“Nothing Is Stranger To Man Than His Own Image”

November 25, 2020 10:48 AM

O Human Star is a 505-page, eight-chapter web comic melodrama by Blue Delliquanti about a roboticist who is mysteriously reincarnated (as a robot) many years after his death and must find out why. It’s a story about gender and the self. It’s a bad guide to how the academic funding process works or appropriate employer/employee relationships, but is otherwise an optimistic, speculative vision of how the future might be.
This is the first page.
Samantha Reidel’s review in Polygon (August, 2020)
An interview with Delliquanti about their comic at Multiversity Comics (January, 2019)
Previously from 2014
posted by Going To Maine (17 comments total)

I've followed this comic from pretty early on and I've loved it from the beginning. It's a classic sci-fi tale in the mode of Asimov, but with a sharp eye for gender and identity that you rarely get even in the best modern sci-fi.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:16 AM on November 25, 2020 [5 favorites]

Wow. I can't wait to read the whole thing. Thank you, GTM.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:28 AM on November 25, 2020

I love Delliquanti's work, and even commissioned them to do a parallel-universe version of Nova once. OHS is great.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:35 AM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

Roko's Basset Hound.
posted by jamjam at 11:38 AM on November 25, 2020

Man I wish there was a good way to read long running webcomics online. Ironically, bookmarks end up being clunky and awkward. This seems great, though, and I'll find a way to read it.
posted by Reyturner at 12:24 PM on November 25, 2020

I've followed this story for years. When it ended, it felt like losing a friend. But it was like losing them because they're moving away to somewhere where they've always wanted to go.
Bittersweet.

This comic is of extraordinary quality.
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:37 PM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

My first thought was why would there be a FFP about a "version not supported" page?
posted by bdc34 at 12:41 PM on November 25, 2020 [2 favorites]

Am I the only one who leaves webcomics open in a tab when I'm trying to catch up on them? I had O Human Star open for months while I worked with it. Worth every minute - beautiful, heartbreaking at times... just wonderful.
posted by justnathan at 1:09 PM on November 25, 2020

Am I the only one who leaves webcomics open in a tab when I'm trying to catch up on them? I had O Human Star open for months while I worked with it

I generally shut down my computer every night and compulsively close applications because I’m a freak, so, no. I just rely on browser history for those things, with all of the attendant issues.
posted by Going To Maine at 1:31 PM on November 25, 2020

Am I the only one who leaves webcomics open in a tab when I'm trying to catch up on them?

I just edit the bookmark to the latest page. I log off every night, so leaving a tab open isn’t practical.

I followed OHS from the beginning and really loved it. I thought it ended a bit quickly/abruptly, but it was nonetheless beautiful.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:53 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

In retrospect, I definitely started reading OHS when it was posted to the blue in 2014, so thanks, Narrative Priorities, for cluing me into it.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 2:08 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

This was amazing. Thank-you!
posted by Braeburn at 3:42 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

It's so good!! I also am not fond of reading in the browser - I feel like I don't retain comics as well when I read them that way - so I'm waiting for the 3rd book to show up from Kickstarter to find out how it ends.
posted by potrzebie at 4:24 PM on November 25, 2020 [1 favorite]

I also felt the ending was a little hurried, but it's well done and beautiful to look at. There's a part in the interview where the author says they were constrained by narrative choices they made when they were 22, and the whole project took seven years, so I think I can forgive the rushed ending.
posted by The River Ivel at 1:45 AM on November 26, 2020

still reading, but this is fantastic
posted by 20 year lurk at 10:33 PM on November 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

That was wonderful. Thanks for posting this, Going to Maine. Makes me wish I hadn't stopped reading comics.
posted by evilDoug at 12:18 AM on November 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Lovely comic. Everyone-is-now-genderfluid is a pretty common trope in singularity fiction, so it was interesting to read something more solidly grounded in lived experience.

narrative choices they made when they were 22
I guess that explains why Al has his 40th birthday while clearly at least 50...
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 5:29 PM on November 29, 2020 [1 favorite]