Homestuck, Book 1: Act 1 & Act 2 (1) Hardcover – April 13, 2018

I'm not going to say much about the content and quality of Homestuck itself; it's just too big and, for lack of a better term, weird, to really do a meaningful review of. In short, the best way to describe it is an interactive metafictional coming-of-age story combined with a video-game-centric mythology liberally coated in irony and pop-culture reference. No, I did not just string a lot of random buzzwords together, that's actually what it is. Its native format is similar: a combination of animations, music, interactive flash games, text logs, and in general doesn't really confine itself to any one form of media.Now, onto the book itself: The important thing to note here is that the book really shines as a supplement to the online version rather than as a substitute for it. There are two main negatives:* The book, being a book, simply can't reproduce everything. Obviously the animations and interactive bits are reduced to screencaps, and the music obviously isn't there.* Hussie's commentary contains a LOT of spoilers for further plot developments. Granted, most of them are fairly meaningless until you actually have further context, but still, if you like to go into this sort of thing blind, you'd be better off ignoring the commentary.But onto the positives:* The book's physical quality is excellent; the binding is solid and the printing looks great. They definitely didn't skimp on it.* While it obviously can't completely recreate the online aspects of the comic, it's clear that the physical reproduction isn't phoned in. It would've been easy to just put everything in as a grid, but instead care was taken to select certain panels and place them on the page in a way that at complements the visuals. Adding to it, the online page numbers are posted on each page, so you can just go online to see the animations and hear the music (it's free, after all).* The biggest reason to buy the book is to get to read Hussie's commentary. It bounces between explanations of the MANY running gags, injokes, and obscure plot points (which is invaluable to someone who wasn't able to follow it as it was originally posted, as much of the content was fan-driven. Also the plot gets really convoluted towards the end, and clarification from the author helps) and jokes at his own expense.On the whole, it's an excellent adaptation; not quite a replacement, but as good as a book version of Homestuck could reasonably be. For somebody who wants to experience it in a new way and with some new insight from Hussie, it's definitely worth picking up.

My 14 year old daughter bought the first two books and she read through both in record timing!I rated the 2nd book with 4 stars because the binding on the book was falling apart. She is reading through it fast enough that it really isn’t a problem but will not be able to go back and reread it unless we want to tape it up. I didn’t spend all that money to do that nonsense.Now back to this book, this book was perfect. She read in on 2 days. This book did not fall apart. She read the book and donated it to the less fortunate, unfortunately we can’t do that with the second book.She highly recommends this book! She can’t wait for book # 3 to arrive.

Everything I could have wanted. As someone who was obsessed with Homestuck as a teenager back in 2010, I am overjoyed to revisit John and the Kids through the first 2 acts of what would be a delightfully convoluted adventure. I can't wait for the next books to be released. Hussies annotations at the bottom of the page make the purchase worth it on their own. Highly recommend to any fellow homestuckers or anyone who is curious and has plenty of time to read through this masterpiece.

Pretty solid book quality, especially given the price tag. Good binding, colorful pages, and Hussie quips. Still inferior to the web version, but that's a given. If you haven't read it, read it on the homestuck website. You get animations, interactive games, and music. To re-read it, read Hussie's commentary, or simply have it available, this is a fantastic choice.

Seeing my granddaughter sit and read instead of being glued to an electronic device all the time is a great feeling. Couldn’t be happier.

I loved reading it online, and now I have it in my hands. It's not animated, and the gifs are now merely still images, but it's definitely an amazing quality and it's very colorful. I noticed the green was a little dark, but I frankly don't care because it's just so surreal having Homestuck in paper form. The text is pretty small, but there is a lot to fill given the amount of panels, pages, and text for certain parts.

A lot of the magic and story in Homestuck is best on its intended medium - the internet - so this book serves more as a supplement. The only addition it brings to the story is commentary, which is honestly really nice. It brings insight into the story, and also is just super nice for a creator themselves for thinking about the thought process. Especially for how successful the comic is as well, it's a nice touch.Also, the comic surprisingly translates well onto paper. The animations and music is obviously lost, but the pesterlogs and actions and text just looks really interesting in graphic novel form.Other nice things:The book is larger than I thought, and everything fits well onto the pagesThe comic panels look surprisingly nice for it being printed. I was kind of scared you'd get the pixel-y effect you get when print images off the internet, but everything looked great! Of course the style is crude, but it looks good on the page.A really interesting part of the books is that there's like an index color on the side of the pages which are the colors of the protagonist that section is following. It was a really nice touchMy only complaint is that this book really exemplifies the most boring part of Homestuck, which is a common complaint for readers. Homestuck does have a really slow start, and the fan's usual statement is "It gets better later on!" While true, I'd suggest reading at least the first act, and if you can, the first four acts altogether. If you can read and enjoy it like I did, then these books are probably for you.