Harlan Ward is a pseudonym or penname or whatever you want to call it, but the day-to-day me is a computer science teacher with an academic background in philosophy, and an interest in a wide range of things. To name a few: movies bad and good, music dad and rock, literature, some styles of paintings, outsider art generally, rabbit holes, puzzles, the weird, and the eerie. I put a lot of value in the concept of creating irrespective of skill, because oftentimes the idea itself holds power distinct from the execution. As such, I enjoy engaging in works of people who are either autodidactic or simply have passing knowledge of their subject matter without necessarily following traditional routes of knowledge. This sometimes manifests in my own work (or at least I enjoy thinking it does).
I try to hold a practical commitment to acting well towards others rather than adherence to absolute rules, and I don't necessarily believe in sentimentalist theories of morality even if sometimes my own brain compels me to act in such a way. I hold a great deal more respect for people that act morally because it is moral, rather than needing to present as moral to others or to themselves.
I like to say to people that my brain isn't connected to my face - I'm not wired to be very expressive but I believe expression is very important anyway. I write and speak unconventionally (despite my best efforts). This is something to take up with my neurology, but I don't care to label it. I am who I am. In spite of these problems I am very quick to find things funny, to the point that I have to explain what exactly I found so funny about something (I'm aware this is obnoxious sometimes).
This a poorly drawn webcomic about a man who has lived in Hell and decided that he does not like it there.
Unfortunately for him, the only way out is through a gauntlet of bizarre games: some are deadly, some are absurd, all of them are unfair.
Yes it looks like it was drawn in MSPaint. That's because it was - the simplicity is only sometimes part of the joke.
The comic (tries) to show a mix of comedy, horror, and strategy. The comic is about survival, and whether individuality can matter in a place designed to destroy it at all costs.
This is not a theological hell, but something worse in a number of ways; it is bureaucratic, endless, and meaningless by design. Characters fight for reasons that range from validation to hatred. The main guy, Jack, tries to prove that meaning can exist even when the universe seems to reject it ouright, and his existence is asserted through his will to survive.
ROTG is a comedy about hopelessness, and the hope that comes with it.
This is a series of three-panel comics that observe and mock philosophical musings that do not impact the lives of the mindphreaks that think them, or anyone else.
It is a lot more light-hearted than ROTG, and instead simply points out the pointlessness of particular thoughts that everybody has, but nobody can do anything about. To summarise in a single sentence:
Mindphreakings is about thinking of better things to do.