#heroohhero

[neorice]

One of the protagonists of my webcomic Hero oh Hero. I've been updating nearly every day for a good 10 years, so if you enjoy webcomics with a consistent update rate & a good backlog of content enjoy, check it out @ https://www.neorice.com/hoh_1 Thanks so much if you decide to read!

[virovac]

I am fond of the ghouls in Hero Oh Hero

The ghouls, risen bodies of dead magic users possesed by strange spirits leaking into reality, have behavior a lot in common with gamers

Yet in-universe they are played completely straight for horror

They are obsessed with quests, are less likely to attack merchants or people that offer to sell them something, and get stronger from killing things. And if killed they just respawn somewhere else

And may see an item or animal and randomly decide to wear it as a hat.

spoilers under cut

[maspers]

YO WEBCOMIC FANS

Okay, so I haven't actually asked you before. But you get my drift.

Hero Oh Hero (starts here https://www.neorice.com/hoh_1 ) is a pixel art webcomic by @neorice, and it's one of the most creative webcomics I've ever seen. It's got fantasy. It's got superheroes. It's got horror. It's got comedy. It's got spies and wars and wizards who set things on fire. LOTS of fire, really. It's got death games and intrigue. It's got flashbacks. It's got flash-FORWARDS. It's got brilliant characters with tons of variety. It's got multiple complex magic systems that interact with each other in interesting ways. And it's all done in GORGEOUS pixel art with cool and distinct designs for every single character, item, and setting. Seriously, this comic has everything you could ever want from a webcomic (well, it's not Homestuck, but Homestuck is basically an anime so it doesn't count).

The storytelling methods take a bit of getting used to since the chapters bounce around between the comic's multiple main protagonists. You will think the protagonists and their adventures are completely unconnected. THEY AREN'T. You read and you read and suddenly you realize "hang on this is that one thing from the other storyline" and then you GASP and are in awe. It's so brilliant.

Also, on a personal note Noah is quite possibly one of my favorite characters (if not the favorite) to ever be in a Webcomic. He's right up there with Terezi (from Homestuck, which again doesn't count due to being an anime), Remi (from Unordinary), Bun-Bun (from Sluggy Freelance) and Erin (from Aurora, which... also might count as an anime). Noah experiences nothing but suffering from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to sleep, and when he DOES go to sleep it gets worse. Literally nobody (including him) wants him to be important but he keeps finding himself in Situations and he deserves basically none of it. He practically bleeds snark. He is so tired and done with everything but everything is not done with him so he just has to deal, and that makes him the most relatable character even imo. I'd recommend reading the comic for him alone, but trust me the other protags are awesome as well. There's something in this comic for everyone, and I think it is a CRIME that this comic is not popular when it really REALLY deserves to be.

Read Hero Oh Hero. PLEASE. I promise you won't regret it.

(Oh and did I mention that the comic is still updating? The quality never drops, and the current arc is REALLY exciting and has some really cool lore drops about the setting as a whole. HOH is truly the gift that keeps on giving.)

[neorice]

Pixelart webcomic Hero oh Hero, artwork.

[neorice]

Art and Splash pages from my Pixelart webcomic Hero Oh Hero. Updates at least once daily, check it out at: https://www.neorice.com/hoh_1

[neorice]

Hero oh Hero Blog #1

Three Protagonists:  As many of my followers probably know, I run a pixelart webcomic by the name “Hero oh Hero” (read here). Just to throw my thoughts into the ether, I’d like to share a few of the writing choices I’ve made throughout the production of my comic & why I decided to make those. Not sure if they’re useful and/or interesting to anyone, but it’s fun for me to reflect. As of the writing of this post I’m at 2757 published pages & 3453 pages total if we include buffer, quite some content!  The first thing I’d like to talk about is the general structure of the comic, I run three separate stories that feel relatively disconnected, despite taking place in the same world.

Burk, a heroic character who goes around trying to defeat villains who do evil deeds. As he travels from city to city he meets various friends who join him.

Noah, a bookish introvert who’s favorite hobby is being left alone & avoiding social situations at all costs. He’s also a magic child-soldier being forced to perform missions for a totalitarian government.

Tobi, an adventurous inventor-girl who comes from a world that operates by video-game logic, she gets flung into another world at some point & is trying to find her way back home.  Comic Structure So the big question here is: why tell three stories rather than just putting all focus on a single one? I think the biggest underlying reason for me is that a lot of games I played & series I watched had what I’d describe as a “protagonist-centric world”.  It’s obvious that the story itself will focus on the protagonist, they have that role for a reason, but it goes much further than a character being important/central to the narrative. In a lot of series I felt that the worldbuilding itself, the magic system, the legends and myths, all of it was often designed to accentuate the protagonists’ importance, or somehow add something to “why” the protagonist in particular was worth following. Very often this’d result in stuff like worlds where, if there were 4-types of magic power a person could have, the protagonist would be the one special person with access to 2, 3 or even 4 of those abilities.  I don’t necessarily think this is bad writing in itself, but I did sometimes find, especially in series with interesting side characters/extended casts, that the way the universe seemed to revolve around the hero and their abilities often made the world itself seem less interesting or less real to me.  What got me interested in multiple perspectives & multiple protagonists back in the day were games like Seiken Densetsu 3/Secret of Mana 2 where you had 6 main characters of equal importance & you could basically decide for yourself which of the 6 was your playthrough’s “protagonist” & which 2 out of the remaining chars would join you on the team. Similarly games like Treasure of the Rudras played around with multiple different heroes rather than a “true” chosen one hero of more significance than everyone else.  I noticed that a lot of these games that either split up the roles, or provided multiple canonical characters who technically could’ve done the job, aleviated a lot of the annoyances I had with singular-protagonist series, but also added the fascinating element of how different narratives/perspectives could intersect and affect each other. Designing the Heroes. So from the early onset I’ve decided that I really wanted to tell a story where rather than just a single central protagonist, I wanted several protagonists of “equal importance”. The next question that follows is: If I’m going to have multiple heroes, what characters am I going to choose? Burk came relatively easy as he’s a character I made up for an old English class story back in highschool, though I did tweak him quite a bit from his original design. What I did want to try and do is contrast the other two characters from him, but not *just* in terms of “This one’s strong, this one’s smart, this one’s ... hot” or something, but also more on their role within the story. This is where I got the idea to try and really try to put a notable difference between the main characters & why they’re even in “their story”.  Burk’s a highly active protagonist who goes out of his way to look for adventure, Noah in contrast is absolutely reactive and is thrown into a plot entirely against his will. Tobi is hard to discuss without major spoilers, but I’m thinking that observant readers who are up to date probably know where she falls in this regard. Once I figured out the biggest area of contrast between the three, it was pretty straightforward what setting would best accentuate that aspect of them. Burk & his narrative very closely follow a D&D-type of “let’s find an adventure for the sake of it!” plot, whereas I intentionally threw Noah in a dystopian Empire that has little interest in things such as “personal agency” and “Freedom”. 

[virovac]

Technology levels

I love how Hero Oh Hero justifies the disparate technologies levels you’d sometimes see in anime

Almost all technology that is modern or futuristic (rather than traveling along a different path like Livaria and it’s clockwork gizmos) is produced by a sapient city that people make trade deals with.

Trade deals that give it a very unfair monopoly enforced by treaties, lawyers, and likely killer robots

And some places don’t allow such technology as much of others. An embassy or a city by the corporation known as Heroland (which is kinda like if Disney or WB did primarily mercenary work, being allowed a city of their own in each nation they operate in to be a hub ) could have much different technology than surroundings.

So sometimes people in a lower tech areas (but still advanced in architecture and other ways) sometimes just see weird things they have little context for

[virovac]

I would die for Mr.Mittens if only that wouldn’t further their master’s plan