ain't nothing a nerd likes more than Lord of the Rings. And sure, there have been parodies of it before, and sure, people have poked fun at it before, especially when the movies came out and were good in some ways but very silly in others. But - in all those jokes (maybe you even made some of your own!) - has anyone ever wondered what if the dwarves in moria had gotten stuck in a deep hole? Think about it.
With 1000+ pages of LotR, I have a hard time believing this is the best joke Randall could have made. Or even an above average one. If you disagree, can I remind you: the joke is they were stuck in a hole. Because you know, if you are stuck in a hole with all your hole digging equipment, and the whole place is made of stone, why can't you carve some stairs in the walls of your hole? Like, carve hand and foot holds and climb out?
But I digress. What I was trying to say was, this doesn't strike me as the end result of "what's a funny joke about lord of the rings?" so much as the end result of "I'm going to turn to a random page in lord of the rings and try to make the best joke I can out of whatever I find there." And who knows, maybe this is the best joke that can be made out of the Dwarves unleashing the Balrog or whatever (maybe not, but let's pretend). In that case, the solution isn't to say "hey, this is the best I can do with this incredibly specific topic, sweet, let's post it" but to say "Well if this is the best I am going to get out of this particular lotr passage, I should really try a few more passages and see if they lead to anything better."
It feels, to take a new tack, like a Mystery Science theater 3000 joke. Read the first three panels in your best Ian McKellen voice, then switch to your best Tom Servo voice and add "So deep they were stuck in the hole, forever. The end, kids!" Mike (mike rules!) and Crow laugh quickly and the movie moves on, and you forget the mediocre joke because while watching it you also hear 400 other jokes making fun of it. This one doesn't stand out, but it's better than nothing, the only other choice the mst3k people have. Randall has more choice: if a joke isn't great, just keep writing until one is better. And if you can't think of any good jokes, get out of the webcomic business.
With 1000+ pages of LotR, I have a hard time believing this is the best joke Randall could have made. Or even an above average one. If you disagree, can I remind you: the joke is they were stuck in a hole. Because you know, if you are stuck in a hole with all your hole digging equipment, and the whole place is made of stone, why can't you carve some stairs in the walls of your hole? Like, carve hand and foot holds and climb out?
But I digress. What I was trying to say was, this doesn't strike me as the end result of "what's a funny joke about lord of the rings?" so much as the end result of "I'm going to turn to a random page in lord of the rings and try to make the best joke I can out of whatever I find there." And who knows, maybe this is the best joke that can be made out of the Dwarves unleashing the Balrog or whatever (maybe not, but let's pretend). In that case, the solution isn't to say "hey, this is the best I can do with this incredibly specific topic, sweet, let's post it" but to say "Well if this is the best I am going to get out of this particular lotr passage, I should really try a few more passages and see if they lead to anything better."
It feels, to take a new tack, like a Mystery Science theater 3000 joke. Read the first three panels in your best Ian McKellen voice, then switch to your best Tom Servo voice and add "So deep they were stuck in the hole, forever. The end, kids!" Mike (mike rules!) and Crow laugh quickly and the movie moves on, and you forget the mediocre joke because while watching it you also hear 400 other jokes making fun of it. This one doesn't stand out, but it's better than nothing, the only other choice the mst3k people have. Randall has more choice: if a joke isn't great, just keep writing until one is better. And if you can't think of any good jokes, get out of the webcomic business.
idk i don't hate the newest one, it feels fairly nerdy and clever and it doesn't fall into quite the pattern of "geeks loving love love love love love WOOHOO quirky nerdsex forever" because the girl doesn't give a shit about his snakeboner. maybe. alt-text less forgiveable.
ReplyDeleteWHERE DID HIS HAIR GO
ReplyDeleteYeah, the comic isn't half-bad, but the alt-text sucks.
ReplyDeleteI do love how its the girl picking the guy up though.
ReplyDeleteWhat is with Randall and his "you should date a lot of people casually instead of trying to pursue a monogamous relationship not based on quirkiness or sex"
ReplyDeleteI guess the only thing he fears more than raptors is commitment, am I right, ladies?
Yes I am I know
Latest one made me chuckle, alt text didn't, but if we pretend the alt text doesn't exist:
ReplyDeleteFine, except for the slightly misaimed punchline. Randall should have dropped the line about depth-first searches because that explains the joke, and explaining a joke is a no-no.
Just leaving the acronym in the title would be good enough because everyone would realise what DFS stands for by the end, plus it doesn't completely give the joke away.
>What is with Randall and his "you should date a lot of people casually instead of trying to pursue a monogamous relationship not based on quirkiness or sex"
ReplyDeleteI don't think he meant that. I think he meant casual dating at first before attempting a serious relationship rather than going straight into a serious relationship, having it fail and then going into another one.
it seems as though he is referring to the oil spill
ReplyDeleteThe guy is more dressed than the woman. towel > purse
ReplyDelete>it seems as though he is referring to the oil spill
ReplyDeleteMan, I spilled 100 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico too. GOOMHR!
Newest one isn't bad at all. Clever use of a nerdy reference. In fact, I don't think I learned about DFS till college, so it stays above the high school level. I think it would be fine if he removed either the title or the explanation at the end.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I think removing the title (or changing it to "Date" or something) would be better. Why? Because I saw "DFS" and saw what he was doing, so by the third panel I knew (approx) what the punchline would be.
I think the last one was a solid but not exceptional showing.
ReplyDeleteI'd have preferred if the last line were more like "from now on, I use breadth-first". Just to lower the number of people who would get the joke and up my smug satisfaction at making a slightly wider mental leap and getting it. What can I say, sometimes I eat that up like the worst forumites.
The alt text would have been better if he stopped at the semicolon and let us draw our own inferences. A little imagination and you can come up with some...interesting alternative interpretations. Yes, it would be another sexkcd joke, but I think it would have been worth it. Right now we're stuck at "did he mean polygamy or just much shorter bouts of serial monogamy"?
>Just to lower the number of people who would get the joke and up my smug satisfaction at making a slightly wider mental leap and getting it. What can I say, sometimes I eat that up like the worst forumites.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think that's pretty reasonable for xkcd. Better to make a slightly okay joke that few people get than to make a crappy joke EVERYONE gets (and realises why it sucks).
For all the smug people saying that the joke shouldn't have been explained at the end: I want you to know that I would have had no gorram idea what that webcomic was about without the "punchline" or alt text. (And yes, I did study DFS and BFS in college. And yes, it was the most boring hour of my life.)
ReplyDeleteOkay, well in reference to the comic this post was actually about, I kinda liked this one actually. The art was halfway decent, and the joke was better than I think you realized, Carl. The "They couldn't get out" bit seems to be referencing that part where they find that last log entry in Balin's tomb. The whole "We cannot get out...[blah blah blah]...we cannot get out. They are coming."
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, SMBC could have taken that in another direction with the "they are coming" pun. Just a thought. Cheers.
oooh boy. #761 is really very very bad on many levels. everything from the panel layout, to the art (levitating towel), to the joke. carl, don't let me down in your review of this one.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this just another one of his "I get easily caught up in trivia" comics? It feels very similar to the ones with Wikipedia and TV Tropes.
ReplyDeleteAnon 9:39 is right: HIS HAIR, WHERE DID IT GO.
ReplyDeleteSeems he took about 50 years to prepare for his date and male pattern baldness took its toll.
Carl, are you implying that making webcomics is a business? Because that would make me cry, Carl, it would make me cry.
ReplyDeleteOkay, well in reference to the comic this post was actually about, I kinda liked this one actually. The art was halfway decent, and the joke was better than I think you realized, Carl. The "They couldn't get out" bit seems to be referencing that part where they find that last log entry in Balin's tomb. The whole "We cannot get out...[blah blah blah]...we cannot get out. They are coming."
ReplyDeleteSPOILERS: Recreating a scene verbatim, with a much shittier effects budget, does not constitute a joke.
"DFS" is one of his worst in recent memory. Title continues his bizarre habit of using strange acronyms as title, punchline panel contains the usual unrealistic dialogue (what girl announces her arrival to pick up her date by saying "i'm here to pick you up"?), and worst of all is randall's insistence on feminist white-knighting by conspicuously putting the girl in the dominant position of picking up the guy rather than the tsk-tsk stereotype-reinforcing opposite. cookie-cutter shit i tells ya
ReplyDeleteSeeing the role-reversal as yet more feminism in action is an understandable knee-jerk reaction, but I think it makes sense in this case. The girl is picking him up because the joke would have been executed more clumsily if it was just the guy receiving a phone call or arriving at her doorstep very late. Randall often executes his jokes clumsily, but you have to figure he at least tries to make them as elegant as he can. Maybe it could have been a girl doing the mental search, but then the final panel wouldn't have had as much impact because girls always take ages to get ready anyway.
ReplyDeleteHere is a comic I did about how xkcd is boring. It's pretty dumb.
ReplyDeleteI actually think DFS is the first non-boring comic in a while, though it has this snake theme again, which was also prevalent in another recent comic. What's with this strange obsession with snakes? Wonder what Freud would say about this?
Anyway, I figured out what DFS meant after the second panel, so obfuscating the punchline and putting it in the title definitely doesn't work. Maybe Randall should've titled it "preparations" or something.
When I initially expressed my dislike of #760 on these forums, folks responded in pointing out that this comic actually does have a punchline. You have basically clarified what is my main objection to this comic: the whole idea of a culture of subterranean dwellers digging so deep that they cannot escape their pit. It just doesn't make very good sense. I just don't envision the dwarves as particularly prone to digging accidents, given their propensity to the (Middle-)earth.
ReplyDeleteThe punchline & caption of 761 are both a little over my head. But nevertheless I can tell that the main problem is that he focuses the comic on the particular type of algorithm he applied to a database of snake venom toxicities, not on the fact that the principal character, in his planning, devotes too much effort to very unlikely contingencies, much like Dwight from The Office would probably do. I looked up the Inland Taipan, and it is a poisonous snake, although one whose geographical distribution does not include the United States.
It is about as funny as saying, "I had a job interview, so I thought about all possible contingencies. Spilling food onto my suit, saying something stupid, or falling into a ravine. I attempted to find the most dangerous ravine in the world, which my X search revealed to be Y ravine located in Z. Hah, that's the last time I do an X search!!! HAHAHAHA"
Goatkcd has had a really great batting average lately.
ReplyDelete@locke9000: He wasn't searching the snake venom database with DFS; he was "searching" the what-situations-should-I-be-prepared-for-on-a-date database.
ReplyDeleteSo instead of going over each possibility in a general fashion, he just took the first, considered all the sub-possibilities, then took the first of _those_ possibilities and considered all the sub-possibilities, etc, and wound up getting nowhere.
Snakes: they're about THIS BIG.
ReplyDeleteNow can we, as a culture, please move on?
WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO HIS HAIR
ReplyDelete@locke: Completely missing the joke.
ReplyDeleteFor 761: I read it, saw that he was picking option a for each question, the chuckled at the joke.
It was pretty well-executed, although having the punchline as the comic title probably gave it away.
Behold, we approach Khazad-Dum
ReplyDeleteWhere the Dwarves met their end in the gloom.
In the mines of Moria
Not shadow and fire
But a really big hole caused their doom.
Carl: Awesome way to improve XKCD. Read the punchline as if it was made by someone from Mystery Science Theater. That made my day. =D
ReplyDelete@761: What the fuck is that black stuff on the guy's head in panel 1 - 3 that is gone for the rest of the comic? Is it hair? Does hair just go away when it dries now? God, it would look better if you just didn't put it at all. At least be consistent with your choice one way or the other. And why is this search going on in his head? If he was in front of a computer, and doing the search, I could believe him drilling down into the next category quickly... but this search is happening in his head, so why is he picking the first option every time? Why did he proceed to think up the other options if he was only going to delve into the first one?
And this might be nit picky... but the word Inconsistent was printed so close together, that I had trouble reading it. I had to stop and think about it. I thought it said wonicisi... Maybe it was just me who had a problem reading it though.
Captcha: Cless. A classier version of Chess.
All these "depth"-jokes recently has made Goatkcd really hilarious.
ReplyDeleteFort the first panel I thought the towel was a crappily drawn grocery bag or something. I figured he just had messy hair that inexplicably fell off.
ReplyDeleteAlso: "He will lose his one chance at procreation, thus moving us one step closer to removing autism from the gene pool." Vicious, xkcdexplained. Vicious. I love it.
Given that it's about DFS, I think it would have made more sense to show the guy's thought processes as a graph (by graph I mean like in graph theory, not charts). Although it would be a little harder to fit
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, 761 involves:
ReplyDeleteApplying computer techniques to non-computer situations.
Computer stuff.
A joke that's obvious from the first two panels alone.
Being in a relationship.
The man being the quirky one, the women being the normal one.
Randall complaining about the standard norms regarding relationships.
Randall saying how he wants to get loads of women.
Alt-text without a joke.
Men's hair entirely inconsistent. But for the same guy this time!
Seriously, if I saw this ANYWHERE ELSE, I'd instantly assume it was a parody!
The joke itself isn't that bad, although it's very... ordinary for XKCD.
Reading the latest comic, my first thought was "hasn't this been done before by Randall"? I have the impression that this is a repeat using different maths. Then again, all these comics are starting to run together and there are only a couple that I could actually recall if I were asked.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, by the time I hit "Post Comment" I will have forgotten what this latest one was about. And that's pretty sad, because it means that each XKCD has a half life of about 1 minute.
web comic "businiss"?
ReplyDeleteI can't believe the positive feedback the latest comic has received. I loathed it. In fact, it was probably the worst in a month at least.
ReplyDeleteCome on, the punchline is that if you use depth-first search you will know a lot of trivial bullshit you never wanted to know, and if you don't watch the time you don't get dressed on time. Well, ha-ha. Hilarious. About as hilarious as a fucking snake bite. Of an Inland Taipan. While having sex with Randall.
Seriously. The first three panels made it clear he was doing a completely useless depth first search. To find out how useless it is, try it yourself: go to any wikipedia subject, click any link on every page you get to and after only several clicks you can get pretty much everywhere. Now, that was useful on your first date, wasn't it?
I tried it out, so all you don't have to any more. The pages I visited:
sex -> genetics -> Gregor Mendel -> Augustinians -> Rome -> Gross Domestic Product
There. Now I tried to search about sex and I know everything about the economy. Ha. Ha.
And now the punchline. I'm not sure which it is. Is it that he knows about snakes searching on a first date? Well, great. As I said before, you get to know anything with a depth first search like that. In that case, if that's the punchline, then was that the funniest he could think of? Also, the steps are just too far-fetched. They make no sense. If it was done on wikipedia, everything, and the steps would exist, now that would make it relatively funny.
Maybe the fact that he hasn't dressed is the punch-line. I don't get that. Sorry, but it doesn't matter if you use a breadth-first search or a depth-first search. With both, you'll need to search just as long to find all the information you need if you really need all information. But there's no reason that time isn't a variable that causes a breadth or depth first search to stop. If it didn't stop the depth first search, why would it stop the breadth first search. So that is: even if he was breadth-first searching, he still wouldn't be dressed because he's just too much of an idiot to look at the time.
Then there's the woman's dialogue. "I'm here to pick you up. You're not dressed?". In what kind of distorted world do women talk like that? (answer: Randall's). If you draw a webcomic with multiple characters, you should be able to think like those characters. Randall can't think like a woman or even imagine what a woman thinks like, he's just too much of an asperger nerd. That's okay, but then don't draw any characters that don't suffer from asperger syndrom if you can't think how someone like that would act.
Maybe Randall should draw comics with only nerds? At least the dialogue makes sense then. And at least they can talk about all nerdy stuff that Randall likes so much. It could actually be quite funny... Think of all comics that didn't make sense in the past and imagine them with only nerds. Suddenly they start to make sense...
I won't even go into the alt-text or the hair-loss problem as it speaks for its horrible self.
Anon 9:39 beat me to it. Did he shave his head between panel 3 and panel 4? I honestly ignored the punchline for a good thirty seconds trying to figure it out.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the response to her question in the last panel is a textbook case of "Randall can't write dialogue." By LD50 and in the name of justice, I shall smite thee!
CAPTCHA: diviliz. A friend of the diviliz is a friend of mine.
sex -> genetics -> Gregor Mendel -> Augustinians -> Rome -> Gross Domestic Product
ReplyDeleteIf Randall had sex with Megan (he wishes) the result would be a pretty Gross Domestic Product. So they are connected.
I figured this comic was supposed to be a Dwarf Fortress joke using Lord of the Rings as a setup, but evidently I was wrong.
ReplyDeleteAlso from xkcdexplained:
ReplyDeleteA DFS or Depth-fist Search is a method for searching certain data structures...
I'm assuming that Freudian typo is completely intentional. Goatkcd really has been awesome lately, huh?
I don't know any computer science so the acronym DFS was meaningless to me.
ReplyDeleteI chuckled at the joke, and laughed my ass off at the fact he has No Fucking Hair.
Also, shitty panel layout.
SO MUCH WHITE SPACE
I kind of thought it was a weird reference to Dwarf Fortress. Not that it makes it a good joke or anything, but at least the alt text kinda makes sense that way.
ReplyDeletePopped over to the forums now and found this great jab at the goomhbas:
ReplyDeleteodd who would have thought so many geeks/nerds would have watched/read (for the 12th or more time)/RPG'd/LRPG'd/re-enacted any of the LOTR product lines within the last 24 hours, what are the chances that Randall worked out that if he made a LOTR reference the trainspotters over in the forum could not help posting some awful GOOMHR,s like shooting fish in a barrel. this perhaps is the real joke.
And this reminded me of the perfect scientific smackdown for the goomhba phenomenon. But unsurprisingly... while "Dawkins" gets 1073 results on the forum, "petwhac" gets 0.
S O L A M E
ReplyDeleteand yes, the girl picking HIM up is very white knightish and feminist and girl power of Randy.
I don't have anything else to say. LAME.
The guy in 761 is wearing a towel? I thought those were hammer pants. Or at least really baggy shorts. So I guess everyone else in every XKCD is naked (except for like Gandalf and Inspector Gadget). Another art fail on Randall's part. Edward Tufte would be appalled at Randall's inconsistent depiction of clohing.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know what is worse: when Randall just has no idea of what joke to make and makes something completely random and throws it up carelessly, or when he takes his well known formulas and reapplies them with all the wit and creativity of an amoeba -- heck, even LESS than an amoeba. So we have: computer geeks, computer concepts and dates; How can we combine them with the smallest possible effort? Yeah, just like that.
ReplyDeleteThe worst thing, though, is that the situations and dialogues Randall concocts make him look like he simply doesn't know how human beings work; therefore every time he tackles things like dates and relationships, it seems awfully wrong, inappropriate, senseless. So when Randall pulls off a joke like this, it feels not like he's saying "see why applying computer concepts to mundane situations is a bad idea?", but like he's saying "see? If you're a BAD COMPUTER SCIENTIST, you will FAIL AT LIFE". I'm being honest: at this state, I just don't know how Randall thinks -- so trying to enjoy a joke like this just makes me feel bad inside. Notice that if this were done by ANYONE ELSE, I wouldn't have any doubt that it was a mockery of the extreme nerdism (Nerdism: a disease which causes people to try to behave like nerds without necessarily being smart) of trying to apply computer science to everything, but comic from RANDALL, a guy who glorifies his "science" and his "computer skills" at any chance he can and who doesn't seem to show the slightest idea of what self-deprecation is, I'm left clueless.
I just came to this bitter, awful impression of Randall after I realised that the strange, silly "obsessions" he showed in his comic (e.g. kites, raptors, ballpits, etc.) were not assorted things he picked up for pure humour, but HONEST, PERSONAL obsessions that he was showing off to try and gather affirmation from people around him. It makes me sick.
I lost all my hair this morning too!
ReplyDeleteGOOMHR
"I'm here to pick you up. You're not dressed?"
ReplyDelete"I'm here to pick you up. YOU'RE NOT DRESSED?"
to the people who ask why we criticise the art, that's why. emotions and reactions that you'd usually pick up have to be explained in the dialogue. and not very subtly/realistically.
ReplyDeleteSo, does anyone think that 761 is still Randall's way of crying himself to sleep because he couldn't stay in a 'five-year relationship' with Megan?
ReplyDelete"Hah, those silly monogamous people. They think they're so smart. But I'm a scientist! I can make a random analogy that proves they are wrong! I bet those grapes were sour anyway."
Goomhbas is my new favorite word.
ReplyDeleteMost people I know who are happiest did not date casually before getting into their long term relationship. I have no stats to back me up one way or another though.
ReplyDeleteWhat you don't know is that "I'm here to pick you up. You're not dressed?" was actually dialogue cribbed from the porn Randall was watching at the time.
ReplyDeleteSilly Ann, a progressive male like Randy wouldn't watch porn. Watching porn is tantamount to rape, you know!
ReplyDelete"I don't know any computer science so the acronym DFS was meaningless to me."
ReplyDeleteI know too much computer science, so I read it as Distributed File System and was really confused for a few moments.
In reference to the DFS comic, My girlfriend picks me up all the time, but this is because I'm incredibly slow and cannot drive yet. That's all I have to say about that one.
ReplyDeleteAbout the Moria one, Carl, Did you pick up on the "We cannot get out" reference? I thought that was a nice touch, That said, this works better spoken than in webcomic form.
What I like about the new one, is that, on the list of situations to prepare for, number 2 is the dangerous possibility that there might be dancing. A good observation, that.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit, you guys. Stop fucking talking about the new comic in the previous comic's comment box. Wait until the new critic.
ReplyDelete761:
ReplyDeleteforget the punchline.
Forget the dialogue.
Forget the fact that Stick-Figure-Man #1 suddenly loses his hair.
WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH THE FORMATTING?!
Why the hell is the 5th panel far, far to the right? Little hint, Randy: you write a webcomic. Not a print comic. You don't have the same formatting limitations.
If for some reason he couldn't simply put the 5th panel next to the 4th (no idea why that'd be the case, but I'm in a generous mood), at least put the 5th panel in the center at the bottom. There's a reason nobody else awkwardly shoehorns in extra panels down at the bottom right in their comics, and that's because it looks like shit.
And what's worse is even the commentary text is limited under the last panel.
God, it just looks terrible. Randall, this is why even though you make a living off of your webcomic, it does not mean you are a professional.
------
On another note: I wholly endorse making "GOOMHbas" the official (or unofficial) name of the GOOMH phenomenon.
Captcha: Bathos. Appropriate considering 761!
Anon 9:02- Carl is a (lovable) lazy motherfucker. If we did we'd have to wait for a couple days.
ReplyDeleteBesides, it's not really that hard to keep up with it.
The last item on the first list is "Bee eating contest". That's actually quite amusing as an item on such a list; I wish he'd made the last cut-off items a bit less cut-off so you could read them more easily.
ReplyDeleteLayout thing is v. true. It looked awkward in the Michael Bay/Thingy the Spy one and it looks awkward here.
The alt text on this Moria comic is horrible. Makeing a "haha why didn't they just do this" about a silly and easily solved situation already in the source story is ok. Doing it about a silly and easily solved situation you added to the sorces tory is just lame.
ReplyDeleteI misread the acronym as DFW at first, so I thought the comic was supposed to be a reference to Infinite Jest. (It still wasn't funny, either before or after.)
ReplyDeleteAnd as Ves pointed out, there's no good reason to have all that whitespace to the left, but I'm trying to come up with one anyway:
- an alien crash-landed in that part of the comic, and the government covered it up
- actually a picture of a polar bear in a snowstorm
- seemingly blank area contains secret of happiness, can only be seen by people who already know it, that's totally zen
- Randall was going to go back and fill it with more searches, probably involving hilarious popular culture references, but he drew the last panel too soon and got distracted thinking about what he would do if Megan came to his door while he was only wearing a towel and he forgot to do the rest of the comic or even draw the guy's hair
Ves: I think placing the final panel on the right rather than the left helps with a sort of "time passes" feel between the penultimate and ultimate panels. Centering it would be more ugly than it is. (A man who keeps drawing awkward stick figures doesn't seem highly concerned with visual appeal, but still.)
ReplyDeleteHair's been fixed.
ReplyDeleteRyan- I wouldn't put it past Randy, but that's still an incredibly piss-poor way of denoting time. Making a really really really long gutter* doesn't convey a sense of elapsed time. To show time elapsing it has to appear in the panels themselves.
ReplyDeleteAs it is it's a big white block of void. No time, no space.
*The gutter: the space between the panels of a comics; our imagination takes the two images that boarder the gutter and transforms then into a single idea. (woooo Scott McCloud!)
Lol. He fixed the hair. I am loling.
ReplyDeleteThere's one crucial difference: the MST people are naturally gifted funny people. They probably would have found a way to use "too deep" phrase crack a joke about Frederick Nietzsche.
ReplyDeleteHe actually fixed the hair AFTER posting the comic. Half a day after. How much of a lazy hack you must be to do that?
ReplyDeleteI think as much as to ignore the concept of necks completely.
And, yes, comic layout looks horrible. 10 years doing comics apparently taught NOTHING to him. That's how much he cares.
Yes, I'm deeply and camly enraged,
Mole
Ten years? Really?
ReplyDeleteLadies and gentlemen, I present to you the most pathetic "GOOMHR" ever.
ReplyDeleteVes - Well, if you're citing Scott McCloud, then you should give some credence to the idea that changing the visual attributes of the gutter can change the meaning of the transition.
ReplyDeleteI will admit if he really wanted to be a master of comics-implied pacing, then he should also have done something with the relative widths of the first row of panels. Right now, it gets narrower, wider, wider, which just feels like it's haphazardly whatever width he first fit his text into, rather than something that considers the timing of the gag.
I'M HERE TO PICK YOU UP BECAUSE WE HAD A DATE TODAY AND I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE YOU KNEW THAT I AM GOING TO PICK YOU UP RIGHT NOW.
ReplyDeleteAnd visually, I'm much more put off by drawing a towel wrapped around imaginary hips that a stick-figure doesn't actually have. Which makes the final panel look kind of like he's answered the door with a raging erection.
ReplyDeletehaha, holy shit http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=62013#p2219468 this guy must be retarded if he thinks they werent all bald before.
ReplyDeleteRandall is unlovable motherfucker
Wait, so the characters of XKCD have hair until it dries?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing the women just walk around with wet hair all the time, then.
@ Ryan:
ReplyDeleteActually that's not really a stretch, now that I look at it again. In panels 1 and 3, his body is pretty much in the middle of the towel edges, making it look even. In the last panel though, the towel is way too far to the left (front) as opposed to the other two, so yeah, it looks like he's got a pretty massive boner there.
Heh, the funny thing about the guy who goes "His hair DRIED and that's why you can't see it in the final panel!" is now proven completely wrong by Randall's update that puts the hair back on in the last two panels.
This was a pretty dumb move for Randall to make for exactly that reason, because now it DOES imply that all his characters were bald before whereas if he hadn't changed it he could have easily hidden behind the "it dried" defense.
@ Ves: Wow that WAS a really bad GOOMHR moment. I want to say that one can't be topped but I'm sure if I did, there'd be an even stupider one soon enough.
yes, they are always wet because they are in the presence of Randall
ReplyDeleterelated: that is what he thinks it means
http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=62013&start=40#p2219977
ReplyDelete"Furthermore, I have the advantage of having an SO who is just as strange, intelligent, and quirky. We make quantum physics puns at each other on a regular basis. We're very happy together."
OH GOD
:(
ReplyDeleteOH OH OH notice how he says "SO" instead of "girlfriend" or something.
ReplyDelete"significant other" in its sociological context just refers to an individual who is very important to someone's life--eg a family member or very good friend.
clearly he's talking about his mom.
@Ves: I have to disagree with you about the comic layout. He is placing the final Panel after a lot of white space to represent the passage of time. It was either that, or he put the final panel to the right of the 4th panel, and say "Later" or something like that. I prefer his approach this time. White space doesn't have to be a bad thing when used correctly. Someone feel free to jump in and correct me if they think I'm wrong though.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, you're right, that was the worst GOOMH ever.
ALL WHITE SPACE
ReplyDeleteEVER
IS A TERRIBLE THING
Rob is just racist.
ReplyDeleteRacist against white space.
no u
ReplyDeleteI come here looking for commentary on the LotR/Dwarf Fortress joke, and get comments on the current comic. Can you tools neither wait a few days for the blog on today's comic, nor kvetch on the XKCD forums themselves? Damn, I guess I don't like this community at all. So few places with worthwhile comments. I shall restrict myself to the blog itself.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the community's fault Carl is a fat lazy fuck who only puts up a post when the next comic's about to come up.
ReplyDeletewaiting a few days: no, that would be boring.
ReplyDeletekvetching on the forums: that would be annoying.
seriously, if you want to talk about the new comic, look at the previous comment thread. that's where that conversation goes!
is it really so hard for you stupid fucks to figure that out? "gee, it looks like the commenting community is commenting one comic ahead of Carl's posting schedule. I GUESS THAT MEANS I CAN'T GO BACK TO THE POST ABOUT THE PREVIOUS ONE AND DISCUSS THAT"
I cannot believe someone just told Randall to get out of the webcomic business.
ReplyDeleteA cheap hack who writes an critic column telling a highly successful webcomic artist who never reads his column anyway to quit. Jesus, and to think I used to think this blog made some relevant points.
Sorry Rob, I am just a hypocrite that likes to kvetch myself.
ReplyDeleteYeah, 5:19 anon, it's almost as if he think his commentary will do something like "make a difference" or "change the world" instead of just being really, really fucking funny.
ReplyDelete"Sorry Rob, I am just a hypocrite that likes to kvetch myself."
ReplyDeletewhat you should do is complain about Carl and get him to replace himself with someone infinitely sexier and more talented named Rob, who actually knows how to post on time
I noticed the guy had no hair, and now Randall gave him hair!
ReplyDeleteGET OUT OF MY HEAD RANDALL
why do people say shit like "did you notice the 'we cannot get out bit??" that was a nice touch!!!"?
ReplyDeletewhy exactly? yeah, it's something that was written in a book. clearly, this means randall has read at least one book in his life, or at least one passage in one book, and then chose to regurgitate what he read on to a comic. HOO RAY.
well, i guess blatant plagiarism is okay as long as it's in the form of a SUPAR CLEVAR NERDY REFERENCE wow this indicates that this human being that is not me has at least one interest in common with me (or is pretending to 'cause he wants to sell me worthless crap) WHAT ARE THE ODDS
also why is that one guy praising a "Clever [really dude? what's clever about "LOL I KNOW LOTR U GUYZ" again?] use of a nerdy reference" when it represents exactly what is wrong with xkcd, webcomics, and the internet in general; it's a culture where the only thoughts you can own that have value are the ones you didn't come up with
760 is awful. Any webcomic writer who makes a LotR or Star Wars joke knows he is pandering and should feel disugsted at him/herself. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's not even an ok joke.
Unforgivable.
* * *
761 is...well, not so bad. It's weakened by making it explicitly computer sciencey (as opposed to just "My thought process is kind of dumb sometimes" and the dialogue is stilted and awful (Look, Randy, dude, context speaks. Let it. Guy getting ready worrying about a date, later a girl with purse shows up at his door. Do you really think the audience needs to be told who she is? Jesus.)
But anyone who thought it was ok, you should find and watch Louis C.K.'s new sitcom/sketch/stand-up show.
Because he has a bit involving awkward dates and - sure, different mediums, tv sketches vs. comics - but to compare the two, it's obvious one guy's a hard-working pro with a sense of how the art works and who's honed his abilities (and he's just a funnny fuckker to boot) and the other's just an amateur who's able to wring a living out of a few suckers has settled for complacency and doting praise.
Taken out of context, does this image make any damn sense?
ReplyDeletehttp://img820.imageshack.us/img820/67/wutk.png
Regarding 761: The girl's dialogue makes me feel like she didn't agree to a date, but just casually agreed to give him a ride somewhere. You know, "Yeah, sure, I can give you a ride to [[insert social event]]". The guy then misinterprets this casual act of convenience [maybe her other friend lives nearby] as a "date", having been dateless for 5 years, and is pre-occupied with the significance of the event and begins his "preparations".
ReplyDeleteThe last scene is then a sort of pity-humour for the guy. The girl arrives to drive him somewhere, sees him a)unprepared b)wearing nothing but a towel and c) spouting something about snakes. And she hasn't even figured out yet that HE fallaciously thinks that SHE is interested in HIM.
Alternately Randall doesn't know how girls speak, but I like to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Oh, except for 760. It sounds like something your friend chortles during the 15th time you're watching the film; everyone laughs, but you never bring it up again because it honestly wouldn't be funny. ...Honestly.
XKCDexplained is really good for 760. The explanation fits in a half-dozen LOTR jokes that are all funnier than the one XKCD spent a whole strip on.
ReplyDelete@Rob: Why is all white space, ever, a terrible thing?
ReplyDeleteGoomhbas is just such an awesome new word I think we should make a wikipedia page about it and when it gets deleted we find some 5 year old refrence on bash.org and when that doesn't work start blogging about it and linking to our blogs and when that doesn't work get some two bit hack journo friend of ours to mention it in their crappy blog then we can say 'see it's in the mainstream news now goomhbas are totaly a real thing' and then when that doesn't work make a funny joke entry on urban dictionary and claim victory.
ReplyDeleteRinnon: you aren't punctuating it right. punctuate it as I did and you will have your answer
ReplyDeleteAwww, xkcdexplained fixed their typo. I mean I guess it could be ironic that they ended up editing away a mistake from their entry about the comic that edited away the disappearing hair, but... "depth-fist search" was funnier.
ReplyDeleteDFS sells sofas.
ReplyDeleteHaha, Dwarves are short --> can't get out. That's kinda funny, isn't it? Pity the comic didn't illustrate that.
ReplyDeleteHave we seen an XKCD skeleton yet? Would we know if we had?
"Haha, Dwarves are short --> can't get out. That's kinda funny, isn't it? Pity the comic didn't illustrate that.
ReplyDeleteHave we seen an XKCD skeleton yet? Would we know if we had? "
Well we sure as hell have seen their genitalia
I assumed his hair had flattened as it dried, but now it seems like he has perpetually wet hair...
ReplyDeletealso chick picking up the dude?
also also title made me think it would have something to do with sofas
yes, girls pick up dudes for dates sometimes. shocking, I know.
ReplyDelete"yes, girls pick up dudes for dates sometimes. shocking, I know. "
ReplyDeleteExcept in xkcdland girls ALWAYS pick up dudes, because girls are AWESOME and dudes SUCK unless they're RANDALL.
[/Beneath a Steel Sky]
you're right, Fernie. I wasn't thinking.
ReplyDeletein terms of when i post and which comics people talk about, i've always taken this as my inspiration.
ReplyDeleteThere's always so much going on in the comments here, and the threads are confusing. Sometimes they're about the current post. Mostly they are not. And sometimes commentary from the previous post spills into the next one.
ReplyDeleteWhy not just get a FORUM?
@Skull: Short answer to that question: Are you offering to pay for/setup/manage a forum? Carl will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is a hobby of his, not something he wants to devote lots of time and money to. I've run forums, they aren't free, and they aren't as easy as blogspot.
ReplyDelete@Rinnon: Sure. What domain? xkcdsucks.net is available (also xkcdsucks.me, which I find amusing). I can set it up with phpBB and I'm pretty sure that with a bit of tinkering, I could email Carl the necessary code to redirect the blog comments link to a forum. He could either wire me the ten bucks for domain registration, or I could put some non-intrusive Project Wonderful ads on it (<3 Project Wonderful) to pay for it.
ReplyDeleteJust a suggestion.
Hey, I'm on board with the idea (pun intended). I can't really offer anything other than my presence on said board, which isn't worth much but there it is. I'm down with Project Wonderful ads. But really, it's up to Carl of course. Well, that's not entirely true, it's up to you if you want to set up the board, it's up to Carl if he wants to have anything to do with it. =D
ReplyDeleteAll right, show of hands, who here is actually wearing pants?
ReplyDeletebut I like this blog
ReplyDeleteI don't want a board
A board would be all insular. I like that anyone can rock up to this place and leave a comment.
ReplyDeleteThe only time I wear pants is when I want to keep a small animal close to my genitals without it being able to run away so easily.
ReplyDeleteDoes xkcdexplained edit the pictures it uses or was there in fact a giant erection in the panel 3 of the no-hair version?
ReplyDeletehttp://xkcdexplained.com/ or
http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_l4x324ISjI1qao43ho1_r1_1280.png?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1278327356&Signature=uch%2Bp1SppG7S4Y2ENVWYb0gJdac%3D
its not about when you post anymore carl, your hateblog has surpassed you.
ReplyDeleteWe come for xkcdsucks.blogspot.com, we stay for mudpeoplearerunningthegovernment.blogspot.com.
ReplyDeleteCAPTCHA: ingst. It's like angst, but smaller.
"Does xkcdexplained edit the pictures it uses or was there in fact a giant erection in the panel 3 of the no-hair version?"
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure it was put there afterwards -- if that were present on the original version, I DEFINITELY would have noticed. I think.
Forums suck. This way it's one big conversation, a forum would be loads of small conversations. I'd hate to miss out on some of the insanity here just because I didn't follow a certain thread.
ReplyDeleteMany forums eventually build up to a point where it becomes less about the topic or subculture the forum centres around and more about the forum community itself and its 'personalities'. People with their avatars and their post counts and their funny location descriptions and signatures. Where for every good post there are five worthless ones from people pumping up their post counts ("This", etc.) or not knowing how to search for topics that have already been covered dozens of times before starting threads. With moderators and their delusions of grandeur and ego trips and other nonsense.
ReplyDeleteXKCD is released on a steady schedule, so there is no need to use a forum format just so that we can have ten fucking threads about comic 879 or an 'Off-topic Forum' where posters can "relax and shoot the breeze about non-XKCD topics".
Fuck that. Just create a placeholder post before or soon after a new comic is created to minimise the posting overlap and I think most of us will be able to cope while waiting for the next critique. I don't know if Blogspot offer the feature to delay postings to a certain date and time, but that would be useful.
Seriously, I don't really give a crap that we're discussing the next comic in the comments section for the previous comic. Whenever Carl bothers to post about the new comic, the entire conversation continues in the comments for that post. It's not rocket science. You don't have to have been a contractor at NASA for six months to be able to wrap your head around it.
ReplyDeleteI would stop paying attention to the comments if they were in a forum. At least here there's only one relevant comment thread at any one time (the latest one), so if I want to see what people are saying I don't have to jump around and wait for shit to load.
ReplyDeleteyeah forums suck
ReplyDeleteuh rob i think you mean FORA it is a LATIN word after all you illiterate prick
ReplyDeleteAccording to dictionary.com, either "forums" or "fora" is appropriate.
ReplyDeleteTHE DICTIONARY IS WRONG
ReplyDeleteThis version is much funnier then the original
ReplyDeletehttp://cgogolin.de/downloads/moria.png
(from xkcd forums)
http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=61941#p2216698
As pointed out by this blog, Randall seems to be missing the punchline more and more.
update your blog you fucker
ReplyDeleteknot gunna happin
ReplyDeleteRob you lazy fuck update this shit
ReplyDeletewhy does everyone seem to think Rob runs this place
ReplyDeletebecause he is the loudest
ReplyDeletehe certainly has the largest amplitude
ReplyDelete(because he has an ample figure)
(because he is fat)
I actually like the BP modification. It's annoying, but at least it has a punchline.
ReplyDeleteI hope your car catches fire... While you're in it just to be clear.
ReplyDeleteXKCD fans: so deranged they wish death on people who dare criticize it!
ReplyDelete