Comic 621: The Least Interesting Comic

hello boys and girls. today's guest post is brought to you by Mr. Ego Raptor.


There's a 60% chance Randall is friends with this guy.

Going into this guest blog, I was terrified that Randall Munroe might actually put forth some effort into his comic and force me into the awkward position of enjoying the comic. But, thankfully, Randall is generous and made his web comic that I hate based on a commercial that I hate, giving my hate such laser-like intensity that Emperor Palpatine himself would say "Chill out, man. It's not worth getting upset about." So why is this comic so bad?

For those of you who may not watch 5 hours of television a night, there is a beer called Dos Equis. "Who are they?" you might ask, and the answer is "I don't know" because no one knows who they are without googling them to sound like a smart ass in the comment sections. So Dos Equis decided to build brand recognition by making a series of commercials called "The Most Interesting Man in the World" which is a series of unfunny Chuck Norris jokes. But Dos Equis couldn't afford Chuck Norris as that would require a budget. So they hired some guy that vaguely resembles Sean Connery and filmed him doing absurd things, like carrying a fox away from British people and fighting ninjas. Unfortunately, the writers never saw the footage, so the lame Chuck Norris jokes don't match up with the absurd footage. The commercial is bad because it's derivative, talentless, and lazy.

But when it comes to being derivative, talentless, and lazy, Randall Munroe shall not be outdone! He decides to make a derivative of the derivative Chuck Norris joke (a second derivative, for those of you unfamiliar with the horrors of Calculus [can we call this comic Chuck Norris ' ' ? -carl]). Randall's idea is to be ironic, describing mundane feats while the other jokes describe incredible feats. But the joke falls flat on its face because the descriptions of the Least Interesting Man (henceforth called Limmy) are unfunny. There's nothing enjoyable you can take from this comic. A far funnier idea would be to describe Limmy's mundane behavior in a grandiose fashion (i.e. He can check his e-mail with one hand tied behind his back, He can stride while chewing Stride, he can upload pictures of stick figures to the internet and call it a comic, etc.). It takes no effort to make boring stuff sound boring. But effort is in short supply in XKCD these days. Especially when you look at what he draws.

While I criticize the commercial for never matching what I see with what I hear, at least I'm seeing unusual stuff. The commercial lets my imagination run wild compared with the infinite blandness of Munroe's comic. The first panel is just two stick figures standing there, acting so boring that not even Randall can finish the sentence. However, not to be out-lazied, the second panel is just one stick figure. But the third panel out-lazies them all, by being an honest to God paste job of an earlier xkcd.

Okay, maybe not an exact paste. The first panel at least illustrates two arms.

By the fourth panel, he's abandoned all hope of doing anything remotely memorable in this comic. He includes as many stick chicks in there as possible in the panel with no regard for blocking, for no apparent reason. Limmy also seems to be looking off in a random direction, babbling to a horribly illustrated cup (I know art isn't XKCD's strongpoint, but I've seen pre-schoolers draw better than that).

This comic is terrible because it rips off a terrible commercial which rips off a five year old running joke from the internet, which is inspired by Sidekicks. Earlier this summer, we could count on Randall ripping off other people's original work. But now that's too much effort for him.

If XKCD sucks anymore, it will collapse on itself.

~Ego Raptor