Comic 576: Making The Full Case for Randall Munroe's Illustrated Picto-Blog

The thing is, this is an intriguing idea. Might not work well, but it could be fun if you got the details worked out. The top half of this comic, the first four panels - they don't make me or anyone else laugh, but I like them as a concept. It's in the second half - the "put it into practice so we can make a joke" half - that there are problems.

Now I know I often say that certain xkcd comics don't have any joke when there should be one, so I'll at least say that yes, he has tried here to make a joke, and not just present an idea. The issue is that the joke is terrible. There's no reason at all you'd get on a watchlist for those items. A tourist map of the pentagon? If it's made for tourists it's clearly not going to have any of the secret stuff. Lube? Really? You think buying that is something the government cares about? No. You just wanted to stick in a sexual reference for its own sake (just like your alt-text wanted to stick in a reference to a previous, better xkcd for its own sake).

And so we come once again to an idea that we here at xkcdsucks have been mentioning forever: Randall Munroe's Illustrated Picto-Blog. Randall Munroe is an interesting guy. He's not nearly as funny as he thinks he is, or as he used to be, but he has some interesting ideas. At this point, they are the most amusing thing on his webcomic. The problem is that he forced himself to update his webcomic three times a week, and he doesn't have interesting ideas nearly that often.

That's why we have been proposing that Randy shut down xkcd, and start up a blog - a blog that please god you do not promise to update on a pre-specified basis - where he describes all his ideas. He can talk about purely theoretical ideas, or talk about trying to put them into practice, or anything in between. He can illustrate them with little comics or drawings when needed. This would be a great website.

In fact, Randy did something very much like this recently, in his post "A Date Idea Analyzed." That's certainly something he could have put as a comic, ending with the four panels he drew at the bottom. Honestly, if you'd told me that Randy had heard this idea, I would have guessed that he would make it into a comic, so I honestly applaud his restraint there. But so many irritating comics recently could have made interesting posts like this. That one about figuring out where people near you are having sex, that one about making a simulated computer out of rocks, and honestly, even though I hated it at the time, geohashing works for this too.

This blog would have basically the same readership as xkcd, but unlike xkcd, it wouldn't be based on the lie that Randall Munroe is a hilarious dude. I would read this blog. I would like it, too. I suspect a lot of the folks here would like it. And then if he had an idea for a comic, he could post that too, but he won't have to. So hopefully he'll only post when he has something that doesn't suck so hard. We will all be winners here!

I might have to e-mail Randy and ask him if he'll do this. I know he won't listen but I really do think it's the best idea.

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Two notes:

There have been a shit ton more comments on this blog recently, mostly of the entirely worthless, irritating nature. Try to ignore those I guess? Also if someone posts as Carl and the word "Carl" isn't a link to my blogger profile, it is an imposter! and you should tar and or feather them immediately.

And with that I am off the xkcd sucks grid for about a week. Jay will be getting started here with the next comic, and probably if the comments are as numerous as they have been recently, I will just have to ignore them all and start again when I get back. I really do read every comment, even if there are way to many to respond to anymore. So be good while I'm gone kids, Jay has my phone number and he will not hesitate to call me if you are acting up again, and you will not like what I do when I get home.