Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Comic 452: Back to our story already in progress...

Can someone tell me what is happening here? I mean I understand the story contained within these four panels, but I feel like I'm missing something. I assume that Bakery Boy is the same guy who thought the airport was a bakery and who happened to be in a bakery he loved while he was singing.

When we first met Bakery Boy, I said that I liked the idea of a character always assuming that he was going to a bakery. I don't think it stays funny when he assumes that he is always in a bakery, because that's just incredibly bad perception and possibly developmental disability (he is, after all, eating metal in the end). Even so, I'm not sure the joke works a second time. We know he assumes he is going to a bakery, now...he assumes things are scones. OK.

The real problem is of course that we have no idea what story is going on. We know very little about Bakery Boy and we have no idea anything about the other dude. Where are they? Is there perhaps a logical reason that one could assume they were in a bakery? Why does the normal guy trust the stupid guy with explosives? All of these questions have potentially funny answers. I am hopeful that a few more comics in this series could tell a good and a funny story, but on its own this comic is a little odd.

Also, it's clear that Randall is trying out a lot of very different ideas for what he wants to do next with xkcd - looks like he's leaning towards longer stories with more established characters. Not a bad choice for when you run out of standalone jokes, but still it's a little weird to see him trying it out right in front of us.

2 comments:

  1. I hesitate to complain too much about the total lack of context--I think part of the joke is the in media res nature of it, and it might be a gentle poke at interchangeable action scripts. It's still pretty ineffective.

    And your criticism about the nonsense of Bakery Boy is spot-on.

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  2. "Bakery Boy" is an existentialist
    the other one is a nihilist
    there are many comics that show the interaction between them, and thats where the jokes often come from

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