#moby dick: or the webcomic

[pocketsizedquasar]

hello @whaleweekly and whale weekly fans!! welcome to moby dick!!!! i hope y’all enjoyed the first chapter of ishmael going “fuck im depressed im gonna go walk into the ocean”

for the past couple of years i’ve been working on a webcomic adaptation of moby dick. it looks a little something like this:

(ALT)

moby dick: or, the webcomic is a qtpoc-written (that’s me) adaptation of moby dick, trying to remain faithful to the spirit of the original story while also engaging with melville’s (always very conscious, sometimes excellent, sometimes poor) treatment of race & racism. it’s also very queer (like, of course, the OG book!). i have been working on this project for a couple of years now and it is my pride and joy; i’ve poured a lot of love into her. & id really love for y’all to come along and love this story as much as i do, through the lovely project over at whale weekly or through the comic.

i’ve got a good amount of backlog up, so if you want to read along the webcomic too as whale weekly continues to update, please come check it out! link is in my bio; updates with a new page every friday! (currently on a holiday break). you can find her at mobydick-thecomic.com

and just for fun, here’s some more snippets of what she looks like

thank you for reading! rb’s are always appreciated 💖

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID: A digital drawing of Queequeg and Ishmael in the designs of @pocketsizedquasar ‘s web comic. Queequeg is a muscular Maōri person with his skin covered in tattoos. Their hair is in a short, curly topknot, and they wear a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a pink tie. Ishmael is a lean white man with short, straight blonde hair, and sideburns. He wears a collared white shirt under a blue vest. Queequeg and Ishmael are pulling each other in by the backs of the necks to press their foreheads together in an affectionate embrace. Ishmael has one hand on Queequeg’s outstretched bicep, and the other cupping their face. They beam lovingly at each other. Golden light reflects off of the both of them, and pink light softly fills the drawing. Overtop the piece is written: “Happy Birthday Moby-Dick: or, the Webcomic”. End ID.]

i’m a day late as usual but!!!! HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY TO @pocketsizedquasar ‘s MOBY DICK COMIC!!!!! this comic is an absolute masterpiece and i will never shut up about recommending it ;~; also queequeg and ishmael are so in love, it’s unreal. based on a screenshot from an adaptation i have not seen, but was cute!

[fricklefracklefloof]

little thing for @pocketsizedquasar's comic moby dick because it's their birthday in est now :) never read moby dick the book but i think these two are very cute and i absolutely adore your takes on them... idk why but your comic makes me so happy sahar. hope you have a good one <3

[image description: a colored sketch of ishmael and queequeg from sahar's comic moby dick in the snow. they're smiling and holding each other and their eyes are closed. end id]

[ronk]

start reading Moby-Dick, or the webcomic

https://mobydick-thecomic.com/comics/1 

[nihileafs]

Call me Mungi (Whale Arc)

Call Me Mungi

[modmad]

The og material for Dante is limbus company, the third game from project moon (first two are Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina). Limbus company takes place a bit after the webcomic / web novel Leviathan (also by Project Moon)

(Technically the og og material for Dante is Dante's inferno. Each character shown from the game is based off of a book ex Sinner 8 Ishmael is from Moby Dick )

Dante canonically goes by they / them and has amnesia (easy for explaining the world for new players and also for their lore). Their actual head is missing and since then has been replaced with a clock.

Theyre in charge of twelve sinners (despite never signing up for the job) and reviving each one of them when they die (and in turn experiencing all the pain their death caused). They can only communicate with the sinners (through some sort of telepathy), everyone else hears a from of clock ticks.

DANTE BABY YOUR JOB SUCKS HAND IN YOUR NOTICE

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

I’ve never read moby dick in my entire life but seeing you post about it so much made me want to give it a try! any warnings before I go into it? :D

oh my god gbskxjs okay first of all im honored that my mad posting has had this effect :DD!! you are so powerful for this, genuinely 💙💙

and secondly YEAH ok i can absolutely give some warnings!!!! this answer got long tho so I'm gonna put it under the cut 🐳💙

Firstly: the main thing most people struggle with in Moby Dick (myself included) is how utterly rambley the narrator is.

there WILL be pages upon chapters at a time where he simply Cannot get to the point, which is frustrating!!! something that helped me to keep in mind, though, is that Ishmael is doing that on purpose to avoid having to relive his trauma. It helped me to think of his whale rants as either a friend infodumping, or a desperate plea for the story to stop repeating.

if that doesn't help, you can always look up a summary for a chapter to see if there's any plot you'll miss by skipping it lmao

The Racism. This is a novel written by a white man in the early 1800s. There is some bullshit in this.

Although Melville does try to be conscious abt race and stereotypes, and has a very diverse cast, he still majorly fucks up. He regularly refers to several major characters as "s*vage", uses outdated terminology for Black people, throws out all sorts of shitty descriptors for folks, and rarely lets the characters of color speak for themselves. It's important to be aware of that going in.

This one is a weird dichotomy though, bc like. on one hand. all of that is infuriating. but on the other hand, the love interest of the narrator is literally a Pasifika man who is a gorgeous character that undercuts a ton of stereotypes and is allowed to be a nuanced person with a life that exists outside of the white characters. There's several characters of color who get to be People and have nuanced experiences and vibrant lives!! Pip and Tashtego and arguably Ahab himself are all fascinatingly nuanced folks that are not entirely bound by stereotypes!!

However comma, there's also an entire character who isn't allowed to exist outside of "evil zoroastrian stereotype" so hgbbjggbngmdhhf. it's a whole thing. Be aware of it.

Animal death — this is a book about whaling gbsjfjjf

Seriously though a significant portion of the book is dedicated to violently killing and then harvesting the corpses of whales. It does get sad! Some whales are killed more brutally than others. There is gore.

Rope violence/strangulation

This is just a safe one to mention. Lots of shit goes wrong with the rigging/harpoon lines in the book. Several characters are seriously injured or killed directly due to this.

Suicidal themes/tragedy

The first chapter literally starts off the book with this gbskfjwjd but it is a present theme throughout, and especially in regards to the final tragedy. A significant portion of the story involves characters thinking that they have no choices left but to die.

In tandem with that, this book is a tragedy. Like a "everybody dies" kind of tragedy. Do not go into this story thinking that you're getting a happy ending out of it LMAO. there's love and joy and good times within the story, but it ultimately ends in tragedy.

This is a long ass post, but hopefully it's thorough enough to give you answers!!! On the more uplifting side: I did have a fantastic time reading this. The characters are all super compelling, the queer rep is incredible for the time, the narrative is truly awesome, and it genuinely left a huge impact on me. It definitely earns its place as a masterpiece of American literature imo.

I will also note that if you would prefer to engage with an adaptation of MobyDick that is not narratively racist to its characters, generally more accessible, and also gorgeous, I will always recommend @pocketsizedquasar 's Moby Dick (Or, The Webcomic)! It is, as of yet, unfinished, but they're currently releasing pages weekly, and it's what got me to read the book in the first place. There's a ton of heart here.

But yea thanks for reading this long ass ramble, and definitely do whatever you need to keep yourself safe! 💙💙💙 happy reading if you choose to!!! :D 🐳

[archaic-stranger]

this is random but since you planned whale weekly you probably have enough interest in moby-dick, so i would just like to introduce you + whoever is reading this to the fact that someone's been working on a webcomic adaptation of the book! (currently on hiatus tho, but around chapter 31's equivalent). moby dick-the comic .c o m/ com ics/ (but remove the spaces). just wanted to share HAHA

omg it's lovely thank you for sharing!

[taleweaver-ramblings]

I posted 5,427 times in 2022

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My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I'm two episodes into Over the Garden Wall, and Beatrice is honestly a Mood.

96 notes - Posted October 20, 2022

#4

Not to be dramatic, but I would die for Maia Drazhar.

103 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

#3

Finally watched Encanto and I am very confused why everyone is obsessed with "We Don't Talk About Bruno" when "Waiting On a Miracle" is right there. Y'all sleeping on the good stuff.

116 notes - Posted March 13, 2022

#2

Just finished rereading the Daughter of the Lilies webcomic (because the writer and artist are posting remastered pages with commentary while they're on hiatus) and I have two things to say:

(A) storms it's so good.

(B) I have never wished for October so hard in my entire life.

278 notes - Posted May 31, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Just a PSA for my fellow Dracula Daily fans — I have discovered a host of similar daily-dose-of-classic-literature-in-your-inbox subscriptions, and I thought others might be interested too! We have:

The Penny Dreadful: Starts on October 1, features various gothic tales originally sold as serialized Penny Dreadfuls. Authors include "J. Sheridan Le Fanu, John William Polidori, Lord Byron, James Malcolm Rymer & Thomas Puckett Prest, Florence Marryat, Bram Stoker, and many others."

Edgar Allan Poe Daily: A companion to Dracula Daily! This sends out Edgar Allan Poe stories and poems on the weekdays that Dracula Daily does not update.

Letters from Dr. Watson: Dr. John Watson does not actually have a blog, but as of January 1, 2023, he WILL have an email newsletter keeping us all up to date on the cases of his detective roommate.

Frankenstein Weekly: Starts February 2023. What it sounds like.

Whale Weekly: This one's already been going around Tumblr a bit, but I wanted to include it for anyone who missed previous posts. Read Moby Dick in bite-sized portions over the course of four years! Starts December 2022.

347 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[novemango]

live reading moby dick from within indie video game The Longing pt. 4 (without idle reading mode on)

chapter 15:

“we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots” Melville is having so much fun writing.

chapter 16:

Hm, I’d forgotten that Ishmael hears about Ahab from others before actually meeting Ahab. Adds to the Captain’s menacing aura.

chapter 17:

“might as well kill both birds at once” — what a nice idiom, I might keep it.

“hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling” — Melville has a fascinating attitude towards religion which I do not have the time to explore in a live reading.

Hm...I first read Moby Dick when I was about eight or nine years old. I wonder if Melville’s liberal attitudes (for his time) rubbed off on me?

chapter 18:

I read a webcomic whose author is very fond of Moby Dick. And I was once taught by a creative writing teacher who loved Melville. I’m starting to see their point of view: Moby Dick is a very fun read, and while it’s fun, it has a lot to say. 

More religious themes in this chapter, and we get some Ahab characterization (a man more concerned with Life than Death).

chapter 19:

Hello Elijah! That name’s familiar to me; perhaps I do remember more than I thought I did about Moby Dick from when I first read it so many years ago. 

More ominous dialogue about Captain Ahab...

also — “a soul is like a fifth wheel to a wagon” — more raw lines from the mind of Melville. What a writer...I’m an admirer now too.

They say you either love Moby Dick or hate it — I’m a lover.

[pocketsizedquasar]

read it here!

(ALT) dick day is back!! join me once again on the pequod if u like! and also im back on patre0n updating it regularly, so if u want to read ahead 3 pages & get access to WIPs and other stuff, check me out on there too! heehoo fun boat time

[dedicatedfollower467]

I posted 1,122 times in 2022

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I tagged 1,121 of my posts in 2022

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I sent 1 gift in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

my favorite thing about experiencing dracula daily with everyone on tumblr is knowing that most later adaptations have turned van helsing into like. this young, heroic vampire hunter who does nothing but hunt vampires all day, and maybe even has like a whole vampire-hunting legacy in his family.

when really he's just an old dutch professor who has done so much kooky research into every possible esoteric subject that exists that he just happens to be the one person in the story who knows a little bit about vampires.

370 notes - Posted September 22, 2022

#4

[image description in alt text]

hoo boy it's been a long-ass time since I have done an attempt at digital pencil coloring. this is technically a wip of a larger piece but i'm very pleased with how it turned out so i thought i'd share it now before i ruin it

385 notes - Posted September 28, 2022

#3

[image description in alt text]

it's finished! fanart i created for @vivifrage's fic "the spider and the wyrm."

i am INCREDIBLY proud of this piece. i haven't done this art style in a really, really long time and it turned out fantastic if i do say so myself.

i have become sliiiiightly obsessed with hollow knight over the past few weeks and may or may not become a black hole of hk content for the foreseeable future.

489 notes - Posted September 29, 2022

#2

if you miss dracula daily and you're interested in reading another classic work of literature in a bit at a time, whale weekly (which is a serialized version of moby dick) just started

1,242 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

one of the things i love about ebenezer scrooge, and a christmas carol in general, is that, unlike most fictional rich people, scrooge doesn't allow himself the luxuries that he denies to others.

like. he is enormously wealthy, but does he spend his money on good food and nice things and indulgences? no. he keeps his house dark because it's cheaper to not light things, he eats gruel, he barely even makes a big enough fire to heat himself, let alone the room. he scrimps and pinches pennies everywhere he can - including in areas that other people would consider "necessities" rather than "luxuries."

the story of a christmas carol is as much about ebenezer scrooge coming to realize that his misanthropy and miserliness is making himself as miserable as it's making everyone around him, and learning to once again take joy in living in a way he hasn't allowed himself since he was a boy.

it's genuinely cruel to ebenezer scrooge to compare him to assholes like elon musk and jeff bezos.

for all that he is a terrible, terrible person, at least scrooge isn't a damn hypocrite.

3,157 notes - Posted December 5, 2022

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[mattschorr]

Sign up for the most diabolical news on the net ... MINE!

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[evandahm]

Put some originals back up in my etsy store, including several more illustrations from Moby-Dick.

[ayc-comic]

Summer reading struggles

[biblioklept]

Dick (Perry Bible Fellowship)