"[a] vitriolic and bitter collection of unwarranted nastiness about a silly and harmless comic."
Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.
I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.
Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.
xkcd is just like an Alzheimer patient. The body is still here, but the mind is gone.
ReplyDelete*sigh*
My theory was a pun when I read this...like, "bows on" or something? Worst xkcd I have seen in a while, and that's saying something nowadays.
ReplyDeleteWhy does middle man in panels 2 and 3 have dodgy hair? Is Randall trying to be styling?
ReplyDeleteYes, I hate to say it (well, not really) but this comic sucks. Balls. Big donkey balls.
ReplyDeleteI assumed it was a reference to Randy's favorite fantasy: bow-hunting velociraptors; the punchline being that the consequences of Higgs excitation is a velociraptor attack. *shrug* maybe that's just me.
ReplyDeleteI think it's just a joke on how it feels to be so far behind others in something that what's completely obvious to them hasn't even dawned on you yet. The crossbows are just completely incidental, they could just as well have been boxes of eggs, or buckets of thumb tacks, or anything else you care to mention. It's still poorly executed, though.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking "Half-Life reference." Y'know, 'cause you play as a scientist in Half-Life and get a crossbow. Then again, I'm always looking for ways to be prepared should my life suddenly turn into a videogame. I keep a flashlight in my backpack in case I wander into a survival horror game.
ReplyDeleteYou're all wrong. The point of this comic is that Randy thinks crossbows are OSSUM! RITE GUYZ?
ReplyDeleteI think it's just about feeling lost because everyone else knows something you don't. Poorly executed maybe, but remarkably modest for xkcd, assuming that Randall is the strip narrator.
ReplyDeleteYeah...umm....the joke here is pretty obvious.
ReplyDeleteThis is like reading a food blog by someone with no tongue...
Actually, what Carl said is that there's no explanation that makes it funny, not that there's no explanation for the joke at all. Carl was pointing out that even xkcd apologists cannot contrive a way to make this comic seem more enjoyable - something they are often wont to do, falling all over themselves to cobble together some poorly-reasoned explanation for why the comic is more than just the sum of its parts, and why the people who don't enjoy it are wrong. If the comic is so bad that even they are having trouble finding it humorous, then it must be especially terrible. Thus, Carl's criticism is quite sound.
ReplyDeleteAlso, food has more to it than just flavor. Texture, mouth-feel, scent, and appearance (none of which actually require a tongue to experience or comment on) are all important parts of appreciating good food. A food blog from a tongueless person would no doubt provide several new insights into these oft-overlooked portions of the dining experience. Of course, the closed-minded and prejudiced (that's you, previous Anon - I am directly insulting you right now) will turn away in scorn, declaring their superiority to our tasteless brothers, but I say, "Nay!" We should embrace our differences, and allow our discussions of said differences to broaden our perspectives!
Also, you are probably a gay furry pedophile rapist. Go die in a fire.
:D
It wouldn't be xkcd: sucks without poore insulting peoples sexuality because he thinks its funny.
ReplyDeleteGood times.
Suggestion, Carl: If the 'xkcd sucks: could be better' post for a comic has gotten good responses, kind of like what you did when you modified the comics yourself, you could have the link to the comic at the top on this blog connect to a rehosted copy of one of the 'could be better' modifications. And give credit to whoever's it is within the blog post.
ReplyDeleteI think doing this would increase traffic to the 'could be better' blog, encourage more haters to make modified strips, and reduce traffic to xkcd.
@Anon and poore
ReplyDeleteActually, there are some taste buds on the roof of everyone's mouth. People with no tongues can still taste food slightly.
Also, for a split second after reading this comic, I had the fear that maybe I didn't get it and any attempt by me to critique it would be met with "pick up a damn physics textbook! xkcd is a niché comic!"
I'm glad that it's actually really stupid.
Hey Carl was it you who decided to change the way the comment machine works because if so could you change it back please because it is broken and I can't comment on my captcha well that's a lie because I can but that is because I have to submit everything at least twice.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a funny joke (XKCD rarely is) it's a "RANDALL GET OUT OF MY HEAD" joke because we've all been woefully behind a group of people working on the same goal at some point... despite all being smart enough to understand this totally obscure niche comic, right?
ReplyDelete...right?
@TomR
There's this little x in the corner of the captcha window thingy that you can close out to go back to editing your comment, the captcha will not change when you go to try to post again, making your commentary both factual and relevant.
I hate it when people are like "guys the joke is OBVIOUS" and then don't actually say what it is. I certainly can't tell what it is - if you want to explain it (or explain your theory at least) I would be glad to read it and discuss it.
ReplyDeleteLint - I think we are going to switch over to a message-board based xkcd:could be better soon; once we have the system set up there I'll have a prominent link on this blog. But it is good thinking, I should be linking there more.
link link link link link
Tom- Yes, I changed it about a week ago. I like this one more, the extra box was annoying me. Hopefully K's suggestion will work fine and then we can all be happy.
It's not very hard to explain, really. It's a representation and exaggeration of a situation that (well, the general concept anyway) should be recognizable enough to a lot of people - being the slow guy in the lab who doesn't understand what people around him are doing. It's what half of all jokes do, taking a familiar situation and exaggerating it.
ReplyDeleteThat my explanation doesn't make anyone laugh is hardly surprising. When did explaining a joke ever make it funnier?
Yes, because everyone is familiar with working in a research laboratory, so the average person will have had a point in their life where, while working in said research lab, they missed something very important and were suddenly behind everyone-
ReplyDeleteWHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT
No, this is not a "familiar" situation for more people. This is a familiar situation for research scientists, perhaps, but even at a high-ranking university, most college students don't spend much time in anything other than maybe a basic chem or physics lab, and most of them certainly don't do research.
Also, explaining a joke CAN make it funnier if it's done well and the explanation is presented in a humorous way. Daniel Tosh (a comedian) does this with some of his jokes, going into a description of why he writes his jokes the way he does, and the audience's expected reactions to the jokes, and it's extremely funny.
I wish blogger let me subscribe to comments by email without actually posting a comment. Blogger is so shitty.
ReplyDelete@Baudvine
ReplyDeleteexplaining a joke makes it funnier when the joke was actually funny in the first place. It's pretty obvious what the joke is. They're preparing to fight something with crossbows because they don't know what the results of the experiment will be and the main guy is behind them because he doesn't know why they could possibly need crossbows.
The problem is that it's pretentious and fake in the claim that the author actually knows anything about the topic of Higgs excitation (which he certainly does not...he only has a bachelors degree) and it's lame and unoriginal in its use of the cliched "omg get a crossbow to fight dinosaurs lolololol" joke.
It's just not funny. It's stupid and pretentious, just like most of the comics.
Fluffy, I can add you to a list of people that get comments e-mailed to them automatically (I can do this for up to 10 people, you would be #4). This is oddly similar to the last comment I just wrote where I also asked you for an e-mail address, but: if you send me your e-mail address I can add it to the list.
ReplyDeleteI've said many times that explaining a joke should not make it less funny. At the very least, even if you don't laugh out loud, you should at least appreciate why it is funny, which I have yet to do with today's comic.
Well, I'm not sure I want to see EVERY thread, it'd just be nice to be able to follow one without having to pretend to contribute to it.
ReplyDelete@Baudvine and poore: To be sure, guys, I don't even think that's the only problem. If Randall's intention was a "Haha, you know how sometimes you slack off and end up way behind schedule on a project? This guy did, too!" joke, THAT'S NOT FUNNY. Jesus!
ReplyDeleteYou know how Randall makes those strips that pretend to be jokes only nerds can understand because there are references you have to get in order to understand the joke, only while putting in the references Randy forgot to actually make a joke, so the strip is just a bunch of pop nerd culture references? If the above joke was what Randy really thought, this strip is almost like that, only instead of nerdy reference it's a reference to a sickeningly commonplace and insignificant event. It's like a joke that goes "Haha, this guy's car ran out of gas." or "Haha, this guy was gonna have corn flakes for breakfast but turns out he ran out of milk!".
It's not funny! It's not even funny in the contorted, forced meta humor way in the sense that the audience expects a funny joke and you deliver a completely non funny statement with the appearance of telling a joke and that subversion of expectations is funny. It's just not. I don't think we have full confidence in Randall's capacity to deliver humor as promised anymore. I don't expect him to be funny, he hasn't been for quite a while now. It's baffling how so many people seem to think otherwise, though.
And on another note, can I just say that it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy when the entries link to TvTropes where appropriate? Thanks for the TvTropes integration Carl!
Ahhhh, above was my first post here. This is my second. Feels great.
ReplyDeleteI just have to say that I liked xkcd for a while until I privately realized that it was getting very pretentious, pseudo-nerdy, and unfunny. I'm a physics major, graduating one month from this week, and it's really obvious that Randall Munroe is a faux-intellectual when it comes to physics. He got a standard degree and had a standard job in the field for a while and now flaunts it as if he has a PhD knowledge in many different areas.
Then mathy and physicsy high school and college students read it and pretend like the stuff is funny just because they notice a nerdy reference. Even though a reference alone can't be funny.
So this bothered me for a while and I typed "xkcd sucks" into google because I was sick of feeling this annoyance alone. I found this blog, have followed it for a couple weeks, and really have to say that it feels awesome to publicly rip on this pretentious webcomic. Thanks guys!
We need a testimonials section. I really love reading people talk about how they came to find the blog/hate XKCD/etc. Thanks, Glorfindel.
ReplyDeleteI found it because I enjoy searching for things to get me angry. To bad this site didn't do that.
ReplyDeleteIronically enough, I got here by checking those things that got "no results" on Google.
ReplyDeleteI found this place by Googling "xkcd sucks" too. But I did it after being disillusioned by the huge circle jerks that were going on at Digg in xkcd threads for comics that weren't good.
ReplyDeleteThankfully the blind love xkcd gets has died down from what it once was in the comments sections, but people still digg it blindly.
I found it via the Encyclopedia Dramatica entry on xkcd, because I was hating it and especially felt like seeing what the INTERNET HATE MACHINE felt about it.
ReplyDeleteMuch in the same way using crossbows in the event of Higgs excitation makes sense, "This is like reading a food blog by someone with no tongue."
ReplyDeleteThanks, Cuddlefish. We can't build a filter large or fast enough to deal with your feces. We can only hope there are enough cannibals in the tank to thin the herd...
I am happy to link to tvtropes, as they are one of the top linkers to me (in particular, It's Popular, Now it Sucks and Hatedom)
ReplyDeleteEncyclopedia Dramatica is also a top linker, mostly from xkcd, of course, and Unfunny
Seeing how many people got here from googling xkcd sucks" always brings joy to my crusty hardened heart, so this has been a lovely comment thread.
I'm not sure, but I think I got here by Googling variations on the phrase 'xkcd is shit.' I cannot remember which comic prompted me to do this.
ReplyDeleteI've given up trying to read Encyclopedia Dramatica. It's too depressing.
Actually Carl this new format very often rejects my first attempt to comment, I think you might just hate me and are trying to make life harder?
ReplyDeleteAlso I am still getting all of Rob's comments separately which really pisses me of cuz Google should recognize this is all one big thread and IT DOES NOT DO SO
but I don't think that part is your fault. Maybe.
Anyway fluffy the new format lets you click on this fancy link that says "Subscribe by email"! That is the only good thing I like about it. And I agree the blogger is shitty.
And another thing to Carl, I am really enjoying your alt texts as of late. Actually I have always enjoyed them. So maybe nevermind, but I think I am enjoying them more.
I don't even remember how I got here... probably through some of the LJ comments. I credit Carl with yanking of my rose-tinted goggles for xkcd. I salute you, sir!
Yes but you have to post a comment before it'll show you the "subscribe by email" link, at least when going to it from the xkcdsucks.blogspot.com side. If you go to it from the "a comment was posted" email it's right there all the time but that's a bit silly because how do I get a "comment was posted" email without having already been subscribed?
ReplyDeleteBasically Blogger is a giant puddle of crap and I don't see why so many people use it. Because it fucking sucks and isn't even consistent in the ways it sucks.
What that is so weird it didn't do that for me
ReplyDeletebut then again Blogger doesn't keep me signed in even after I tell it to remember me.
Carl why did you pick such a shitty place to complain about xkcd
Okay and then of course just to fuck with me it started putting 'subscribe by email' links on entries that I haven't posted comments on.
ReplyDeleteWhat the fuck, Blogger?
ha ha go kill yourself, blogger hates you
ReplyDeletejust kidding
I mean it still hates you, just don't kill yourself.
Not getting the joke is no grounds for criticism.
ReplyDeleteGetting the joke (The Noodle incident explanation is pretty much it) and complaining about not getting it makes you look a bit stupid.
This was one of the funny ones. I'm surprised so many people have problems with it but stop overanalysing it. The joke is that the guy is too slow to realise something obvious. It's actually made funnier because so many people are too slow to get the joke.
HIBT?
Is it a sign of weakness if I had a slight smile at the latest strip?
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, there's no chair back in panel two, never mind.
ReplyDeleteUm HELLO he is making a reference to the previous comic, which was about quantum things, so the chair back has like a HEIMLENSTEINBURGER UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE because HEY MAYBE IT ISN'T THERE RIGHT NOW GET IT?
ReplyDeletegod you are such a dumbass CHECK PLEASE
(captcha: porksk!)
I'd agree with about me being a dumbass, but... the headphones the woman's wearing? What do they connect to? They are not plugged into anything!
ReplyDeleteCheque mate!
lol i know someone who has a desk i can totally relate to this xD
ReplyDelete@randfan:
ReplyDeleteThat was the funniest thing I have read in a while - I legitimately lol'ed.
I confess curiosity to what the box underneath the desk in p4 is, the one that's radiating something. Is it a siren? I HOPE IT'S A SIREN.
ReplyDeleteI agree with some of the others, I think the idea is to kind of show what it feels like to be that one guy in the lab, class, or whatever that just doesn't quite get it. He's that guy that's just far enough behind the curve that when the others stop to look for him, he has no idea what in the world is going on.
ReplyDelete"I agree with some of the others, I think the idea is to kind of show what it feels like to be that one guy in the lab, class, or whatever that just doesn't quite get it. He's that guy that's just far enough behind the curve that when the others stop to look for him, he has no idea what in the world is going on."
ReplyDeleteWhich still isn't funny. Or even a joke. Thank you for your useless input about how you agree with people and not contributing any new substance to the discussion, though.
The latest xkcd gave me a "heh," which makes it the best one in weeks.
ReplyDeleteBut the art is suspect. Guy's floating above his chair, which is probably for the best since parts keep disappearing and reappearing. So is the girl, and now I'll wonder if Randall has ever drawn a stick figure properly sitting in its chair.
Observational humor is only funny when you add something insightful. A new twist most people haven't thought of before. Like Seinfeld's "why can't you wear leather in the rain? cows get wet all the time" or Mitch Hedbergs' "I like vending machines cause snacks are better when they fall."
ReplyDeleteStating an observation and ADDING CROSSBOWS OMG doesn't pass muster. It's lazy and anyone can do it.
This new comic almost seems like gold compared to the recent crap. Figures he screws it up by not even being able to draw a chair consistently (though fixed now).
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm beginning to notice how consciously Randall tries to make his comics gender neutral.
Thank you for your useless input about how you agree with people and not contributing any new substance to the discussion, though.
ReplyDeletepoore i do this all the time do you still love me
guys do you think Randall is sitting back in his chair sometimes when it has a back and chuckling quietly that we just don't "get it" this time and we are the guy without a crossbow?
Somebody linked it on the ComicFury forums ( http://comicfury.com/forum ), that's how I found it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Randall hates you, probably, if it makes you feel better. We had a furry pedophile rapist comment earlier, so, even though it was followed by a :D, the Baby Murder Index is two.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the Baby Murder Index? It's a funny beast. You could interpret it either as "how bad the comic is", or "how much the readers are overreacting to the Serious Business". I prefer to regard it as a mixture. It's an index, dumbass.
:D
AHAHA, the new XKCD is actually REALLY FUNNY!! I kid you not, I really laughed at this one (but there's no excuse for the floating chair people. C'mon, Randall!). The alt text kinda sucked though. I think that often times Randall's best jokes are ruined by either the alt text, or going into too much detail (of which the alt text actually did, so it's a double whopper). But it seems XKCD has actually been improving with the occasional comic just slightly. I think this is a good sign.
ReplyDeleteP.S.
ReplyDelete@ Schadenfreude: They could be BlueTooth.
Amanda, you are exempt from all rules ever. Also, addressing your second point, Randall is not smart enough to be that meta, so I don't think that that is the case.
ReplyDelete@Kurt,
ReplyDeleteI don't think 'has been' is an appropriate verb tense when measured over the 'course' of a single comic release. :p
Also I get the distinct feeling I've read this joke before somewhere else.
The setup is that the poor guy hasn't figured out the possible consequences of the research like everyone else has. This has probably happened to everyone, suddenly discovering that they're the only one who hasn't figured out something important. I thought the actual joke was the juxtaposition of "possible consequences of particle physics research" and "having a crossbow on hand." There is no reasonable connection (most people who read the news will get as far as 'omg black holes' for the former), and so you have the touch of absurdity that forms the basis of so much humour - no physics knowledge required. Maybe I'm just not reading enough into it, though.
ReplyDelete"I assumed it was a reference to Randy's favorite fantasy: bow-hunting velociraptors; the punchline being that the consequences of Higgs excitation is a velociraptor attack. *shrug* maybe that's just me."
ReplyDeleteSarah, you are spot on. Nobody else seems to have the common sense to realize the obvious joke here. It's referencing Higgs prediction that the particle will be found by Tuesday, and Stephen Hawking's joke about time and space breaking down.
No you got it, it is just not funny, and it is also incredibly fucking lazy.
ReplyDeleteKey word being "reference."
ReplyDeleteI completely understood that to be the point to the joke, but that also doesn't make it funny. A reference leading to "crazy" and "zany" "random" crap. It's Family Guy humor.
@ Lint of Death
ReplyDeleteBut lately he has been getting more creative and drawing more artwork, and this is his just best joke in a while.
This is the best xkcdsucks post ever. For once you are dead on. That comic was the worst crap ever.
ReplyDeleteIf you were to show this comic to a physicist or anyone who works in a physics field they would laugh. You all clearly aren't physicists.
ReplyDeleteIt's OK that you all don't understand the joke. You still have until Tuesday. :)
ReplyDeleteNo, see, we understand. It is just not funny. DIAF.
ReplyDeleteIf you were to show this comic to a physicist or anyone who works in a physics field they would laugh. You all clearly aren't physicists.
ReplyDeleteNews flash: Neither is Randall. My physics background is about as strong as his.
More news flash: Neither are you. Furthermore, you're guessing, and not very convincingly. A physicist might laugh, but only because it's "hey look a reference to something I know about." That doesn't make it a good joke.
Well basically all of your are over thinking this comic.
ReplyDeleteSomething bad is going to happen on tuesday due to the higgs excitation. Having a crossbow will be in some way beneficial. That's it.
My immediate thought was, O SHI- Raptors caused by higgs excitation, and they're completely unstoppable except with a crossbow.
Basically; something (x) can be 'something'ed by crossbow for reason (y)
I don't see why people are so arrogant as to assume that Randall makes his comics specifically for their tastes.
ReplyDeleteMan, what the fuck is with these people? We GET IT. We understand the joke. It is just not a funny joke.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to repeat that for you all:
WE GET IT.
IT IS JUST NOT FUNNY.
AT ALL.
SHUT THE FUCK UP.
The joke is patently obvious! We all got it! It is just so unfunny that a lot of us are looking for more, because even Randall's Illustrated Picture Blog isn't that unfunny. It's not >that lazy.
That's it! That's all there is to it! We get it and don't think it's funny! Is it so difficult to comprehend this basic concept? The more you try to "explain" this idiotic joke--the one that WE ALREADY GET THANK YOU--the dumber it seems! There is no joke there! There is nothing funny being said! There's not even a damn observation!
PLEASE STOP TRYING TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING WE ALL UNDERSTAND.
Latest anon: Could you rephrase that but without the stupid?
ReplyDeletepoore you make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside
ReplyDeleteLatest Cuddlefish, I don't get why you are a presumptuous dumbass but that doesn't add anything to the conversation either.
Why do people think the crossbows are for raptors? How is that an immediate thought?
ReplyDeleteWouldn't machine guns be better than crossbows anyhow? Dumbasses.
That has got to be the first tv tropes link that didn't pull me into the site for several hours.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why people are so arrogant as to assume that Randall makes his comics specifically for their tastes.
Anyone whose tastes were considered in the making of this comic must react with confusion and irritation when exposed to decent humor.
Wouldn't machine guns be better than crossbows anyhow? Dumbasses.
obviously they are using automatic crossbows
Also has nobody noticed he's basically used the exact same gag before?
ReplyDelete"News flash: Neither is Randall. My physics background is about as strong as his."
ReplyDeleteRandall graduate with a degree in physics and worked for NASA...
Just pointing it out.
Anyways, they are using crossbows because crossbows are the super god weapon in Halo.
I suspect there's a reason why he no longer works for them, if you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteOh snap.
ReplyDeleteI suspect you mean "he left for reasons that were entirely his own" and you weren't just making a stupid joke.
I'll be leaving this site now. The comment thread is lackluster and everyone other than Carl seems to be extremely petty. Aw, and I just started here too!
One would suppose if it sucked, people wouldn't waste time paying tribute with a blog devoted to it.
ReplyDeleteJust my 47c (2c adjusted for current inflation)
Let's make a "Mikes inflation joke sucks" blog, guys
ReplyDelete"One would suppose if it sucked, people wouldn't waste time paying tribute with a blog devoted to it."
ReplyDeleteThat's specious reasoning. It'd be pointless to create a blog for something that obviously sucks, like ctrl+alt+del.
xkcd has a subtle way of sucking that warrants discussion, often being a few
*a few details away from having a decent strip.
ReplyDeleteStupid Blogger.
No, Jack, they probably realized how bad he was at his job and told him to fuck off. That's just his excuse.
ReplyDeleteJackR, you won't be missed.
Just so you know I can be petty too: Mike, your joke is dumb. You arbitrarily chose a new number, 47c, but why? And more importantly, what year did you measure inflation from? You are just trying to sound a little smarter (ooooh, i know what INFLATION is!) and that kind of dickishness will not pass here. On the xkcd forums, perhaps, but not here.
ReplyDeleteHere's another news flash: Even a half-decent physicist makes much, much more money than an excellent cartoonist.
ReplyDeleteThis just in: Randall Munroe is not an excellent cartoonist. But you knew that. The matter of debate is whether he's funny, and blog consensus is no.
So ask yourself why Randall isn't working in physics. (The answer is not "xkcd is a full-time job.")
The "You're not a [profession] so you don't get the joke!" argument is completely stupid anyway. I say this as a computer scientist and a linguist, as I am both: the vast majority of his computer science jokes, as well as his language (it'd be a stretch to call them linguistics) jokes, don't make me laugh. Even as a Python aficionado, I don't laugh at his Python jokes. So quit the 'you're-obviously-not-a-physicist' crap.
ReplyDeleteAs a corollary to my last comment - Carl, if there's a comic with a lot of computer science and/or technical material, or at least something that seems to be impenetrable to non-technical people, and you need someone who's conversant in the field to corroborate that it's still not funny when you understand it, I can most certainly do that.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, he's gone almost completely non-technical, so you probably won't need to take me up on my offer any time soon. His earlier type of "sudo make me a sandwich" technical humor is gone in favor of simple, accessible jokes that cater more to the people who read 4chan than the people who read Knuth and K&R.
Although "sudo make me a sandwich" is inaccessible to anyone who isn't familiar with Unix. (Which is most people, CS majors!)
ReplyDeleteAt the time that comic came out, I was a recent college graduate who had started using sudo recently, so of course it was hilarious to me at the time.
Which physicist is making as much as Charles Schultz or Jim Davis?
ReplyDeleteWhich xkcd character is as memorable as Calvin, Hobbes, or Garfield?
ReplyDeleteanyway does Stephen Hawking count as a physicist cuz that guy rocks
Pretty sure the only thing Charles schultz is making right now is methane and worm food.
ReplyDeletelol fluffy
ReplyDeletealso wtf apparently when i am sans glasses i read "charls schultz" as "bill watterson."
And if xkcd had syndication or licensing deals, your point would be perfectly valid. Garfield and Peanuts have half a dozen movies each to their names.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that xkcd is not stopping Randall from working as a physicist. So, not to put too fine a point on it, what is?
@Amanda:
ReplyDeleteStephen Hawking is a theoretical physicist through and through, so yeah he counts.
Also I don't know if it's because my subconscious noted your comment about it before my conscious mind did, but I, too, internally misread "Charles Schultz" to be "Bill Watterson".
Who the fuck is Bill Watterson and why should I care?
ReplyDelete@Carl: you must admit, for his sake, that 47 is one of the funniest two digit numbers, although not as comical as 23, or 38. "Twelve" is also very satisfying to say, once you start thinking about it, but perhaps too low for the inflation joke.
ReplyDelete@The guy who doesn't know Bill Watterson:
Bill Watterson is one of the greatest living cartoonists. And more to the point Let me Google that for you.
Adam: I think Randall is stopping himself from being a physicist, by generally being a geek culture dilettante. He's more interested in the fact that there are physicists than in physics. He wants to be able to say he's an expert in the field without being an expert in the field. To know enough to show off his knowledge and talk to experts without being completely lost, and talk to laymen and sound like an expert.
ReplyDeleteHe wants to be a geek culture pundit, essentially--an arbiter of the internet. He wasn't getting there with physics, so he found another medium.
Lots of people are like this.
C&H, eh? I'm not seeing a reason why that makes him so great.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteNow, I don't mean to be unnecessarily incendiary, but, clearly, you were never a child... or an artist... or very much interested in surrealism, philosophy, metaphor, subversion, or -- let's face it -- comedy in general. This doesn't make you a bad person per se, just an unnatural abomination.
Hell, Bill Watterson is one of the more insightful and even ethical commentators on cartooning.
But I am of course open to counter-argument.
he just hates mondays pat
ReplyDeletehe wishes that more comics would comment on this because
ReplyDeleteman
i hate mondays
[url=kiwisbybeat.com/minus]Tell me if this guy does what Bill did better.[/ulr]
ReplyDeleteIf Bill's only a newspaper strip artist, I doubt he even manages to be on par with [i]Randall.[/i] That's saying something.
No BBC?
ReplyDeleteOk pat, I'll grant you that 47 is a good two digit number. BUT NOT that 38 is.
ReplyDeleteI will say this in Randall's defense: Maybe he wants to be a cartoonist rather than a physicist because he thinks it's a lot more fun, way better schedule, makes him more well known, etc? Some people don't work at the highest paying job they possibly could, they take these other ideas into account, which I think is more likely what Randy is doing.
Why do you have to be so reasonable?
ReplyDeletewell, let's see... watercolors, the cruelty of children, whimsy... yes, I can see what you're gong for here, and "minus" certainly seems worth investigating, but it's cutesy where C&H would be caustic. My first guess would be that "minus" owes something to C&H artistically.
ReplyDeleteWatterson retired in order to focus on painting, actually. He was, for quite some time, a one-man crusade for artistic integrity in newspaper comics, who produced some really gorgeous Sunday strips and broke down the conventional panel arrangements of the time. I'm afraid you are directly attacking his strengths here. You should at least read the Wikipedia article.
Tangential fun fact:
ReplyDeleteThe number 27 appears frequently in Weird Al Yankovich's lyrics. When questioned about it, he didn't even realize the trend and said it was just a really funny number.
"Just so you know I can be petty too: Mike, your joke is dumb. You arbitrarily chose a new number, 47c, but why? And more importantly, what year did you measure inflation from? You are just trying to sound a little smarter (ooooh, i know what INFLATION is!) and that kind of dickishness will not pass here. On the xkcd forums, perhaps, but not here."
ReplyDeleteCarl, I have improved the joke for you.
"...my 47c (based on official Office of National Statistics figures for the years 1931-2009, noting changes in RPI measures viz-a-viz the 'basket' of goods to determine things and linked to certain exchange rates [excluding years of ERM during which the pound* was not allowed to float to value] this being the new value of what 2c would previously have been in real terms).
*being used to link RPI figures to cent values"
Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh Carl, you so funny.
By comparison, my favouritist inflation joke ever:
ReplyDelete"but of course, at the moment the RPI is at 0%, so we don't have inflation but we don't have deflation either. instead we just have... flation."
(cue Carl moaning that actually "inflation" cannot be unprefixed in such a way because "flation" would refer simply to an act of blowing, as in "flatulence")
"(cue Carl moaning that actually "inflation" cannot be unprefixed in such a way because "flation" would refer simply to an act of blowing, as in "flatulence")"
ReplyDeleteHe wouldn't moan about it, he'd make a sex joke.
The joke, or at least the intended joke, is obvious. The morons trying hard not to see it are just as bad as the morons trying to read too much into it.
ReplyDelete"If you were to show this comic to a physicist or anyone who works in a physics field they would laugh."
ReplyDeleteNo, I didn't.
"[url=kiwisbybeat.com/minus]Tell me if this guy does what Bill did better.[/ulr]
ReplyDeleteIf Bill's only a newspaper strip artist, I doubt he even manages to be on par with Randall. That's saying something*."
this minus thing is pretty cool, I'll admit, but like many comics, it somewhat steals from his style of artistry. Also, the comedic style is a different type completely. Where this comic seems to be rather "cutesy" (as previously stated), Bill uses a more sophisticated form of humor, though not always subtle. He loved to add some traces (if not more) of philosophy into his comics, but he never failed to get a laugh.
*Yeah, it's saying something pretty fucking stupid. Cuz Bill DEFINITELY couldn't hold his own against a damn stick figure webcomic with often little to no art (and humor). Yeah. Real fuckin' challenge there.
Minus was slightly too high concept for me--it had a very "oh look, cute tomboyish magic girl," and not a lot else. It is not bad but I do not feel the pull.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I just assumed it was a Half-Life reference too.
ReplyDelete