Saturday, June 21, 2008

Comic 439: Thinking Ahead


So maybe this isn't technically "We Have A Quirky Relationship Aren't We AWESOME???" but it comes close - he wants to be in a relationship because she is nerdy. And he fails. But that is another matter.

But repetition aside, how is the comic otherwise? On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say it's about a 4. It's funny that he's so neurotic, and that he jumps out a window, but other than that, eh. I think the real issue the dude has is whatever it is that's "unresolved with Megan." That seems to be what's really making him confused.

Also I noticed that ohnorobot, the webcomic search engine, claims that it is searching 1,025 xkcd comics. What the heck? Also you guys know that the comic numbers intentionally skipped comic #404? Look for it. I find that fairly amusing.

5 comments:

  1. One of Munroe's repeat offenses to comedy is in the first panel: the "My problem: Thinking ahead."

    I understand that some of his gags require a quick setup, but 9 times out of 10 it has the effect of someone telling me "and the punchline is a hoot!" Just tell the joke -- a comicker's effectiveness will be proven by people catching the situation without having the gag being spelled out for them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is an interesting point that has never occurred to me. But yeah, I bet given just the first panel of that comic you could basically guess where it was going. Because you know that he'll be planning too far ahead, so the middle panels just flesh out what he's already told you.

    Humor is often based on surprising twists. I wonder how the comic would work if the "My Problem" was put at the end but otherwise unchanged.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The alt-text for this comment is actually a firefly reference. During episode 2, the Train Job, Wash says something like "did he just go crazy and fall asleep?" Obvious reference!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Obvious. Yeah. Because it wasn't a literal question of what just happened. Obviously.

    ReplyDelete