Sketches and Commentary: A Treatise on Representational Democracy

Well folks, we done goofed it. Specifically, I goofed it, and didn't write any commentary for the bonus update in January. Sorry about that! Hopefully you haven't been literally starving for my insightful self-reflection. Although I guess on some level, by virtue of the fact that you're paying for it, that's a hope that undermines our entire business model...? Hahaha... ok moving on. We can NOT let this become just a commentary about the commentary, that would be ridiculous.

Although speaking of which, how are you finding it? It's been a few months of this schedule now, and I think we're finally beginning to settle into the production cycle behind the scenes. Well, as much as that's possible, considering that we've just doubled our workload. But just to say, while we're talking about the commentary and such: is there anything specific you'd like to hear more about, as regards the process of putting this comic together? Maybe you're keen to hear a bit from the visual artists and guest contributors? The comment section is, as ever, open to your suggestions. 

So anyway, the bonus update. Huh. Bit of a strange one, huh? Hard to know what to really say about it, or even if much needs to be said. This is the perpetual dilemma of making stuff for an audience; the question of whether or not to go out in front of the work and say "this is what it is". On the one hand, such an impulse can be detrimental in some instances, but on the other, it can also do a lot to enlighten discussion of a piece, which after all is one of the things we're looking to encourage as artists in the first place. These two contrary positions are eternally at war with each other, not unlike two noble and intelligent predators who do constant battle inside you. Two wolves, if you will. One says "revealing the complexity of the whole strips away the veneer of artistry and violates the delicate audience/work relationship", the other says "the complexity is a necessary part of an overall gestalt, the acknowledgement of which serves to simultaneously demystify and invigorate the art making process, as well as encourage appreciation for the object itself as a work of human labour". You are unemployed.

But so anyway, the bonus update, for real this time. We were very lucky to get to invite Courtney Brendle to contribute as a guest illustrator for this bonus. You'll recognize Courtney's work from Pesterquest, among other things, and I think we can all agree that it's delightful stuff. It reminds me of the drawings that the Mayor himself did in chalk on the walls of his command station all those years ago. Maybe he drew the pictures for this book? It's a possibility.

We wanted a cutesy, storybook style for this which would help place the action squarely in the fondly remembered past, while also disarming the reader for humorous effect. This happens a number of times in the update, of course. The title, A TREATISE ON REPRESENTATIONAL DEMOCRACY, is very academic and serious sounding--the absurdity of it being a children's picture book is therefore quite striking. The literary style is disarmingly simple (incidentally, writing something for children is harder than it sounds. Thank goodness we don't have to bother with that in Homestuck proper, haha). Then, later on, once the reader has been lulled into a false sense of security, we hit them with the info dump. Classic Homestuck psycheout x2 combo.

Speaking of classic Homestuck, the big info dump itself. Somewhat evocative of the famous troll/leprechaun romance spiels, only with worse jokes. I have to turn my self-critical brain off to a certain extent in order to write something like this, and just go with what takes my fancy from moment to moment. Andrew makes it look so easy.

It was quite funny, then, to see people seriously discussing the merits of this sociopolitical structure which I made up one afternoon. Honestly I have no idea whether such a thing would work in real life, even though it is mathematically perfect in every conceivable way. I might have accidentally invented a flawless democratic system????? Wild.

Eagle eyed readers will have noticed the allusion to PM as the head of the Delivery of Justice. I like to think that she set this combination postal/legal organization up, not only to deliver (haha) on her promise of liberty, reason, justice, civility, evisceration, punctuation, MAIL (might have misremembered some of those), BUT ALSO as a way of paying homage to the dearly departed AR. Remember AR? Poor, sweet, precious AR. His spirit may wander Aimlessly forever, but his legacy lives on. Or I guess I should say, it *did* live on, before everything fell apart. 

This update ends on a bit of an ominous note. We the audience, and the mysterious figure reading this book, are both coming at this from the perspective of knowing in advance the sort of future that is in store for Earth C. The question then becomes: what happened between then and now to make things suck so much? That is what this bonus story is attempting to answer, in a roundabout way. It's open-ended questions like this which make perfect content for bonus updates, I think; it's like asking writers to fill in the blanks with their own headcanons, which won't necessarily impact the main plot very much.