I can't leave the house until my Homestuck reread is done

Homestuck, page 000001

Let's just dive right into this, while author Andrew Hussie promises "a good while" until the next update.

So, right away we're introduced to several of this comic's particularities. The utilitarian standard art style. The single-panel-with-some-text baseline format. Loyal readers immediately recognize this as well as the animated .gif art and the command line-looking prompt to proceed to the next page as the standard built up in Hussie's previous comics/interactive text adventures. The fact that the main character is about to receive a name now, on his 13th birthday, also seems like a familiar touch of whimsical surrealism.

Little do we suspect how fast and how far all of this will change. The naming convention turns out to be a surrealistic but valid and integral part of this world's culture, the nominal allowance of reader input on the story progression will soon be dropped, the function and style of the comic will fluctuate wildly.

Homestuck has been called, with care taken to specify not in the commonly used laughable sense but in the literal sense, a "multimedia experience". It uses all the tools the Internet age affords it, from Google image search to crowdsourced art and music to Flash animations - some, in fact, little videogames - to hidden links with bonus content, and a myriad of different art styles, in order to tell a story riddled with chat logs and kids who carry with them five or more computers wherever they go, while they play a very silly videogame seamlessly integrated with their absurd reality in a struggle that turns out to be a vital part of the reproductive cycle of the universe.

And then it gets a little weird and very serious.

That's my summary of the story so far. Now let's see about the details.