#whistles: the starlight calliope

[tinfoil-03]

whos your favorite mizzlebip disguise im inbetween qtip mcchicken and crayola piehole

[freackthejester]

Whistles: The Starlight Calliope

page 8

Andrew Hussie

[charliesinfern0]

clown for sketch request :o)

i hope you dont mind i doodled doodlebean........

[nicnavarrocage]

Fun Fact: Honolulu Hammer and Tiki Titan (two characters from Gentlemen of Excellence) actually appear in a specific page of Whistles: The Starlight Calliope where the titular character showcases juggling to a group of young natives.

[nekropsii]

have you ever read hussies other works ie “and it dont stop” “midnight calliope” etc? if so what did you think?

Yeah, I've checked out most of the works on the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. Really big fan of the style and techniques implemented in And It Don't Stop and Whistles: The Starlight Calliope!!

Hussie's older works are where you really get a sense of the bigotry that outlined his works, too. Plus, a lot of their past comics are referenced extremely heavily in Homestuck, since it was originally only really made for the consumption of those on that niche little forum.

I think everyone should read Hussie's older works, it helps you really get into the mind of Hussie as a writer, and makes certain decisions a lot more clear and obvious. There's no real reason not to do it. If you can handle Homestuck, you can probably handle his other works.

Also, read Problem Sleuth right now if you haven't already.

[davekat-sucks]

Whistles and the starlight calliope is better than Davekat.

Whistles: The Starlight Calliope is better than Davekat. Every Homestuck fan should definitely give this a read to see Hussie's origins. It is really good despite it's brief short run. It is available in the Unofficial Homestuck Collection with Hussie's other works or here from Mr. Cheeze.

[darks-arts]

You Can Not Kill Yourself, The Stump Is Occupied

[votejack]

art stuff from today

[mmmmalo]

Reread Whistles. Still largely opaque to me, but 1. the description of clowns as a race in danger of eradication and 2. the fear of being replaced that haunts the stars of the circus suggest to me that racial paranoia is still a driving force of the narrative. I tried to reconcile this with the story's treatment of cannibalism (and prostitution, the other flesh trade) to little avail -- at most I vaguely suspect that Sugarshoe's retelling of the story might qualify as /narrative/ cannibalism, which if we leap forward to Homestuck would tie Caliborn's production of Homosuck to his cannibal-derived namesake Caliban and his general taste for flesh -- his Alpha Male adventuring in the Land of Someone's Handicrafts I Took (LOSHIT) also connects the act of copying to the act of consumption.

[thegrubbleswheretheyshouldntbe]

first post. they should not be at the starlight calliope

[sanswifeandgf]

Doodlebean :33

[araneaserketrystoohard]

A small recognition for the Whistles covers

[freackthejester]

[charliesinfern0]

art vs artist 2022 charlie edition!!

[nekrotiize]

heya! got any comics you like?

Oh man. This depends a lot on what we're counting as "comics". I'm gonna assume you aren't a snob about the definition- you seem pretty normal about that kinda thing- and that this question counts any form of comic- so western comics, webcomics, eastern comics, etc. The first things that come to mind are...

Scott Pilgrim, by Bryan Lee O'Malley.

Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel.

Homestuck, by Andrew Hussie.

Problem Sleuth, by Andrew Hussie.

Whistles: The Starlight Calliope, by Andrew Hussie.

Blood on the Tracks, by Shūzō Oshimi.

Hellstar Remina, by Junji Ito.

Tomie, by Junji Ito.

The Enigma Of Amigara Fault, by Junji Ito.

Vagabond, by Takehiko Inoue.

Seeds of Anxiety, by Masaaki Nakayama.

Hello, Melancholic!, by Yayoi Ohsawa.

Goodnight Punpun, by Inio Asano.

There's definitely a lot more, but those are for another day. Again, these are just what come to mind first. I read a lot of manga, lol. Sorry if you were expecting some superhero stuff, I'm more into superhero cartoons than anything else. (Teen Titans 2003 and Invincible, anyone?)

I have recommendations out the ass. If you ever need cartoon, anime, video game, or movie recommendations, hit my line, I've got millions. If you don't like horror, then I've got... Only hundreds. Lmao. Still a solid amount, just... Quite a bit less. (I do have good entry-level horror media if you're ever looking to get into it, though, since I remember you mentioning you aren't much of a horror guy. Finding good gateway horror is a bit tricky, but I've got everyone's back on that one. Been here my whole life. I know my way around the block.)

[nekropsii]

Hussie is not very good at writing Romantic Relationships.

[This is all Stream of Consciousness. Don't mind the meandering.]

On its own, this is fine, of course. That's a skill that sits squarely within it's own niche, and not every story needs romance in it. The trouble with this is how much the notion of Romantic Shipping is embedded to the story, down to defining its own unique Romance System... More than once.

Relationships are a key Narrative Device in Homestuck's storytelling- everyone is aware of this. The unique focus that Homestuck has on the interpersonal relationships that the cast has with one another is fascinating, and arguably one of, if not the biggest reason(s) why people are so enamored with the story and it's characters to begin with. So, that begs the question... If that's the case, why do the Romantic Relationships kind of suck, and why do so many people act like they don't? Moreover, why do so many people tend to push the blame onto specific pairings, rather than acknowledge that maybe... Hussie just wasn't equipped as a writer to write Romance?

Hussie's work has never been particularly focused on the idea of Romance. I can't think of a single piece of media he's released where that's even anywhere close to being on the table, outside of Homestuck itself. Their work tends towards somewhat High-Concept Fiction, with Lowbrow Surreal Humor tied to (usually Body-based) Horror- comics with a clearly communicable premise. Relationships are never truly the core focus- the premise is, whether that premise has the complexity of Whistles: The Starlight Calliope, or the simplicity of Humanimals. The focus was the absurdity of the story and premise itself. Hussie undeniably knew their niche. He knew what he was good at writing and illustrating, and they banked on it. Noting here that none of this is truly praise; think of it solely as a mild dissection.

The point is, to our knowledge, this would have been new grounds for Hussie, and the fact that it quickly became the heart of the story and the main appeal of the comic was most definitely a tricky transition. Luckily, since most of the audience was- and still is- so obsessed with Shipping, many people were quite willing to overlook the fact that the Romance is underdeveloped at best, and downright tacky at worst. From my scope on things, people tend to target Rosemary (Rose <3 Kanaya) in particular as the prime example of Poor Romance Writing, despite being one of the chief examples of Hussie's best work with Romance. The poorer examples tend to get swept under the rug, or even put on a pedestal, with people's mental image of the pairing far overriding their grip of what is and isn't actually canon- from Roxygen's (Roxy <3 Egbert) near nonexistence, to GamKar's (Gamzee <> Karkat) utter failure, to GamTav's (Gamzee <3 Tavros) existence as a joke.

I feel as if part of the issue is the scale of Homestuck's story. It's a Creation Myth that's saddled with a lot of thickly interwoven, tangled lore. The story is more something like a Power of Friendship kind of deal than a RomDrama. The grandiosity of the end goal makes it so that intensely focusing on the little details of these characters lives and their relationship with one another can be difficult to balance, especially considering the sheer size of the cast... Hussie put far too much on her plate as an indie creator to manage all these threads, even if they were good at writing relationships in the first place.

The real meat lies in the Platonic. Homestuck contains within itself a nice variety of very, very interesting friendships that are all but sorely neglected by the average fan, and it's quite upsetting...