So clearly all my super-intelligent and brilliant theories about how we would celebrate Comic 500 were wrong.
I guess - as a politics nerd, among the other kinds of nerd I am - that I identify with the sense of relief in the first two panels. Though the joke strikes me as not so much a joke but basically reality (See: Bloggers discuss 2012. Hell, it's basically a given that you don't even wait till the election ends to debate the next one).
And anyway, if the joke is that people say they want to be done with the stress politics but really they don't, I feel like a better joke might revolve around the game "Guess who the president is going to have work for him" or other political speculation.
In any case, it's not a bad comic - it just feels like as far as political humor, it falls far short of some of the great stuff out there. I feel like this election gave us so much to mock - I'll be bipartisan and mention both Sarah Palin and Mike Gravel - that this feels subpar. Randall has yet to succeed at political humor, and I think he should stop trying.
update: Oh god it's worse than I though. It didn't even take long for me to find way more examples of lame 2012 humor. Let me be clear - I don't think any of these are funny. I think all of them are based on a stupid, obvious joke that you have heard and will hear after every election.
I guess - as a politics nerd, among the other kinds of nerd I am - that I identify with the sense of relief in the first two panels. Though the joke strikes me as not so much a joke but basically reality (See: Bloggers discuss 2012. Hell, it's basically a given that you don't even wait till the election ends to debate the next one).
And anyway, if the joke is that people say they want to be done with the stress politics but really they don't, I feel like a better joke might revolve around the game "Guess who the president is going to have work for him" or other political speculation.
In any case, it's not a bad comic - it just feels like as far as political humor, it falls far short of some of the great stuff out there. I feel like this election gave us so much to mock - I'll be bipartisan and mention both Sarah Palin and Mike Gravel - that this feels subpar. Randall has yet to succeed at political humor, and I think he should stop trying.
update: Oh god it's worse than I though. It didn't even take long for me to find way more examples of lame 2012 humor. Let me be clear - I don't think any of these are funny. I think all of them are based on a stupid, obvious joke that you have heard and will hear after every election.
Randall has said that xkcd shouldn't be a political comic, I think it was in his blag when he as an exeption promoted Obama. I guess going after Palin is off limits. (Ron Paul won't count, I guess. He's more of a meme.)
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't mind this one, if it weren't mindbendingly similar to pretty much every proper political cartoon circulating the Internet at the moment.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it's also disappointing to see Jon 'Oh Come On, America, Is This The Best You Can Do' Stewart listed amongst 'the great stuff'.
noooooooo! Jon Stewart and the Daily Show are amazing. I'm guessing you've never heard of the Borowitz Report, because it's by far the least funny of the three I linked to. Though it's still good.
ReplyDeleteStill though, come on, the daily show...you can make a Daily Show sucks blog, that might be fun.
I believe that all problems can be solved with angry, sarcastic blogs.
My ideal XKCD # 500 would have been a misattribution joke.
ReplyDeleteIt would have been all-text, three lines long.
"Yesterday, to celebrate my 500th comic, a bunch of XKCDers got me an Obama victory.
"This is too much. You really didn't have to.
"... I love you guys."
Wow Chris, that's brilliant.
ReplyDelete