Older Than They Think / Webcomics

• The Noob:
  • When The Noob parodied the "Time Warp" song from the famous stage play and 1975 comedy movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show in its episode #299 "The Dungeon Lifecycle", a fan on the comments board claimed that the webcomic was ripping off the MMORPG City of Heroes, because they had used the "jump to the left" joke first; naturally, this came from a CoH mission packed with RHPS references.
  • Similarly, a fan asked on the comments box whether the "Eldritch Blob" monster was a reference to "Eldritch Deathlord" from Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, not knowing that the term eldritch is dated by Merriam-Webster online to the year 1508. Horror writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Clark Ashton Smith and H. P. Lovecraft were very fond of the word, and it is from these that its modern use in fantasy comes.
• Many people will tell you that Order of the Stick invented the RPG Mechanics 'Verse trope, but as that page shows, at least two anime examples, Beet the Vandel Buster and Magical Circle Guru-Guru, beat OotS by about one and nine years, respectively. Order of the Stick is also frequently accused of stealing material from Skyrim, even though the creator has declared he has never played the game.
• Believe it or not, there are some people who credit Homestuck for coining the phrase "grimdark". It is a meme from Warhammer 40,000.
  • The same applies with "fuckass", from Donnie Darko.
  • The concept of romance applying to four separate types of relationships, only one of which being romance as we typically think of it, was first proposed by C.S. Lewis, who based his ideas on ancient Greek philosophy.
    • In general, troll culture is commonly thought to be an entirely original invention. While it can't be said for sure if any of it was intentional, many aspects of troll culture are very reminiscent of S. M. Stirling's The Draka, the Dremora civilisation from The Elder Scrolls (who even use the same alphabet and look very similar to trolls in physical appearance), and real-world Sparta.
  • The theme song of the Midnight Crew, "I'm a Member of the Midnight Crew", is commonly believed to have been written for the comic. It was actually written by vaudeville singer Eddie Morton in 1909, and the Midnight Crew are named after it.
    • Speaking of the Midnight Crew, they're thought to be dark parodies of the Problem Sleuth crew made specifically for Homestuck, in keeping with Hussie's trend of taking from previous MS Paint Adventures comics and referencing them in later ones. While the parody part of that statement is true, the characters were initially from Problem Sleuth — they were a rival gang Team Sleuth encountered in non-canon bonus comics, and just as silly, to boot.
  • Some readers, especially of the younger type, are unaware that the trolls' symbols are alchemical symbols associated with signs of the Zodiac and not an original creation.
  • Say "Put the bunny back in the box" to someone and they'll probably think you're referencing Homestuck. In fact, Homestuck got it from Con Air (and the line is even triggered by examining a Con Air poster).
• In one strip of xkcd, Randall Munroe points out how people have complained about The Pace of Modern Life since the dawn of the 20th century.
• Many people think that 8-Bit Theater started the sprite comic genre, but that honor goes to Neglected Mario Characters.

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