Reviews Webcomic / Homestuck

Dashes expectations, but usually in a good way.

I actually still mostly like the comic, depsite the shrotcomings. I like the non-standard mixed-media presentation and metafictional format. I also actually enjoy the way so many things resolved in suitably dramatic and engaging ways that, nonetheless, were a lot less obviously climactic than one would expect. While I could see this getting stale pretty quickly, I feel that the author is currently handling most of these pretty well; if there's a skipped moment of awesome, we generally get to see it eventually. If a climactic moment is subverted, it's usually in a clever manner.

I think the trolls- and especially their constantly shifting romantic antics- did get a bit out of hand. I like the character interaction, but I feel it needs to be tempered with action and plot advancement. I thought, and continue to think, the human characters should be the focus of the story. It was also rather jarring to suddenly add, develop, and attempt to engender audience involvement in 12 new characters, as the story had (up to that point), been focused on a mere 4.

The self-inserts also need to stop. The Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff jokes outside the comic itself are also getting a bit out of hand. I mean, I like the occaisonal bits of metafiction, but they shouldn't distarct or D Etract from the core story itself, and they are beginning to do so.

In summary, for the tl;dr crowd: a very complex, nuanced, interesting bit of new media with great characters and an engaging world, bogged down slightly by pacing issues and overuse of a few running gags.