it in as a case study!

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Well that Never Satisfied post gonna blew up so here’s an intro for new followers: hi! I’m Murphy Parys, a Masters in Research (MRes) student who is writing a 40,000 word thesis all about webcomics, why they’re cool, why they’re important, and the ways in which digitisation develops unique storylines and impacts storytelling and Other Stuff!

Webcomics don’t have a Huge Amount of research in academia, so I’m trying to develop a foundation upon which future theory and thesis can be built. This research blog is a place I put down my thoughts about webcomics I like (most of which are currently being written as drafts haha), so sometimes I’ll sound very fancy and like an academic and sometimes I reference five memes in a paragraph. It be like that sometimes.

Welcome!

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The Hovertext, Authorial Commentary, And Digital Space of Taylor Robin’s ‘Never Satisfied’

Never Satisfied, a webcomic by Taylor Robin, is a more traditionally-formatted webcomic: it doesn’t delve into any experimental forms, structures, or layouts, but it does use one particular tool that has been used in the likes of Paranatural by Zack Morrison and Parallax by FIGHTBEAST: hovertext.

(Never Satisfied, Taylor Robin, page 2)

Hovertext is present in the vast majority of comics and is a feature of the HTML language that is relatively simple to implement, but they’re often left blank, or denote a page number. However, some webcomic creators choose to use hovertext as a type of unseen commentary on each page. In comics with more of a comedic focus, like Morrison’s Paranatural, the author tends to make jokes revolving around the context of a page:

(Paranatural, Zack Morrison, page 298)

Never Satisfied, despite obeying most traditional formats of any comic page, no matter digital or printed, does take advantage of other digital features surrounding the comic itself. To me, hovertext represents one of the more subtle methods in which a webcomic digitises, and is an adaption that means the webcomic itself is embedded into a digital space. Unless the hovertext were printed alongside each page itself, part of the very experience of Never Satisfied is reading the hovertext alongside each update.

(Never Satisfied, Taylor Robin, page 337 [chapter 7, 43])

Never Satisfied also takes advantage of the presence of a description box, directly beneath every page. Outside of the hovertext itself - which can be missed if read upon a mobile device or the reader doesn’t directly linger over the page itself - Robin utilises the description box to offer more direct contextualisation:

updates surrounding Never Satisfied:

and, of course, links and self-promotion to a Patreon and external sites:

When hovertext and these descriptions are combined, we gain a more developed understanding of the author’s intentions or thoughts on each page. Webcomics are a far more intimate form of media, given their digitisation leads to pages that can link directly to an author’s Twitter, Tumblr, Patreon, and more. Even though a webcomic, like Never Satisfied, can visually seem relatively traditional, they utilise tools that would be unavailable to a printed book, and allow the readers to have a more direct connection to the creator (a trend we can also see with the creators of television shows, actors, and so forth).

Robin also allows readers to comment on each individual page, furthering this communication between reader and author directly:

This means readers can offer their impressions to each other, the wider community, and directly to the author themselves. This also allows the author to answer questions, expand further on a page, correct misconceptions, and more.

All of these examples of hovertext, author’s notes and comments, are ways in which a webcomic like Never Satisfied can very subtly embed itself into a digital space and bridge the gap between a reader and the creator. Such as in the case of Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona, publication led to the deletion of all online pages, meaning a loss of these above features. However, without the hovertext, commentary, and the discussion of the fans and community behind Never Satisfied, we would lose part of why the webcomic has a wide appeal; many fans enjoy speculation, reading the added commentary, and engaging in the digital elements Never Satisfied has to offer. As such, it’s an excellent example of how some webcomics enhance themselves far more subtly to their digital surroundings.

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Homestuck (The Book Edition)

Despite the fact I have (very nearly) finished Homestuck (in that I caught up right before it finished, and then, uh, forgot where I got to and therefore never finished it), I didn’t have a clue that it was being turned into actual, real-life, hardback books! Here it is:

(Also I bought Soul Eater Vol. 1, because despite the masses of fanservice, it remains my favourite manga and was ridiculously influential when I was 15.)

Of course, my interest in the book stemmed from a question I’ve had for quite some time: how do webcomics that take advantage of the internet’s naturally multimodal state (or, in Homestuck’s case, a webcomic that veers dangerously on the edge of digital fiction) in the form of animation, music, gifs, reader input, and more... actually look when published? Of course, with Homestuck being such a famous example, I had to see this for myself, especially when almost every single page is either animated, has additional music, or is interactive.

However, Hussie actually acknowledges this in the book’s introduction, as well as in ‘FACT TWO’:

‘Homestuck is a story that was made for the internet. It was designed to exist on the internet, crafted to exploit the versatility of the internet, and posted page by page, as quickly as I made each, on to the World Wide Web ... and this thing you are holding-this rigid, rectangular thing in your hands-this is a book.’

‘Homestuck in its native habitat is an all-out media blitz. The static panels here do not tip off its true nature ... I don’t claim these books to be an equivalent substitute for the series as it was originally meant to be navigated. I see the books more as complementary material.’

What Hussie chooses to do, however, is use the book to add his own commentary: he explains his storytelling choices, such as the inclusion of the captcha inventory system (and all that madness that includes), ideas that were never continued, and silly little additions, such as below:

‘If you see an urn full of ash anywhere in a work of entertainment, you can guarantee the ash will come out eventually. The only factor left negotiable is what degree of slapstick is involved.

That was like a brief tvtropes.com article, without the 5,000 links to obscure anime underneath.’

Hussie knows, and acknowledges, that this book cannot be experienced how Homestuck should be, and instead uses this as a chance to explore and analyse his own work now that Homestuck is finished. It’s definitely made for those who’ve also finished Homestuck, too; the names of characters who aren’t yet revealed (and won’t be for a few more arcs) are spoiled ahead of time in his commentary, meaning this book shouldn’t be read by the uninitiated if they want a spoiler-free experience.

Some of the entries in Homestuck, however, are denoted with an [S], meaning that the page is actually an animation (or interactive) in some way. Of course, the best way to see the full animation would be online by finding the page number on the Homestuck site, helpfully provided in the top left corner of the page. However, Hussie includes the animation by adding stills, allowing the reader to gain a grasp of what the actual animation would look like (albeit without sound).

Here’s a second animation from the very end of Act I:

As such, this book doesn’t necessitate an online component; to the experienced Homestuck reader, who will already be familiar with much of this comic, this book could be read alone and parse just as well, but a newcomer would likely need to read the comic online first for the full experience (especially since the lack of music almost constitutes a crime).

(Also something cool I just noticed whilst typing this up, is that the top left corner not only denotes the page number, but also which character is the focus. Blue for John, pink for Rose, red for Dave, green for Jade, brown for the Wayward Vagabond, and grey for pages in which a character does not appear. This actually makes it much easier to find where you are in relation to the comic, and you can even tell which part of the story is which on the basis of how many colours are involved and who is being switched between.)

Whilst I haven’t finished reading this 438 page tome yet (which only comprises two of the seven arcs), I’m curious how some interactive sections will be handled, such as when exploring maps and talking to characters as seen in later arcs. Likely they’ll be handled as the animations are, various stills holding the more crucial information, but I’ll likely add to this once later books come out! For now, this is an interesting example of the incompatibility of digital webcomics into printed form, and how this example became more like bonus content for those who are already familiar with Homestuck given it can’t be experienced in the same way. How other webcomics have confronted/plan to confront this problem will be of interest, however, especially if they choose other ways to try and communicate a digital story in print in ways Homestuck has not.