MS Paint Adventures

MS Paint Adventures
Author(s)Andrew Hussie
Websitemspaintadventures.com
Current status/scheduleEnded in 2018 (all works moved to homestuck.com)
Launch date2007
Genre(s)Action-adventure, Puzzle, Comedy-Drama, Science Fiction, Science Fantasy

MS Paint Adventures, abbreviated MSPAdventures or MSPA, was a website and collection of webcomics written and illustrated by Andrew Hussie.[1] According to some estimates, in April 2016 MS Paint Adventures was the largest collection of comics on the Internet, containing over 10,000 pages among its five series.[2][3][4]

The comics were written in serial works or "adventures" in a manner that parodied interactive fiction games.[3] The characters' actions were originally driven by commands suggested by fans in the comics' official forum, but fan suggestions were eventually abandoned due to the size of the fanbase and the author's desire to tell a more coherent story.[5] The comics tended to draw inspiration from video games, imitating and parodying genres such as RPGs and simulation games.[6] They frequently reference other aspects of current internet culture. Despite its name, the site's comics have been created primarily in Adobe Photoshop, not Microsoft Paint, other than the first page of Jailbreak; Hussie decided after that page that telling a story using Paint was not feasible.[5] Over time, the comics evolved from simple static images and captions to frequent animations set to original music, and occasionally to interactive games created in Flash[2] and HTML5.

One adventure, Homestuck, has given rise to a large fan community as made evident by the increasing amount of fan art[7] and cosplay at comic book conventions.[8] The rapid rise in the popularity of Homestuck led to its recognition at the Toronto Comics Art Festival for two years running,[9] and it brought, on average, over 600,000 unique views to the site daily.[3] An adventure game spinoff of Homestuck titled Hiveswap was released September 14, 2017, and was produced with funds contributed by fans of the comic via Kickstarter.[10] This project raised nearly $2.5 million, exceeding its goal of $700,000 in a little under two days, at that time being the 6th largest Kickstarter drive. A followup titled Homestuck: Beyond Canon was launched October 25, 2019.

MS Paint Adventures supported its author financially, formerly through the sale of merchandise on the online store TopatoCo[11] as well through advertising, and the site's own store and record label, What Pumpkin.[12] Music used in the comics is sold through Bandcamp.[13] In 2014 a majority of merchandise began a slow migration to We Love Fine.[14] In October 2017, VIZ Media announced acquisition of the publishing rights to Homestuck, and their plans to republish the graphic novel adaptations of Homestuck starting in April 2018.[15]

Today, the MS Paint Adventures website redirects to homestuck.com; all works prior to Homestuck are available at this URL, while later works such as Homestuck: Beyond Canon are on their own websites. MS Paint Adventures is still available online, albeit in a slightly buggy form, at its website.[a]

  1. ^ Krell, Jason (September 22, 2010). "MS Paint Adventures provides online fun". Arizona Daily Wildcat. University of Arizona. Retrieved April 29, 2012.
  2. ^ a b McGown, Justin (October 17, 2011). "Homestuck fans prepare for webcomic release". The Tartan. Carnegie Mellon. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
  3. ^ a b c Baio, Andy (November 9, 2011). "Arcade Improv: Humans Pretending to Be Videogames". Kotaku. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  4. ^ "MS Paint Adventures: Statistics". readmspa.org. Retrieved 2013-10-30.
  5. ^ a b Meeks, Elijah (December 3, 2010). "Interview with Andrew Hussie, Creator of Homestuck". Digital Humanities Specialist. Stanford University Libraries & Academic Information Resources. Archived from the original on August 13, 2019. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  6. ^ Weiler, Lance (January 25, 2009). "How Problem Sleuth Turns a Comic Into a Game". Culture Hacker. WorkBook Project. Archived from the original on November 30, 2010. Retrieved September 24, 2010.
  7. ^ Price, Ada (October 19, 2011). "Manga at NYCC 2011: Viz, Yen Press, Kodansha, Vertical and 'Homestuck'". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved October 23, 2011.
  8. ^ Christodoulides, Alex (October 16, 2011). "Geeks in disguise: New York Comic Con enthusiasts take costumes to extreme ahead of Halloween". New York Daily News. Mortimer Zuckerman. Retrieved October 23, 2011.[dead link‍]
  9. ^ "Update: New Exhibitors at TCAF, New Books, and some Cancellations!", Toronto Comics Art Festival website. Retrieved April 4, 2012.
  10. ^ Ryan Rigney (September 6, 2012). "What The Heck Is Homestuck, And How'd It Get $750K On Kickstarter?". Wired. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  11. ^ Chen, Jialu (August 2, 2011). "See you in the funny pages". Boston.com. The New York Times Company. Archived from the original on December 11, 2011. Retrieved October 24, 2011.
  12. ^ "What Pumpkin Projects and Stores". What Pumpkin Studios. Retrieved June 13, 2016.
  13. ^ "HIVESWAP: ACT 2 Original Soundtrack, by James Roach, Toby Fox, and Clark Powell". Homestuck. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  14. ^ Hussie, Andrew (January 24, 2014). "introdoucing, 20104............ the NEWD YEAR". MSPaintAdventures.com. Archived from the original on February 8, 2014.
  15. ^ "VIZ MEDIA ANNOUNCES ACQUISITION AND PUBLISHING PLANS FOR HOMESTUCK COLLECTOR'S EDITION SERIES". VIZ Media. Retrieved April 8, 2018.


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