The Painting of a Horse Attacking a Football Player is an item alchemized by John Egbert in Homestuck, painted by Data in a Jandrew Edits video, and owned by Andrew Hussie in real life.
Description and real-life history[]
The painting, originally titled "Romo" and signed by the artist with only a single initial "T," depicts a jet-black horse with a bright orange mane (presumably made of fire) rearing up on its hind legs, poised as if to strike. The horse's opponent is former NFL linebacker Bill Romanowski, wearing the black and silver uniform of his short stint with the Oakland Raiders. Romanowski's posture is somewhat ambiguous, but it is assumed that he is charging directly at the horse, preparing to tackle it. Their battle is set atop a field of what appear to be small blue hills, possibly of snow or sand. The sky is painted with the same shade of blue used for the ground, making it difficult to determine where the land ends and the sky begins. Far off in the background, behind Romanowski, a mysterious, craggy purple mountain juts sharply into the air.
Andrew Hussie, triumphant, displays his hard-earned prize.
Andrew Hussie, who is particularly fond of "so-bad-it's-good" media and equine themes, praised the painting's flaws in a December 2007 review posted to his blog (now archived in a later post that covers his extensive history with the piece). Hussie drew particular attention to the horse's bizarrely humanoid and well-developed biceps and back muscles, compared its blazing mane to the bright and straightened shock of hair one might see on a Muppet, and expressed a sort of delighted confusion at the vague and inexplicable setting of the scene. This post marked the beginning of Hussie's quest to acquire the painting, asking for donations to meet the artist's asking price of $425. The funding campaign was successful, and Hussie received the Painting of a Horse Attacking a Football Player in January 2008.
In 2013, Ryan North tweeted that Hussie had stayed with him for a week, and left the painting behind for North "to remember him by."
Jandrew Edits[]
In episode 8 of Andrew Hussie's and Jan Van dem Hemel's collaborative series of Star Trek: The Next Generation edits, "Fine Art", Data is responsible for the creation of this painting, as well as an extremely pornographic piece (which causes Worf to pass out upon viewing it) that would later reappear in Homestuck, adorning the walls of Equius's hive alongside similarly explicit depictions of Equius's beloved "musclebeasts."
Homestuck[]
In Homestuck, after John realizes that he had covered his extensive movie poster collection in graffiti while unconscious, he seeks out a way to use punchcard alchemy to restore them. He soon theorizes that, if the inherent qualities of a captchalogued item are encoded in the holes punched into its card by the Designix, then it might be possible to "subtract" those qualities from another punched card by selectively inverting the holes in the latter card that align with the holes in the former card. John tests his theory by "subtracting"
a harlequin figure from a Ghost Dad Poster defaced with harlequin-themed graffiti, using three possible hole-inversion patterns. He is successful; in addition to a clean poster, the other two results are a potted plant and the Painting of a Horse Attacking a Football Player. The Painting is shown to cost 425 Mercury grist to alchemize, referencing the price that Andrew Hussie paid for it in real life.The Painting reappears later in the story, when Hussie self-inserts into Homestuck for the first time, hanging above the mantle in his lavish study.
Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon (Dubiously Canon)[]
In his private study
aboard his hijacked starship, the Theseus, Dirk Strider keeps the Painting of a Horse Attacking a Football Player (now held in an extravagant purple frame) hung on a wall. Taking a moment to admire it, he describes it as one of his most prized possessions, given to one of his splinter-selves by a long-lost lover, who taught him that Hope is eternal.