Now that Aloria week is over, y'all better get used to having super-late posts, in true Carl style.
So today we learn that airline safety is actually kind of a joke. Which is to say, we are ONCE MORE REMINDED that airline safety is a joke. It's not like this is fresh comedic territory. It's not even fresh xkcd territory. Hell, the first minute of the first episode of The West Wing had a character talk about how dumb it was that he couldn't use his phone on a plane for safety reasons (alas, the clip appears not to be on youtube). Didn't Fahrenheit 9/11 have a part about how for some reason, lighters are allowed on planes? Every few months another scathing article comes out talking about how airport security doesn't really do anything, and how easy it is to cause a Major Ruckus with things you are allowed to bring on a plane. How common are stupid jokes about airport security? SO COMMON THAT AIRPORTS TELL YOU NOT TO MAKE THEM.
But whatever. I guess the whole thing needed a crazy nerdy twist, involving laptops. Anyway, this comic just treads those well, well worn comedy paths once more. "it's crazy that you can't bring water on a plane!" yeah we know. it's crazy. we got used to it, in 2006.
oh also this comic sucks because it's alt-text ["A laptop battery contains roughly the stored energy of a hand grenade, and if shorted it ... hey! You can't arrest me if I prove your rules inconsistent!"] just repeats the exact joke of the comic.
Man, aloria got some shit-tastic comics to make fun of, and I get stuck with this boring mess. I should have had her go this week.
So today we learn that airline safety is actually kind of a joke. Which is to say, we are ONCE MORE REMINDED that airline safety is a joke. It's not like this is fresh comedic territory. It's not even fresh xkcd territory. Hell, the first minute of the first episode of The West Wing had a character talk about how dumb it was that he couldn't use his phone on a plane for safety reasons (alas, the clip appears not to be on youtube). Didn't Fahrenheit 9/11 have a part about how for some reason, lighters are allowed on planes? Every few months another scathing article comes out talking about how airport security doesn't really do anything, and how easy it is to cause a Major Ruckus with things you are allowed to bring on a plane. How common are stupid jokes about airport security? SO COMMON THAT AIRPORTS TELL YOU NOT TO MAKE THEM.
But whatever. I guess the whole thing needed a crazy nerdy twist, involving laptops. Anyway, this comic just treads those well, well worn comedy paths once more. "it's crazy that you can't bring water on a plane!" yeah we know. it's crazy. we got used to it, in 2006.
oh also this comic sucks because it's alt-text ["A laptop battery contains roughly the stored energy of a hand grenade, and if shorted it ... hey! You can't arrest me if I prove your rules inconsistent!"] just repeats the exact joke of the comic.
Man, aloria got some shit-tastic comics to make fun of, and I get stuck with this boring mess. I should have had her go this week.
placeholder posts are annoying for those of us true fans who follow the site on an RSS feed
ReplyDeleteanyone not smart enough to use RSS should die, in a fire
I like placeholder posts because then your not reading discussion about the next comic.
ReplyDelete*also uses rss*
you clearly aren't a true fan, hence my statement does not apply to you.
ReplyDeleteDISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS
ReplyDeleteLet's see, weak punchline which is repeated in the alt-text.
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty lousy comic.
Also, imposter fail.
I thought this one was decent compared to a typical xkcd strip... at least there WAS a joke that we can all relate to without too much extra, unnecessary text.
ReplyDeleteat the same time though the joke is, in fact, more stale then your mothers vagina.
i hereby ban rob and any other RSS users from reading this blog. THIS BLOG IS FOR REAL INTERNET USERS, NOT YOU RSS WEIRDOS.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it was a weak punchline, I have to give him credit in at least thinking of something more clever than "my Hobby: arguing with TSA agents."
ReplyDeletePart of the joke stems from the fact that this person is *so* nerdy that he doesn't realize how much trouble he's getting himself into. Sure it's stereotypical Randall and his OMGQUIRKYNESS, but like I said, it could have been much worse.
ROB. I HAVE NOW UPDATED THE POST. you and your precious RSS friends, who are banned from reading my glorious words, can go back now and read my whole review, which is not much longer than the placeholder.
ReplyDeleteMonday = shitty joke about security on planes
ReplyDeleteWednesday = good joke about security planes
Seriously, I like this one (this being monday's). Yes, it's stereotypical Randall being "OMGQUIRKY", but if he went back to doing his standard work from about a year ago (there was still "OMGQUIRKY" then too), wouldn't you all be happy and wouldn't that be true to the origin of this site wishing XKCD would go back to how good it used to be?
ReplyDeleteI liked it.
Cuddlefish: I'll just leave this here, pick it up on your way out.
ReplyDeletehttp://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/2008/10/ill-write-title-later.html
The alt text looks like the punch line for this one, which makes it look like the comic was a reference to the unmanned military drone planes in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
ReplyDeleteI liked it. Carl, I've noticed something about myself that may not apply to anyone else, but I might as well spit it out there. Whenever I read a comic just to have a laugh, I always find it much funnier then thoroughly examining it for flaws. You might be so used to your "job" that it's not possible for you to enjoy XKCD any more.
ReplyDeletedude, i've acknowledged that like a dozen times. That's why I try real hard to be nice, and write a nice post even if only a tiny amount of the comic pleases me, or why if I say it is an old joke I give you lots and lots of examples, to prove I am right and not just "grrr i don't like it so none of you can either." There's comics that I have said I enjoyed greatly.
ReplyDeleteThis summer, I saw Penn & Teller live while I was in Vegas for DefCon. They do a bit about airport security that is a) funny, b) informative, and c) entertaining.
ReplyDeleteRandall, on the other hand, delivers an observation about the "dangers" of laptop batteries in an attempt to meld an informative critique of the system with humor, and fails to deliver on either front. Monday's comic sucked a big fat cock.
Wednesday's comic, however, was kind of okay.
9:56 anon: that is not really a desirable state to be in--to only enjoy something because your brain doesn't even engage when you read it, to laugh because you happen to understand it or because you can see what the joke is supposed to be, not because there's anything that's really funny going on there--I'll take 'thinking it sucks' over 'mindlessly enjoying it' any day.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I am the only regular around here who enjoyed Monday's comic. Though, as you said, he did repeat the joke in the alt-text. ANNOYING.
ReplyDeleteWednesday was okay, but what is she doing in the second panel? I kind of thought she was being weird and eating her hands, but now I think she is going "OMG NO WUT"?
both wrong amanda, she just cut off her arms and grew a mustache and beard for panel 2. DUH.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure the joke here was not the stupid airport security measures or the battery bomb that doesn't actually work that way in real life, but rather the very notion of refuting an illogical, arbitrary rule by pointing out an equally illogical, arbitrary exception. And then expecting an enforcer to reach THE SAME CONCLUSION. Seriously, what kind of person would make that argument without already thinking the guard was a total mouth-breather who would never understand it?
ReplyDeleteA Sitcom Character. Or Discworld, I suppose. Plenty of stupid geniuses in that series. But this kind of unintentional trolling is strictly in the domain of Sitcom pedants. You know, Sheldon, Nigel Frasier and the like. In fact, this strip was only funny to me because I read it like many a familiar sitcom scene as soon I saw the "Oh god. *facepalm*". I could practically hear the laugh track kick in at that point. The "alt-text" was the rest of the scene and I continued to read it as such. It really should have been part of the strip itself. Yes, I know, getting dragged off for being right is obvious and unfunny compared to the real punchline of the skit, but we can't seriously treat this as if it were anything other than a sitcom segment. Hell - it even has the past characterisation to make it work like one (naive, idealistic, tactless, takes things literally, over analyses things, over estimates people, etc.).
So there you have it. Randall has acknowledged his decline to "sitcom level humour" and embraced it by giving us an actual sitcom sketch for a comic. He tried to hide it under the guise of an actual comic, but I wasn't fooled.
TL,DR: If I just read the transcript of this one, I would have sworn it was from an episode of Big Bang Theory.
And as for 652, it works until you see it as one of those "Epic Quest cut short by a mundane death" things. Because those two would still emerge from a successful Predator strike. Also note that this exact scene could easily play out in a rehash without affecting the storyline much further...
Today's comic has really terrible art. Even for xkcd. What is that thing that she is carrying in the panel #1? What the fuck is with her face in panel #2? And the gun in #3 looks really crappy. And the plane in #4 really defies the notion of perspective (unless he actually traced it from a photo and I'm an idiot). Anyway, the movie takes place in the 80s, right? How the heck did they fit a bomb carrying UAV in the time machine?
ReplyDeleteOh. And ditto on the mindless laughing at what's supposed to be tEH FunNy!!1!one. I'm not accusing this particular cuddlefish of anything, but that's a common PROBLEM with those of the Don't Explain the Joke mentality. Those are the guys that disagree with the entirely true statements Carl made in the FAQ. They tend to think that you can't find a funny joke funny if you have to go away and learn why it is funny first. Gary Larson - among others - showed ages ago that they have always been wrong. Even the fan-wank fora is full of "I get it, now it's funny"s, "Now it's even better"s and "I get it, still not funny"s. I'm just sayin'...
ReplyDeleteSo, I decided to point out the unoriginal nature of this comic (Security Threat) on another forum, pointing out- as folks have pointed out here already- that this is shit that late night comics were wearing out YEARS ago.
ReplyDeleteEssentially, I said, the only difference between those tired jokes and this tired joke is that this one has a nerdy point of reference for nerdy xkcd fans to latch onto.
I then made the facetious statement of "nota bene: compare bad airline food... to MICROSOFT??? this will be an excellent joke".
And they thought it was "not a half-bad analogy". They liked it. This is what passes for humor among xkcd fans.
Comparing airline food.
To MICROSOFT.
AIRLINE FOOD.
MICROSOFT.
IN 2009.
this is the worst
Although I agree these kinds of jokes are well overused and overdone already, I really fail to see how you can criticise the comics 'nerdy twist' when the audience for this comic is MEANT to be nerds. You can't complain for him catering to his intended audience, right?
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't complain about Tellytubbies always being aimed at kids, would you?
In panel 2 of Wednesday's comic I seriously thought that the figure in the background was Lemmy from Motorhead. Imagine my disappointment when I realized it was just shitty art.
ReplyDelete"I really fail to see how you can criticise the comics 'nerdy twist' when the audience for this comic is MEANT to be nerds."
ReplyDeleteYes, we can criticise the comic when the "nerdy twist" is the ONLY thing it actually presents. That is what happened Monday: the joke was tired and overused, but seemingly the "nerdiness" was SUFFICIENT to make it worthwhile for xkcd. One thing is aiming towards an audience, and another entirely is nerdy ego masturbation.
New comic? What the hell is that: a TV Tropes item presented with really awful art?
Reading this comic hurt, because I was (and admittedly today still am, although to a much lesser extent) the sort of person who would do something like this.
ReplyDeleteA better post-punchline comment would be "So... can I have my water bottle back?"
ReplyDeleteIMO
I'd just like to point out every time I see the second panel of today's comic I can't avoid thinking the woman has grown a thick goatee all of a sudden. And this is much more hilarious than the comic itself.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to #652 Aren't UAVs remote controlled by human operators. Instead of y'know evil robots? So alt text is kinda talking out of its arse.
ReplyDeleteThe best part of 652 is how the poor art renders it incomprehensible without the alt-text that spells out that this is a UAV (okay, maybe not--could anyone tell that was an unmanned bomber before Randall said so?) and Sarah Connor's magical Lemmystache in panel 2.
ReplyDelete@Mal - Yes I could tell, but only because of the distinctive 'upside-down' tail on it.
ReplyDeleteYes I could also tell. But I do read AFBlues, so that gave me a leg up. That's not really bad drawing of a UAV.
ReplyDeleteit's the holiday season, which means time to fly, thus the joke.
ReplyDeletei get it, you hate xkcd. it's not always funny. but sometimes he nails it. quit whining and please go start your own comic if you think you are oh so funny.
but let's be honest, your comic would probably be a massive failure.
I do not get your explanation of the joke.
ReplyDeleteI get it, you like xkcd. It's not always truly awful, but sometimes it is infuriatingly bad. Quit whining and start your own blog if you think you are such a brilliant commenter.
But let's be honest, your blog would probably be a massive failure.
WAAAH XKCD reused a joke someone else made before instead of being totally and utterly inventive and new like every other form of comedy because we all know all there material is 100% new and in now way related to older material.
ReplyDeleteYes it's an old joke, yes the nerdy twist made it funny. Stop being such a whiny bitch, or if you can't bring back the guest posters, they didn't suck
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't start a blog because I know that it would be mildly amusing at best. Just like I wouldn't start a comic, because I am no comedian and it would suck. My comment wasn't self-proclaimed brilliance.
ReplyDeleteI guess what I was trying to say is that yes sometimes xkcd sucks. But you guys really, really suck at making fun of it. You're like that annoying kid that blogs all the time and thinks that they are sooo funny, when the reality is you're not.
Good comedians come up with new ideas and then crank out the funny. You don't do that. You have to rely on xkcd every single day and just poke fun at it. That's your only source. Do you think The Daily Show would be funny if every single day they spent 30 minutes talking about how bad Fox News sucks? You make fun of xckd repeating the same airline joke that we've already heard, yet your joke is the same every day, it's a joke about xkcd.
'xkcdsucks' sucks
What joke?
ReplyDeleteLOL DAT IS SOME CLEVER WORDPLAY LOL
ReplyDeleteXKCDSUCKS SUCKS
OH WOW
monkeyman8, you're a dumbass. The other commentators might be too but you are definitely as dumb as they come.
ReplyDeleteyay the fanboys have come out to plaaaay
ReplyDelete@ anonymous 10:00am
ReplyDeleteits called xkcdsucks... therefore it's a site about how much xkcdsucks. It doesn't need to come up with original ideas, or new jokes, or anything like that - that's xkcdcouldbebettter is for.
I thought this one was boring, but the fanboy's fanatical response is so amazingly out of preportion it ended up making me laugh.
ReplyDeletexkcd comic -> xkcd sucks review -> fanboys fanatical response -> laughs
Therefore, xkcd made me laugh. (Indirectly.)
Or rather, out of proportion
ReplyDeleteI consider myself a member of the xckdsucks community (you don't know how much I've commented because I'm too lazy to make a profile etc.), and I am also a fan of xkcd. There are times I agree and disagree with this site. All in all it hits it right on.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the time I consider it kind of like I saw in one of the JK comics. A comic artist ran out of material so he started just doing what he knew worked. Luckily what he knew worked was obscure references (and something else, but for XKCD make it a nerdy twist) and luckily that was what made his comic awesome so it intended to be.
I'm not saying Randall doesn't miss quite a bit. He does. In the very recent past it's been less than normal though. I think the last two comics were hits overall.
I think JK comics is made by an xkcdsucks regular, in response to a "make a better comic" challenge.
ReplyDeleteEven though this blog can err too much on the negative, it has a definitely more balanced response than the xkcd forums.
The joke isn't "oh wow airport security is arbitrary!" It's that certain kinds of people, myself included, always feel the urge to do this when they go through security. I thought this was excellent, largely because I have never gone through airport security without having to stifle those sorts of comments.
ReplyDeleteAnd why do you feel the urge to do that? Because airport security sure is arbitrary. Nobody would have the urge to do that if airport security was discrete and logical.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure that JK comics is made by a long time XKCD fan who just started randomly showing up in xkcdsucks and then expected us to accept him. I could be wrong, though, it hasn't been the first time.
ReplyDeleteThe ALT text is CRAZY stupid. The point of a hand grenade is how FAST it can release energy, if you just put it in energy terms, a Burger King Whopper has 2,800,000 joules of energy and a stick of dynamite only has 2,100,000... The point being, Whoppers don't explode, and good luck getting a laptop battery to explode with a decent fraction of the energy it has stored.
ReplyDeletemy mathy friends and i enjoy some silly mathy jokes, and some fool is tarnishing up a math site of math jokes with posts about xkcd. he posted 651 for some reason--it isn't even about math! what the hell. AND THEN HE POSTED ABOUT THE XKCD BOOK RELEASE
ReplyDeletearrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhh stop polluting the internets
But will they let you through security with a Whopper?!?
ReplyDeleteHey, will you look at that. Somebody on facebook posted the Windows 7 Hitler comic. Because, you know, Windows 7 came out today. And Microsoft jokes are still as LOLOL funny at the end of this decade as they were at the end of the previous decade. Thanks for letting me know about XKCD once again with such a shining pearl of comedy, random facebook person!
ReplyDeleteCuddlefish have problems too
ReplyDeleteThe joke isn't that airline security is ineffective, as much as it is that the guy is naive enough to think that a rational argument is going to convince the security guy to let him through with the water.
ReplyDeleteIt's not "hey guess what, this security rule is dumb," it's "hey, I'm going say REALLY SUSPICIOUS stuff for an innocuous reason." Overall, I liked it.
They are equally unfunny and unoriginal, though.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the problem of this comic is that Randall is extracting humor from someone acting unnaturally stupid. Making security jokes on an airport is not a good idea, even Megan knows that, and still Stickboy keeps on going. That makes me groan.
ReplyDelete'SCUSE ME, WHERE DID THE IRC CHANNEL GO? i miss you mutts. :<
ReplyDeleteaircam:
ReplyDeletehttp://widget.mibbit.com/?server=irc.foonetic.net&channel=%23xkcd-sucks&autoConnect
People who have an urge to point out the flaws in airline security to airline security people piss me off. They're representing the worst kind of nerd, the type that make me ashamed to be part of that demographic, and I'm a damned LARPer. They're the know-it-all, "My massive intellect is superior to you", "I see dumb people" kind of nerd. Gee, you think it doesn't make sense that you can't bring water on a plane? Well gosh, it is kind of odd. You want to tell the guy who wants to prevent you from bringing it anyway? Why? Do you think he's going to be persuaded by your incredible analytical skills and cool, level-headed reasoning, and allow you to bring it anyway? Do you think he'll thank you for your insights and pass your remarks higher up the chain of command, so that eventually, the top airline security people will come together and go "You know, that one nerd had a really good point about the water, let's change it"? Or do you JUST WANT TO SHOW THE DUMB SECURITY GUY HOW MUCH FUCKING SMARTER YOU ARE THAN HIM, BECAUSE THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY THAT HE COULD HAVE COME TO THE SAME CONCLUSION AS YOU OR HEARD IT A THOUSAND TIMES BEFORE BUT IS JUST DOING WHAT HE IS TOLD TO DO BECAUSE OTHERWISE HE DOESN'T GET FUCKING PAID?
ReplyDeleteHoly FUCK this pisses me off. You should feel awful. AWFUL. Fuck your smug superiority. And don't go "Well I've never actually -said- it, so I'm not one of those guys", because if you had to suppress it it means you're one of those fucking guys. You think the world is populated by idiots and you and your superior intellect are part of a select group of higher beings that can see all that is wrong with the world but cannot change it since all you can do is reason with people on an intelligent level and there is no reasoning with the asylum-running inmates that make up the rest of the world. You are all floating on life preservers of superior intelligence in the sea of stupidity, dragged along in the current of low intelligence caused by the inferior part of the world population that is not you.
Do you know who else have the world all figured out, knowing it would all be a lot better if the world just listened to their level headed advice? 15 year olds. That's right, you're pre-pubescent FUCKWITS who are pretending to be adults. FUCK you, and good night!
TLDR; XKCD has made me bitter and hateful.
ReplyDeleteXKCD can be shitty sometimes, but that comic is not bad. Stop trying to find flaws in it.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. If Randall has to hop all over your lasers of "that's too old" or "Sexkcd" or "quirky relationships" or "old memes" or "too obscure" and everything else you put down, then i dunno what.
You try writing a comic yourself of when you have to take into account of every narrow flaw, every little crack because someone in the blog will point it out. No matter WHAT YOU FUCKING DO, YOU CANNOT AVOID CRITICISM. YES.
Really. This blog should be called "XKCD sometimes sucks" because really that's true.
And if you really hate it, then why have a blog about it and read each and every day's comics just to criticize it? If you really don't like it, then don't READ IT. Why trouble yourself.
I really don't give a shit if this is "old." Just say sometimes if it is sorta not bad, because just because the blog is called XKCD sucks, you don't need to say that every time as sometimes its good.
It's like on youtube when this guy says "i heard this thing sucks. And it does. AHAA" and writes a 10 minute long speech like mine. DON'T WATCH THE VIDEO IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT. SIMPLE AS THAT.
This will be my first and last post of this blog. This is just my opinion, and remember it.
Oh my God. So much insight. No one has ever raised the points you have, Unwarranted flamer. I am now truly enlightened.
ReplyDeleteAnd Fred, your rant was epic win and I want to bear your children.
OH GOD. I was 15 once. D:
ReplyDeletewe should all read Unwarranted Flamer's comment every 15 minutes. It is so much better than the usual "if you don't like it don't read it" (IYDLIDRI) comments. "you should call it xkcd sometimes sucks" ZING! oh we all got served SO HARD.
ReplyDelete"it's lie on youtube when this guys says 'I heard this thing sucks' " that is gold. GOLD!
It is your opinion, U. F., and I will certainly remember it fondly.
Why do you guys always think that Randall's characters are being cast in a positive light? That's what I don't get more than anything else. He's making fun of the people in his comics. He's not saying "This is how I am, it's quirky and funny" he's saying, "Hey, laugh at this fuckwad, even if it's me, because he's so smart that he's fucking retarded to an even greater degree."
ReplyDeleteI repeat, RANDALL MUNROE DOES NOT PROMOTE THE KIND OF BEHAVIOR EXHIBITED IN XKCD. HE MAKES FUN OF IT.
Carl, can you permalink to Stephen Bonds' "Fifteen Stupid Responses to Criticism" article somewhere?
ReplyDeleteRandall has said like a billion times that the comic is autobiographical and usually represents what is happening in his life (watch the reddit interview for a bunch of examples).
ReplyDeleteP - can you send me a link with which to perma-fy it?
http://plover.net/~bonds/stupidresponses.html
ReplyDeleteRupert took care of it.
ReplyDeletelet's all thank him together now.
ReplyDeleteTHANKS, RUPERT.
THANK YOU RUPERT
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU RUPERT
ReplyDeleteUgh. This was another one of those "Randy knows best!" comics, where he tells airport security that he knows how to do their jobs better than they do. Anyone know if he has any sort of experience or qualifications to make that kind of statement?
ReplyDeleteOr, better yet, anyone know any members of airport security who could give the world some advice on how to draw webcomics?
The Transportation Security Administration gave a response.
ReplyDeletehttp://pastebin.com/m749d15d
Oh man, he really does know better than them. He gets rilly frustrated guyz
ReplyDeleteI actually found this to be his first funny comic in a long time so...
ReplyDelete