Thursday, July 15, 2010

Comic 766: Green With Jealousy

don't stare at this comic
[alt: The exact cause of the phenomenon is unknown, but it's thought to be linked to atmospheric refraction and you getting a really cool car.]

Let's start with the obvious. This xkcd doesn't quite look like most others. Can you figure out how? Here, I'll give you another comic to compare it to:

dur de durrrr
Yes, definitely something odd going on here.

Now, I've read the comments about this comic on my previous thread, and there's been a huge debate over whether this comic constitutes good art or not. And I think people on both sides of the argument have made it clear that they will kill me if I do not agree with their side. So, knowing that by wading into this debate, I open myself up to certain death, I have to say that I do like it.

It's not a timeless classic, of course, and some people who seem more knowledgeable about computer art than I say it isn't even that difficult. No matter. I still like it, and not just because it's better by far than the usual standard. It may not be realistic to have the ocean be totally dark right next to the sun, but whatever. When I ask for better art in xkcd I don't mean photorealistic art, I just mean art that helps the comedy, which this does (to an extent). Here, look at the big version.

Leaving the quality of joke aside for now, the point is that one character is trying to use the sunset to distract another. If we just had a crappy black ink on white page version of this comic - which I would sketch out if I had more time but I am sure you can imagine it in your mind - it wouldn't be as effective. Seeing some that much more closely approximates a real sunset makes your mind start to think about times that you have looked at sunsets, it makes it easier to imagine a person staring at this while a man in a hat steals his car. In other words, (and i haven't expected to say this before) the art does help support the story of the comic.

Of course, the story is lame. The story is "look at the sun while I steal your car," with a car that happens to be popular to nerds these days thrown in. That's it! It makes for quite the contrast with the art, though not in a nice way. Besides, Mr. Hat is supposed to be diabolical, not so stupid that he tells the dude exactly what he is scheming. Look at it! He's actually saying "stare at the sun for a while as I drive away in your car." Come on! I'd be happier with the no dialog version, as linked to above. Maybe some weapon clearly visible in Mr. Hat's hand, or something.

In the end, it's a rare step towards art and words that compliment each other in xkcd. I'd be setting myself up for disappointment if I expect more of this, but at least he isn't denigrating an entire field of study or showing people carefully plotting pregnancies.

----
DAYS TILL THE OVERCOMPENSATING BOOK COMES OUT: 4
DAYS SINCE THE LAST XKCD BLOG UPDATE: 61 (two full months!)
DAYS THE XKCD "ANTHROPOLOGIZE" MESSAGE LASTED ON XKCD: 2 (it's not even up on the original comic anymore! sucks to be an anthro major who reads the comic later!)

74 comments:

  1. make love to me carl

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  2. This is one instance where he should have ripped off Men In Hats - break up the single image into multiple panels, each a different instance of dialogue between the characters. He could have actually set up a joke then.

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  3. is the joke that there are people who believe a myth that the sunset flashes green are gullible? is that even a real myth? or is it just herp derp tesla roadster mr. hat is mischevious der

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  4. I didn't think the joke was that funny, but it's not too bad, and the sunset did look awesome.

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  5. to Anon@7:48-

    It's the second option: herp derp etc.

    The green flash is a real phenomenon. xkcdexplained linked to the Wikipedia article; you can easily find it.

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  6. So yeah, achewood: UGH can we please wrap up this storyline already Onstad? I mean really I think we've all had our fill of Nice Pete at this point for the next, say, 10 years?

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  7. ves: AGREED. this story line started with the right level of creepy/funny balance, in the first 2 or 3 installments, and then just quickly went crazy. I don't want to read a comic where well established, respectable characters get raped in the back of vans.

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  8. Would be nice to have a level horizon, though...

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  9. Apparently Randall used up his art budget for the month with the last comic. Also, why is he making this bizarre, non-funny Mr. Rogers tribute 7 years after he died.

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  10. Am I missing something or was today's comic just incredibly pathetic? Is there something other than the fact that Mr. Rogers doesn't really get angry? And if that's all there is, then why did he have to repeat the joke and then explain it in the alt text?

    Also he put off drawing anything and just tossed up a [no video], that's real classy.

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  11. 767 makes me angry.
    Like I really hate this motherfucker after reading 767.

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  12. MR ROGERS?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????
    NO.
    Randall, you do NOT get to sully the legacy of Mr. Rogers.

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  13. Why would an audio recorder display "no video"?

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  14. because obviously it's a special audio-video recorder DUH

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  15. 767 is possibly one of the worst xkcds ever.

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  16. I didn't make the connection at first but I think today's comic is trying to reference the Mel Gibson fighting with his wife that has been in the news lately. It makes more sense than random reference to Mr. Rodgers, and it also explains the [No Video]. Doesn't make it better, but at least I see what he was trying to do.

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  17. that'd make more sense if the wife, shocked and threatened by the recent "outbursts" by her husband, took to recording their conversations in order to protect herself.

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  18. The last five comics have all been one panels. And also terrible.

    Where is the joke?

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  19. To be fair, it's quite a bit funnier if you assume that that's a beer bottle (maybe even a green one) in Mr Hat's hand and that the second thing Mr Hat says is under his breath.

    Also, there's more contrast here than you give credit for: the first comment Mr Hat makes is the kind of thing someone (a nerd) might say at sunset to impress a date whereas the second comment is a strange and unnecessary explanation for the upcoming events of the robbery (and if it's under his breath is a smart-ass way of messing with the other guy before he robs him).

    But yeah, the Tesla thing is lame nerd-pandering and, for me, nearly ruins a rather solid xkcd.

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  20. Better Hatman line (I think): "Isn't it beautiful to just stare at? By the way, you still have your car keys on you, right?" (This is said while carrying a large weapon and after the line about the green flare.)

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  21. @Ves and Carl
    I agree about Achewood. Maybe it's just that we have to wait a week for each comic to move the plot forward in *tiny* incremental steps. And maybe I'd be more forgiving if the previous arc hadn't been disastrously bad.
    I'm missing Beef, Ray, and the rest of the gang. Here's hoping Achewood gets back in stride.

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  22. Re: Achewood

    I'm just so relieved by the latest strip defusing one of the imminent threats that (at least until the next one goes up) I can temporarily relax and forget about the horrors of the giant creepy cat cock.

    Re: xkcd

    Carl made a good point about this art actually being functional and helpful to the strip for once, and I'm inclined to agree. I'm just annoyed at the "OMG the colors TAKE ON A LIGHT OF THEIR OWN, hoist me up on the cherry picker SO I CAN WATCH THIS GLORIOUS SUNSET AGAIN" crap. Have you Philistines never gone to a museum and seen some actual art ever in your lives?! Or hell, if you don't want to leave the basement, just look up a site with some pretty desktop landscapes or something, Jesus.

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  23. When you're sick of nerd pandering, you're sick of xkcd.

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  24. @Dan:
    I think the implication is that the audio has been transfered to a video saying [no video] for broadcast purposes, which makes some nonzero amount of sense. I mean, if it had just been black or white everyone would have been asking why everyone was invisible or why Randall did a pitch black scene, so at least this established what's up with that. And while it's possible Randy just chose this idea so he could avoid spending five minutes to draw a couple stick figures, the joke here wouldn't even make any sense if we could see the scene.

    (For the clueless: the intended joke is that you're reading kind words that you then find out to be, contrary to expectations, somebody in a fight. But who would ever say such things in a fight? Only Mr. Rogers. I think there's a clever idea in there, but the execution only managed to leave me confused for a minute or two.)

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  25. I'm obviously missing some sort of subtlety in Carl's humor-laced posting, but I'm pretty sure he's not just saying "Stare at the sun for a while" but "Stare at the sun while I knock you out with this blackjack", which is clearly visible in his hand.

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  26. Better vesion of 766: Same art. Same first line ("do you know...green flash"). Completely remove the second line. Have Mr. Hat pulling back his arm to hit the unnamed character in the back of the head.

    It takes out the part where Mr. Hat becomes a Bond villain and reveals his plot before it finishes along with the pointless nerd-car reference. It lets the reader figure out the joke on their own a lot more. It shows, and doesn't tell. Perhaps most importantly, it leaves a lot more to the imagination, which is always a good thing, but is especially good in this case: it allows us to imagine that Mr. Hat is planning something devious.

    This is so much better than the joke being LOLZ IMA STEEL TEH CAR. Can someone more tech/art savvy than myself make this happen? Shouldn't take too long I imagine, though I wouldn't really know.

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  27. @Quixotic,

    That doesn't really work with the stick figures, ya know. If Randall had done that, we'd all be here trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with Hat's arm and where the joke was. Personally, I think this really needed to be a two-panel. Panel one, exactly the same, same first line, remove the STEEL TEH CAR. Panel two: show part of the sunset, Hat driving away, other person crumpled by the ocean. Sadly, a little more difficult for someone to create than your version, but worlds better.

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  28. Based on his appearance in #766, I must conclude that Mr Hat is Spades Slick.

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  29. Tesla Roadster... Alternative fuel breakthrough that is not as astonishing as the Honda FCX Clarity (ask Jay Leno), Would prefer a car nerd/lover shout out, Alfa Romeo, or a best car (engineering wise) in the world shout out, Bugatti Veyron. I guess it doesn't really matter since it won't make the comic any better.

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  30. Randall should be gangraped by a pack of niggers.

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  31. When Fred Rodgers gets in a fight with his wife, he's still such a gentleman and is always comforting.


    So to deconstruct it, it's basically a Chuck Norris joke but focused around being kind and sensitive instead of being violent and manly. Which would be fine, except:
    1: Read my summary of the joke again. Notice how generally flimsy and unfunny it is. If it was a Chuck Norris joke, it would be something like "Even when Chuck Norris isn't allowed to use his hands, he still wins in a fight".
    2: The fact that I don't even have to explain what a Chuck Norris joke is means that this kind of thing (X person is so Y he does Z while Y) has been done oh-so-very-many times.


    Additionally:
    -alt-text is just plain sucking up
    -the art is RIDICULOUS (seriously Randal? You're too flipping lazy to draw an audio player of some sort? Like, not even a radio or something?)
    -that dialog isn't even remotely human. Throwing in something about sand would still work better than that!

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  32. XKCD Explained is lovely today.

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  33. Oh shit all I want is want is "to die and never be alone again." GOOMH Xkcdexplained!

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  34. 767 further reinforces the theory that Randall is just writing for goatkcd.

    Capcha: Pergentr = wot happened haeppnd to mai grlfiernd when we had unportected sex

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  35. Achewood has been fine if you subscribe to the fanflow. There have been some great Ray pieces over the last month that make up for the tone of the strips. On the other hand, xkcd is barely worth discussing anymore because it clearly will never be a good strip again. An editor might have helped him at one point, but his ideas are rarely amusing anymore. The new one is just "Mr. Rogers was much nicer than Mel Gibson." The execution was fine, but the "joke" is terrible. On the bright side for Randall, I think QC has recently surged past xkcd in terms of unreadability.

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  36. This recent Pearls Before Swine comic was originally aimed against BP, but since the leak was shut down, a new target was chosen to appeal to a growing phenomenon of xkcd hatedom.

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  37. I don't have a huge problem with the idea of the new xkcd. What if Mr. Rogers had a tape released just like Mel Gibson's? The answer is, he would be polite and not have a violent outburst!

    The problem I do have, which will probably be the subject of Carl's post on the strip, is why would that be worth releasing to the public? Also, what is Randall trying to say? That Mr. Rogers is a nice guy? What a joke!

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  38. do you guys think mr rogers is related to steve rogers?

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  39. 767:
    Once again randy's total lack of professionalism does him in. I have no issue with the joke in this comic (even if I personally don't find it funny), but the construction... oh god. randy, a webcomic has to contain both art and text. If it has no art, or if the art is doing absolutely nothing (like in 767), it's not a fucking comic. I understand this joke works best as an audio recording (because really, what would a picture show?), but you must have art for it to actually count as a comic. And if you find that you can't make the joke without sacrificing either the art or the text, then you should take that as a hint that you should change the fucking joke.

    Carl you should tag 767 with "blag", because this isn't even picto-blag territory.

    Captcha: aliescu. Teodor + alien?

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  40. A webcomic does not have to contain text. See for example this or this.

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  41. 767 is okay, not super, but okay. Humor works on the contradiction of expectation; the moment when your brain becomes confused before understanding dawns.

    Reading the dialogue first, you sort of don't get a sense of what the conversation is about. Then the label at the bottom describes it in a way that you won't have taken it for at all. Your brain becomes confused at the contradiction before it bridges the connection between Mr. Rogers and the ubiquitous politeness and even temper he displayed on his famous show.

    There is a joke, and it's an okay one. That's miles and miles and miles better than any other comic he's made in years.

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  42. I guess I'm just not retarded because I understood it right away. There was no "moment of realization" it was a "i see where he's going with this. yep. that's where he went."

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  43. CURSE YOU CARL for I now look at that PBF and I think "well does it really need to be three panels? i mean panel two and panel three are both conveying the same idea: that he is strapping dynamite to the pig. except panel two isn't as clear as panel three. this would be better if we cut panel two and had the bubble being what he is thinking in panel three."

    you have RUINED gurewitch just as you RUINED munroe

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  44. i cant believe how much love this new comic is getting. I guess all you have to do is reference a beloved childhood figure and people love it no matter what.

    thundercats.

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  45. @ann
    the difference here is that you could potentially justify the need for both panels since without the second we would not know how the pig came to be rigged with dynamite and without the third we wouldn't be sure exactly what the fellow was doing in the second
    when xkcd makes a mistake like this it is usually indicative of a much more fundamental problem with the comedy

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  46. @ Anon 12:22

    There is no fucking way you got "Oh, it's Mr. Rogers." from "Sometimes, when we disagree I feel frustrated." and you know it. Well, unless it was a catchphrase of his or something, I never really watched his show.

    It's flimsy and stupid and is only noteworthy in that it isn't terrible, but this attitude that every single comic must be worse than the last just undercuts the purpose of pointing out when he produces real eye sandpaper.

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  47. @Ves:

    Absolutely. Well-said. Comics are a visual medium, and if an artist (or "artist") is going to text-wall his audience to death, then he has failed by the standards of his medium, regardless of how funny his joke is. (In the case of 767, he has failed to write a good joke, too, but that's somewhat beside the point.)

    I believe Yahtzee (among many others, but Yathzee's critique was especially spot-on) has criticized Tim Buckley for the very same infraction.

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  48. Haha I laugh at you poor trolls who will never know just how delicious and nourishing Mr. Munroe's cum truly is.

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  49. I heard that Megan gave it two thumbs down, plus a crying frowny face

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  50. Wow, you guys are really negative. I for one think that the art in 767 is a massive improvement.

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  51. Check out this forum quote:

    "I would like to hear the recording mentioned in the comic. does anyone have a link?"

    Hilarious! Imagine if the recording really did exist. There would have been absolutely no content in the comic.

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  52. Now excuse me if I'm wrong, but isn't 767 essentially about the Mel Gibson tapes? Deriving humour from the fact that Mr. Rogers is apparently not as much of an asshole as Mel Gibson?

    I also saw that as the reason why there's no image: the Mel Gibson tapes are audio-only.

    Doesn't make the joke any more funny though.

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  53. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  54. @Sven: You may very well be right. I wouldn't know, because I have better things to do with my time than read/watch about Mel Gibson throwing a hissy fit. This isn't meant to be a shot at you, it's pretty easy to have this sort of thing shoved in your face, but why would Randall think that it was a good idea to make a comic based on this? Does he really think his target audience is terribly interested in that kind of thing? Is he really so low on ideas that he needs to pick up a copy of the National Enquirer to get some material? No longer do you have to understand Math, or even basic Language. No, now you just have to be in touch with Popular Culture to get into his jokes!

    Is it just me, or is he trying to broaden his audience by catering to the absolute lowest common denominator?

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  55. I only found out about the Mel Gibson stuff this morning purely by accident. :)

    I'm not sure if this comic is supposed to be a reference to them, but it seems the most logical explanation. An audio recording of a celebrity arguing with a significant other? It's a pretty big coincidence if it's not deliberate.

    On an unrelated note, if I were writing XKCD, all the 7x7 comics would've been about airplanes.

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  56. I'm inclined to agree with you Sven, it seems most likely that the comic is a reference to the Mel Gibson thing.

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  57. Whoa guys, this is a long shot but do you think this may be referring to the TAPES IN WHICH MEL GIBSON IS HAVING A CRAZY ARGUMENT WITH HIS EX-WIFE?!!?!

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  58. i dunno fred, that's kinda farfetched

    it's more likely that it's a reference to the tapes in which mel gibson was caught having an argument with his ex-wife

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  59. Okay, so apparently I'm blind, because I honest to god missed the fact that it had been pointed out before in this thread, despite reading through it precisely to see if it had been.

    So I'm an idiot, sue me. :)

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  60. I went looking for a photograph of a beach that is fairly close to the scene Randall drew. This is the best one I could find (in five minutes, because I'm lazy and impatient).

    Randall's drawing isn't bad, per se, but it misses a few key points. The ocean is darker than the surrounding sand, for instance, whereas in the photograph the sand is much darker, while the ocean is quite well-lit. The color of the sky is also odd--there can be a wide variety of pinks, purples, blues, and whatnot in the sky during a sunset, but having the entire sky be a rather uniform shade of red is mildly disturbing. (A previous commenter with more artistic acumen than I noted that it looks more like an atomic explosion than a sunset.)

    I suppose I'm nitpicking for two reasons. One--it took me one very half-assed Google image search to find that picture. Randall could easily improve his art if he simply tried, and he doesn't, which is frustrating. It's not an "artistic style" if the artist is painting things that can be seen in the world around us and ignoring observable evidence, such as how light, color, and texture are present in said observable world. Two--people are making a huge deal about this comic, when really, all Randall did was use color. The context is distracting people from the fact that his art has not gotten better, it has simply become wrong in different ways.

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  61. That link to the other commenter screwed up, and I can't get it to work, but it's on the first page of the #765 comments, on July 14th at 8:16 AM.

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  62. Anon 3:19 - You can't ref Thundercats without getting a lot of "fuck off, furry" comments. The better choice would be TMNT. Everybody likes the Ninja Turtles.

    As for 767, I confess that my mind didn't go to the immediate pop culture reference; I thought it was a throwback to the old "that'll take care of the little SOBs" urban legend, which meant Randall was stealing material from the Simpsons again. Maybe it was unintentional, though. And maybe I'll buy a unicorn.

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  63. Yesterday's installment for Hark! A Vagrant was pretty funny.

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  64. At least no one is arguing about whether the art is good or not. (Although if you look at it at an angle, the colours sort of blend together into a magestic crescendo of colour and triumph)

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  65. "Anon 3:19 - You can't ref Thundercats without getting a lot of "fuck off, furry" comments."

    but randall could make a crappy comic where the thundercats' ship crash lands at a furry con.

    we all know how much he loves furries

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  66. Gryf, I've seen a lot of sunsets that were drawn with a totally red sky.

    It may not be accurate as to what a sunset looks like, but doing it like that is a hell of a lot prettier than doing it realistically.

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  67. Gryf:

    Your criticism does not address the core question: How can Randall use his art to improve his comedy?

    For instance, will darker sand make the comic funnier?

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  68. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  69. On the contrary, the art doesn't need to directly relate to the punchline to add or subtract from the joke. If the art is based on something real--a tree, a mountain, a sunset--and that thing is drawn badly, it detracts from the joke. Similarly, if it is drawn well, and evokes the thought, "Wow, that really does look like [whatever it's supposed to be]," it adds that much more pleasure to reading a well-crafted joke.

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  70. Mmm, does anyone still have a copy of this "anthropolize" message ? I missed it.

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  71. "I'm sorry if I hurt anthropology-major feelings with Friday's alt-text.
    I meant it as a friendly jibe at a cool field. I ... anthropologize."

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