Monday, November 15, 2010

Comic 819: Randall Needs Better Drinking Games


[Alt text: "The wolves thin the RAID arrays, removing the slowest and weakest disks to keep the average seek speed high."]


Today marks the first day of Randall’s “sick leave.” Though I was curious to see what would show up, I sure as shit didn’t hold out a lot of hope. When he mentioned notebooks and a scanner, I expected to see a something like his early sketchbook stuff. I know a lot of people have a huge boner for his red spiders drawing or whatever, but it’s honestly the same kind of shit you’d see in any fledgling artists’ sketchbook only OMG RANDALL DREW IT SPROIIIIIING.

819 is... holy shit, it’s actually kind of funny! True, the mini-strips aren’t amazing; For example, I can’t tell if the “Trig” song is supposed to be about Palin’s son or trigonometry, and the “oh hey chicks on magazines are airbrushed that’s so unattractive” quasi-self-righteousness rubs me the wrong way. However, the guy stuffing a pony down the well and the “girl wearing your mom’s skin as a suit” are both amusing. I even like the little Jupiter humping on the dude, though that may just be a product of my sick, perverted mind and a poorly-drawn orbit. They’re out-there without trying too hard, cute without being too coy, and minimally pretentious. Essentially, they’re deficient in pretty much every quality that makes xkcd insufferable.

Obviously, if he had thrown these up with out the “drawn in under 5 minutes” caveat, we’d be having one of those “seriously, Randall, what the fuck” moments that have been increasingly common since VaginaGate. Their lack of suckitude seems to be a compelling argument for Randall to give up the M-W-F grind and move towards that “illustrated picto-blag” thing Rob has been clamoring for (the fat fuck.)

It’s too soon to tell if this sort of thing is an anomaly or not; it’s not unreasonable to predict that this was the one vaguely good thing in Randall’s notebooks and we’re about to get hit with an avalanche of shit. I do think that it’s proof that he’s either been trying way too hard or burnt out on his current way of doing things. I also think that he has too many fanboys’ mouths set on auto-fellate in preparation for his return, so there’s little chance he’ll stick to a more casual format.

Also, Rob is fat.

143 comments:

  1. Oh my God, Rob. I thought maybe even YOU'd have the decency to stop this shit, but no. Randall's going through a hard time, he doesn't need this shit you ungrateful fuck.

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  2. what am i ungrateful for? also i didn't write this you illiterate fuckhead

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  3. also this is a reasonably positive review. does he not need reasonably positive reviews during a hard time? i'm confused

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  4. Jesus christ, randall cannot draw a straight line for shit. No wonder he uses photoshop or whatever he uses for all the panels in his regular comic.

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  5. Don't be confused, Rob. It's painfully clear that 3:01 just didn't bother to read beyond the name of the website.

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  6. Seriously? You guys are still doing this shit? Did you miss the part where he said he had a fucking family illness?

    Assholes.

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  7. I pretty much agree with the review. None of these comics are good, which is no surprise, but they don't make me dislike Randall either. Maybe these are just old and drawn before Randall became insufferable, but I prefer these to most of the recent, proper comics.

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  8. Is...is it not okay to dislike something if the person who made it knows someone who is sick?

    I don't really like Mark Millar's work; if his grandmother gets sick, do I have to praise Kick-Ass?

    I sure hope not.

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  9. You know who else had some sick relatives?

    HITLER DID!
    So everyone just LAY OFF HITLER for a while, jeez.

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  10. I laughed at five of these.

    This is the first xckd in a long while I genuinely laughed at.

    ...Is Randall's suck because he overthought the comics? Is 631 the product of a month or two of meticulously planned effort?

    I'm so confused.

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  11. You can tell 3:01 and 3:32 were positively dancing with anticipation for xkcdsucks to update so they could fly in with guns blazing on Randall's behalf. He'll totally be your friend in real life now!

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  12. Yo, 3:01 and 3:32 (I assume you are the same person). You sound like a crazy person. The site name might be "xkcd sucks," but all it is is a review site whose name reflects the majority of reviews. And wait just a minute! This review is actually a good one!

    Here's your argument, as far as I can tell:

    1. Randall is going through a hard time right now.
    2. Inferred: [Only an asshole would review someone's work while they are going through a hard time]

    Conclusion: Rob and Aloria must be assholes.

    I mean really, what else are we supposed to think you mean?

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  13. I have a COLD you guys

    my epic horse porn poetry is BEYOND your reproach

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  14. ironically out of all the posters on this thread aloria is probably closest to being randall's friend in real life

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  15. The trig one is a parody of Johnny Cash's "A boy named Sue"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1BJfDvSITY

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  16. Anon 3:32: He also said that whoever is sick is going to be all right. I don't fall over myself sympathizing with someone when everyone is going to be fine.

    Ian: Yeah, that's pretty much obvious if you're not an ultra-tard. The question is why he picked "Trig." Idiot.

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  17. I just got called an idiot? The post seemed to imply Aloria was confused about the song/reference whatever so I answered. I do agree, however, that his choice of 'trig' is weird.

    Maybe its cos his parents were doin the adjacent over hypotenuse when he was conceived?

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  18. Also it was heavily implied you are an ultra-tard, don't forget that.

    Also, "trig" is almost definitely a dig at Sarah Palin (which I wholly endorse, because she is a stupid twat).

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  19. I laughed, legit laughed, at the girl in the well strip. The others were amusing too. Not bad Randall, not bad.

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  20. I think Randall's problem all along is simply trying too hard to please his audience, rather than just putting out comics that he thinks are good. Cause a lot of these are genuinely amusing, if not funny.

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  21. Maybe I'm an idiotic, ultra-tard Canadian. But how is trig a dig at Sarah Palin?

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  22. Nevermind, just looked it up.

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  23. Because she's a dumb cunt who gives her children stupid fucking names like "trig" and "track".

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  24. I normally can't laugh at one of his comics. This is the first one to make me chuckle since before Woodpecker (614).

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  25. This XKCD was kind of a shock, because it has actual jokes. I almost laughed at the girl in the well one, and Wagner's Ring Cycle is actually kind of clever.

    ... hang on, 'played with friends'? So the usual guy didn't actually write these? Oh well.

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  26. Shouldn't it be Mozart activating the magic flute?

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  27. I took it as "I was playing a game with some friends and these are the comics I drew." not "These are the comics my friends drew."

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  28. hmmm....maybe Randall has finally found his calling: Strips slapped together for a quick chuckle.

    Guess the problem of the sucky XKCDs was that Randall was thinking too much when drawing them.

    Hopefully we'll see more of these at least during the sick period.

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  29. Yes, hopefully part 2 will be just as good.

    And I don't see how these could be drawn by anyone but randall. I mean, I know he doesn't have an 'art style', but this is totally his art style.

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  30. Also, his hand writing.
    Also also, "some strips that I drew as part of a game I played with bla bla bla"

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  31. Have a heart you cunts, Randall is having a hard time right now he doesn't need this shit.

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  32. For the next comic I will post a completely scathing review regardless of quality, because apparently even saying I liked this one isn't good enough for you stupid fucks.

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  33. So wait, I'm not the only one who thought that Jupiter was offering to perform a sex act on these people? Or were you kidding? I'm sorry, but that's how I took the comic.

    Also, am I to understand the wolves one was literally just saying (as a joke) that the server room is a wolf's natural habitat? Like, the "reintroduction program" was actually just talking about normal wildlife reintroduction programs? Because I thought "reintroduction program" must be some kind of pun on an obscure computer program that I'm unfamiliar with. Like I thought he was making some connection between wildlife reintroduction programs and some actual computer program and that I just didn't get it.

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  34. maybe the pun hinges entirely on the word program.

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  35. I don't know if Jupiter is actually supposed to be performing a sex act, but it's much funnier to imagine it as Jupiter humping on the guy, so I am sticking to that.

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  36. how come you didn't do a drunk post aloria? Even if it was in praise of his work it would be awesome because your drunk posts are awesome :3

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  37. Cam I think you are the only one who actually likes my drunk posts. :O

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  38. Someone else mentioned it, but I think it needs mentioning again: The Magic Flute isn't just a Mozart piece, it's one of his most famous. That's like attributing the Ode to Joy to Schubert.

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  39. Jupiter was taking it in the great red spot.

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  40. I really laughed at this. I even enjoyed the jupiter one for its absurdity. And yeah, I agreed with the review, which is positive, and despite that... in swoop the caped crusaders.

    Also, I think the server room one is just a random ridiculous situation, like "I feel like I need to get back to nature, so I started a reintroduction program for wolves", but in retrospect, it sounds like the server room IS their natural habitat. Maybe. I'm not sure.

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  41. Maybe they are a special breed of "server wolves"? Maybe they are cyborg wolves. Or maybe they don't physically exist at all, and are just computer programs running on the network, devouring stray packets!

    The possibilities are endless!

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  42. I agree that these comics were - at the very least - not bad. Maybe even pretty good. More importantly, though: note that there is no difference at all between the quality of the art in these and in his usual comics. Proof of our long-held theory that he spends a grand total of 15 minutes working per week.

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  43. There are graphics programs - I'm thinking of Adobe Illustrator - that literally force your lines to be smooth. They cost as much as xkcd makes in an hour.

    Just throwing that out there.

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  44. I read them clockwise from the top-left. The first one was pretty lousy as I had expected, but the pony one completely caught me off guard, that was actually goddamn funny.

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  45. the pony one seems to be a standout favorite. though I agree with whoever said the very last panel could probably be done away with, it is still pretty good even with it

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  46. Alright, why wasn't the funniest panel mentioned in this review? How can the statement "Bach! Activate the magic time flute and teleport us home! Wagner's right behind me on his ring cycle!" not coax laughs out of even the toughest reviewer?

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  47. Part of me wonders if xkcdexplained actually did quit or if they're just on hiatus while Randall is having problems.

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  48. They've weathered worse than that comic, I'm sure. I wouldn't be surprised if they returned at some point in the near future.

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  49. Rob, I'm not sure if I'm the one you're referring to about the last panel in the horse one being removed, but I'm taking credit for it, because I said it.

    Anon 10:11, I mentioned that it was my favorite panel in the last comment thread, but I was apparently high off of the tinfoil fumes at the time because I completely failed to notice, as a couple people have already pointed out, that BACH DID NOT WRITE THE FUCKING MAGIC FLUTE. (I'm more angry at myself for that than Randall right now). If that mistake hadn't been made, however, it would be my favorite one of the bunch.

    Captcha: unrepr. My brain is still in a state of unrepr after that fume exposure.

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  50. That is the kind of mistake that is entirely excused by the fact that these were five minute comics, presumably made at some kind of social gathering. Especially onsidering the fact that, for a normal comic, he would probably check wikipedia fastidiously.

    Of course, then he would find something else on wikipedia that is SO ENTERTAINING and replace his original idea with this WACKY CONCEPT HE FOUND, this ruining the joke.

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  51. Most mistakes like this could be excused by it being a five-minute comic. I'm surprised he didn't make more, although it's probably because he mostly wrote about stuff he knew (and maybe there's one in that wolf one, I can't tell). The only reason I find this unexcusable (and why I am currently verbally flagellating myself) is summed up by Jasper a little up the page:

    "The Magic Flute isn't just a Mozart piece, it's one of his most famous. That's like attributing the Ode to Joy to Schubert."

    But as I said before, if the mistake hadn't been there, it would have been much more funny. Heck, I laughed at it before the mistake was pointed out.

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  52. This is hilarious, if he blew up one of those comics to regular size, cleaned up some of lettering and made straight lines, any one of them would be very nearly unrecognizable from a typical everyday XKCD.

    That said, either he spends incredibly little time on his regular comics, or if his work week is actually 40hours, he takes several hours to draw straight lines and write legibly.

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  53. I liked the pony comic, and the Jupiter one is not that bad, but the rest is only excusable as the "5 minute comics" they supposedly are. The dull "server room" one, the bizarre "hotness" one, the groan worthy "hai I like classical music I like Magic Flute by Bach and O Fortuna by Beethoven" one and the completely dull "Trig" one put one thought in my head: as the comics were drawn in 5 minutes, how long did it take to actually conceive those jokes? Because, overall, they're about as bad as the usual xkcd tripe. Also, it proves that Randall takes about 10 minutes to draw a regular comic.

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  54. Woo first good xkcd comic in ever!!!! and good review drunkloria. hahaha wolves hahaha

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  55. ...Okay, seriously: his 5-minute comics manage to be almost as good as his usual "supposedly-two-days" comics. He's a lazy hack. I don't care if he has an ill relative(I wish them well), he's a lazy hack and he's work is bulshit. If he's having a hard time, he should take a break. But if he wants to continue... here's some quickies!

    Jupiter: Okay, I like the "Jupiter is so close it's actually there" concept, but then two panels of PPD definitely ruin it. Also, Randall's shoddier than usual art make it seem that StickRandall is raping Jupiter.

    Girl in the Well: Funneh... but that last panel surely gives out a bad mental image.

    Server Room: ...bland XKCD pandering. Bleh.

    Yo Mama: Wow, Randall, really? Bleh, again.

    Magical Flute: LOL RANDALL IS RANDOM LOL CLASSICAL MUSIC GOOMHR! BLEH!

    Trig: ...you can suck as bad as you want, Randall, but leave Johnny Cash out of that, dammit!

    Hotness Ratings: And even in 5-minute format he's white knighting, then being incredibly unsettling.

    That is all.

    CAPTCHA: ressess. Randall should have taken a ressess, instead he continues giving us bad content. Bleh!

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  56. it can't be sexual or he'd have made it uranus

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  57. I liked the server room because of the subversion of going back to nature. There is absolutely nothing 'natural' about the server room, but it is, in a way, as peaceful as camping. No one bothers you in there and you can get work done as long as you don't mind the constant whir of fans and the fact that is kept at about 50 degrees in there.

    The wolves thing is just more absurdity to add to the notion that the server room is in any way 'natural'. The alt-text expands upon this further, what the hell would wolves do in there anyway? They'd thin out the herd (of RAID array hard drives) of course! It might be GOOMHR, but the subversion right at the beginning adds humor, its the same format of joke that Mitch Hedberg used to do.

    OH MY GOD I USED MITCH HEDBERG IN COMPARISON TO RANDULL, SOMEONE LYNCH ME QUICK OR ELSE I MIGHT USE MORE R&GAD COMPARISONS.

    The only thing that is extra creepy about the comic is the fact the exact same girl is much sexier to Randall after he has sex with them. I believe that it can be pointed to whenever some says he is a paragon of feminism ideals.

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  58. Haha, I didn't catch the pun on "program". Nice.

    Anyway, aloria, you are a monster.

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  59. I went to xkcd to commence the hate, and... I laughed! Especially at the pony one, that actually had good timing and wasn't pretentious. I totally didn't see the "mom's skin" one coming. Even the Jupitor one made me laugh. I was bracing myself for a random-fact-I-learned-on-Wikipedia and hah-liberal-arts-students-suck-at-hard-science joke, but they never came (just like -- ah never mind...).

    I think Randall needs simply to start a new comic. Maybe this is a fluke, but these are actually funny, and mostly without the faux nerd references and shittiness. And this is from someone who hates xkcd.

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  60. "Maybe this is a fluke, but these are actually funny, and mostly without the faux nerd references and shittiness."

    No, no, no! I'm not saying these comics are bad, but they're not that different from what we were used to.

    No faux nerd references???? What about Saturn? What about the server room? What about Bach/Mozart and Wagner?

    In these comics, there is EVERYTHING that makes xkcd xkcd. Nerd references, PPD, randomness, yo mama jokes, parodies of Johnny Cash, white knighting...

    If you hate it, don't start liking it because it was drawn in 5 minutes. If you like these ones, why do you hate the other ones?

    Maybe what upsets you is when Randall Munroe uses a ruler?

    I hate rulers to.

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  61. I hate people the mix up to and too (mixing up two is right out).

    Remember the other 'o' as he wants to go 'also'.

    Redux has some good 819 hate if you want it, there is plenty to criticize. However, the elephant in the room is still: if the quality doesn't really drop after 5 minutes (besides legibility) then why spend any more time on them? Look at Sergio Aragonés' marginals for evidence of really good, really quick shotgun cartooning. Why not just keep a buffer of these ready to shotgun every MWF? Oh wait I forgot, poster revenue (Online Communities Map 2, Buy it Now You Guys!).

    OH FUCK ME, I BROUGHT IN SERGIO ARAGONES INTO AN XKCDSUCKS DISCUSSION. THAT MEANS I THINK RANDULL IS ON PAR WITH ONE OF THE GREATEST CARTOONISTS OF ALL TIME. QUICK SOMEONE PLUG MY WORD HOLE WITH SOME PHALLIC GIRTH!

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  62. Jupiter, server rooms, and Bach/Wagner are 'nerd references'? I mean that's kindof pushing it. Jupiter is a planet. Most people know what it is. And most people know what servers are, too. I mean, 'referential humor' really only works when something is sufficiently obscure that people who know about it feel gratified when it is referenced.

    And are you implying that anybody who likes classical music is a NERD? Because that is pretty pretentious.

    Overall, I would say these are pretty different from regular xkcd in that some of them are actually clever.

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  63. The Jupiter one made me chuckle. And the PPD actually added to it—it just emphasized the casualness of the situation.

    The others weren't funny.

    I'm enjoying the Randall slaves dropping by to baww about anyone daring to dislike something they dislike under the guise of giving a crap about his sick family. Emofags.

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  64. And how fucking dare anybody out there make fun of Randall? After all he's been through! His family is sick! All you people care about is readers and making money off of him. HE'S A HUMAN! You're lucky he even writes comics for you bastards!

    LEAVE RANDALL ALONE!!!

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  65. Something they like, I mean.

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  66. Right on cue, a bawwing emofag! Life's worth living.

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  67. "I hate people the mix up to and too (mixing up two is right out)."

    I hate people that mix up the and that (mixing up there is right out.)

    @ThePirateKing
    That comment I was responding too said "faux nerd" references. I thought faux nerd references meant references the look nerdy but are not the specific. I've heard people say the they preferred when xkcd was making real maths jokes with hardcore university maths, as opposed too high school maths. An allusion too things the are sciency or nerdy but the most of that people know is what I understand by "faux nerd" references.

    Otherwise, what is a faux-nerd reference?

    That allusion too Mozart/Bach and Wagner is both a bit to specific, and easily crackable. So yeah, it's a faux nerd reference.

    "And are you implying that anybody who likes classical music is a NERD? Because that is pretty pretentious."

    What?

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  68. Mozart could be the guy running away from Wagner, maybe?
    Anyway, nobody said that it was Bach who wrote the Magic Flute in the comic, and just because Wagner is riding a vehicle that's based on his own work, you can't say that this is a general rule. If he had given the Magic Flute to Mozart, then it would've been lowered to a lame question of which image is funnier - Mozart playing the Magic Flute, or Wagner riding a Ring Cycle. The way he did it now is that he just threw together a couple of themes from the world of classical music and turned them into a strange comic.

    Just had to say this now. There's nothing worse than mockery along the lines of "lol Randy fails et basic classical music knowledge" when there's no actual proof for that, unless you're a retard who can't understand the correlation/causation thing.

    Anyway, great review aloria, I agree Rob must certainly be pretty fat. He should offer Chaos a gravitational slingshot.

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  69. @Rochambeau

    "I hate people that mix up the and that (mixing up there is right out.)"

    touché

    "That comment I was responding too said "faux nerd" references. I thought faux nerd references meant references the look nerdy but are not the specific. I've heard people say the they preferred when xkcd was making real maths jokes with hardcore university maths, as opposed too high school maths. An allusion too things the are sciency or nerdy but the most of that people know is what I understand by "faux nerd" references.

    Otherwise, what is a faux-nerd reference?

    That allusion too Mozart/Bach and Wagner is both a bit to specific, and easily crackable. So yeah, it's a faux nerd reference."


    Oh, fuuuuuck yooooouuuu!

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  70. TPK- a lot of people don't know what servers are, and a lot more don't derive humour from "computer hardware in ZANY SITUATIONS.

    Liking classical music isn't being a nerd, making nerdy references based on the titles of classical music makes you a huge fucking nerd

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  71. @Rochambeau
    9:31 Anon here

    Okay, there were some faux nerd references, I wrote that quickly I suppose. That being said, with the exception of the Mozart one which felt like he had just read the Wikipedia page, there were a few there you must admit are vast improvements over his usual tripe. Just the fact that I thought anything in there was funny puts this a head and shoulders above everything he has written for a long time. My point is it was simply to funny too not comment.

    Also what happened to Randall is tragic and not a joke and we need to all take a moment of silence to contemplate whether or not our actions affect his own self-perception hairy balls while he deals with this and the tragedy that cock occurred in his life.

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  72. @Anon 9:31
    So it's only nerdy to like classical music if... you know what the titles are?
    The hell?

    I don't know if computer hardware in ZANY SITUATIONS counts as a 'nerd reference'. More like, 'nerdy random humor'.

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  73. @ThePirateKing
    what?
    I just meant that the Mozart one wasn't funny. I don't know where titles came up.

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  74. You are ALL brain-out-your-ears retarded

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  75. Ooops, I responded to the wrong Anon. I meant 11:35.

    You know y'all look alike.

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  76. Randall is a talentless douche whether or not he has an ill family member. The fact that he decides to play flash games and appeal to complete strangers for support in this "hard time" just makes him more of a douche.

    I didn't laugh at any of these. I felt like he had done all of them before, except for the pony one. And that one falls under "so random it's not funny."

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  77. ThePirateKing: It's because they ARE all the same.

    All Randall's sockpuppets, I mean. Or Rob's, it's hard to tell sometimes.

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  78. Yeah, well *I* am rubbed the wrong way by "'oh hey chicks on magazines are airbrushed that's so unattractive' quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness.

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  79. i for one am personally ambivalent towards ""'oh hey chicks on magazine covers are airbrushed that's so unattractive' quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness.

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  80. ignoring 2.44 and ves's meta-douchery i think we can agree that 'hey, you know super-made-up-&-airbrushed girls on magazine covers? i don't care much for them!' is not a shockingly radical thing to say in this day and age

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  81. There is no ignoring douchery!

    I am enraged by those who are "personally ambivalent towards ""'oh hey chicks on magazine covers are airbrushed that's so unattractive' quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness."

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  82. And I am disappointed by your failure to properly write the phrase """"'oh hey chicks on magazine covers are airbrushed that's so unattractive' quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness".

    @ ann: Please do not call me out on my meta-douchery

    I am very fat and live in my mother's basement and this is the only way I feel I can validate my poor pathetic existence

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  83. "this is the only way I feel I can validate my poor pathetic existence"

    tell me about it, bro

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  84. "oh hey chicks on magazine covers are airbrushed that's so unattractive' quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness" quasi-self-righteousness." is the name of my feminist post-grunge metal expansion band.

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  85. I am outraged those quotes-within-quotes do not follow the paradigm of alternating single and double quotes!

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  86. Read it. Chuckled at most of the comics. Came onto here, expecting you to rip it apart. Pleasantly surprised.

    'Course, the REAL test will be if it keeps up. But I really liked this update. Haven't liked one in a while. Don't think I'd laughed at one since LONG before the one where he drew a vagina.

    Good times!

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  87. Guys on magazine covers, though? Actually that hot in real life. Yep. Mmm....

    That guy in your bio class? Herpes. Wearing your shirt? 'Cause he was rifling through your locker and thinks that constitutes a relationship.

    Captcha: uncorc. Randall uncorced a bottle of slightly enjoyable comics he was saving for a rainy day -- how many does he have saved up in the cellar I wonder???

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  88. UndercoverCuddlefishNovember 16, 2010 at 5:12 PM

    i am serious you guys chicks on magazine covers are pretty hot

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  89. No, you are just a chauvinist pig, UC. That is why you don't get to give as much oral sex as Randall does.

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  90. I guess I'm late to the party.

    I just wanted to add that my first response to this comic was: comics drawn by Randall in "under 5 minutes" are... the same quality as his normal comics! Really says something about his writing habits. xp

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  91. You bastards are going soft! I don't come here for coherent reveiws that give praise where it is deserved. I want you to say things like "I wish the person ill in Randal's family WAS Randal".

    Anyway I didn't like this comic anymore then any of his other crap.

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  92. @820:

    Reaction #1: Randall watched Star Wars with his ill family member recently (which, I might add, is a perfectly fine thing to do with ill family members).

    Reaction #2: Randall is increasingly losing his ability to make any sense whatsoever. This wouldn't be a problem - these are short shots, after all - except for the fact that most of the randomness isn't funny. At least the first five-minute comics actually made some sense, but I understood maybe about two of these new ones. (I kind of chuckled at the "cotigo ergo cotigo" one, though).

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  93. The following is NOT a dramatization of real events:
    AAAAAAAAAAA!
    I'm reading XKCD!
    AAAAAAAAAAA!

    That pretty much sums up my XKCD experience.

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  94. I liked Part 1, but Part 2 was a total bore...yet, it didn't incite any nerd rage in me. At all. Unlike a typical xkcd.

    I like xkcd's Winter of SADNESS so far.

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  95. I like anon 9:47pm's terminology. I shall hereby refer to this time period as "xkcd's Winter of SADNESS."

    Also the second installment of the 5 minute mind dump was funny enough to not make me rage, but not funny enough to make me laugh. Honestly, i think was enjoying the memory of the first part more than reading the second part. Also the bail out pun makes my brain die just a little more.

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  96. WHO WEARS SHORT SHORTS?

    ALSWORTH WEARS SHORT SHORTS

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  97. OKAY WHAT THE FUCK IS PART 2 EVEN THOUGH I AM TOTALLY WASTED IT STILL DOESN;T MAKE A BIT OF SENSE

    because things should make SENSE when i am drunk THAT IS HOW IT WORKS

    fuck you all i hope you all get whatever Randall's relative has

    you totally deserve it

    assholes

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  98. Man this second set of comics is fucking terrible.

    Except the "dramatization" one. That was actually pretty funny.

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  99. Wait, how the hell did you know I weI MEAN aloria is a drunken liar who lies. Do not believe her stinking drunken lies for even ONE NANOSECOND, which is how long it will take for me to cover my windows hurriedly.

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  100. I liked the dramatization one and the "cogito ergo cogito" one. The lightsaber one wasn't THAT bad. The rest either made no sense, or were just unfunny and random. Though I kinda thought the alt text was mildly amusing. And at least he put the alt text in there, so that it didn't TOTALLY look like he was just taking a cheap shot at Wicca with the lame Darth Vader comic. I didn't even get the bailout one at first because the drawing is so bad that I couldn't tell what they were supposed to be doing in the second panel. But it just turned out to be a totally unfunny pun.

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  101. OK, part 2 makes it clear that he used up all the good ones in part 1. The "bail out" joke is kind of amusing in a stupid kind of way, but that's it.

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  102. Whereas I preferred part 2 to part 1 - both the 'bail out' one and the dramatisation one were worth chuckles.

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  103. So... apparently all this time Randy has actually been putting a lot of time and thought into his real comics, if "5 minute comics" is a game he plays for fun.

    So the problem is that he spends too much time thinking. So instead of a picto-blag, he just needs to start throwing every idea he has onto paper in 30 seconds or less each. Feed them all to an editor and even if only one in ten makes it through, that's only 5 minutes of work for something entertaining.

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  104. Can anyone explain me the bailout one? I still don't understand it (what the fudge are they doing in the second panel?)

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  105. Rochambeau, you can either bail out of (i. e. eject) a plane or you can bail water out of a boat. So... Not really funny.

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  106. @ anon 6:36: totally agreed.
    btw. randall should get aids and die.
    this blog could be converted in an aloria-drunkposting-only-blag and we would all be happy.

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  107. I thought the pregnant one was really funny (when you're pregnant you're supposed to have a 'glow' for those that don't get it). Sniper, bailout and halloween were ok. Everything else 'meh' but not overtly terrible, they reminded me of comics you might see on cyanide and happiness. I know some people detest those comics but I enjoy reading through them every once in awhile.

    This must've been the second time he's played this game, as every single one of these is literally indistinguishable from a regular MWF.

    More proof positive to the long held belief that he has a grand total of a 15 minute work week. Unless he has a poster that week, then it sky-rockets as high as almost half of a whole hour.

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  108. @Slaador

    Thank you! I thought it was something about bailing out banks, but now I understand where that expression comes from.

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  109. Okay, since the last set of "5-minute comics that look conspicuously almost as good as his usual comics" were pretty okay, I decided to go back to xkcd.com to read the comics instead of waiting Robloria or Redux to do the job.

    God. What a mistake.

    I like the Black Light Saber one, and the sandwich one(as someone said, it's funny in a very silly way). The Halloween one... I assume that's Carrie? I seriously have no idea.

    "Cogito ergo cogito" was bland, as was the "ladies and gentlemen of the jury" one. "Bail out" is decent after you get the pun(which I didn't at first, because I didn't know of neither meanings of the expression).

    That 9/11 one is LOL RANDOM LOL. Seriously, what the hell.

    But the "goddamnit, this one is so horrible is taints everything around it" one is... the "Glow". Seriously, Randall, 5 minute or not, that was distasteful. I know you made a comic with a full-fledged vagina in it, but... dude. Also, I can't decide if I'm amused by his lampshade hanging over the fact that stick figures don't get fat, or I'm annoyed by the fact that, seriously, that woman is pregnant, what the hell?! In fact, I'm annoyed. That's... a clusterfuck of wrong. That's what.

    The alt-text works well with the last comic. I chuckled, even.

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  110. It's funny because Wiccans genuinely believe their religion is ancient and not something some hippie made up in the 60s.

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  111. My rage at the awfulness of the comics in part 2 is offset by the sheer random laughter from the 'Pregnant Glow' one.

    Seriously guys, fuck off. It was random and unexpected, good enough. And it would /only/ work in a stick-figure comic world where there's not enough drawn detail for you to identify that it's remotely real.

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  112. So if picking on Randall is insenstive right now, can we make fun of his sycophants?

    Explain Xkcd (not XKCD Explained) pretty much epitomizes why I'm proud to hate on the xkcd fan base:
    "Middle Right - I'm not so sure this one makes any sense, because it involves the magic flute from Legend of Zelda the video game series, Bach and Wagner, two famous composers, and a ring cycle from Tron. Seems like something out of a strange dream."

    Does Zelda even have a magic flute? I thought it was an ocarina. Are the light cycles in Tron really also referred to as ring cycles?

    Also:"If anyone can decipher Middle Left, I'd love to hear what you think. Only thing I can think of is Trig like Trigonometry."

    xkcd fans like to say we don't get the strips. Few if any of us are as clueless as the explain xkcd guys.

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  113. Read through the entire page of 820 without cracking a smile. Maybe it's because I woke up an hour ago and my facial expressions don't work yet, but I think it's more likely that the "comics" just weren't funny.

    Sniper: This is just random. Not funny, random.
    Glow: This is kind of weird, and kind of gross. Not funny.
    Cogito: She thinks? Well, that's one step above Randall, I suppose. Still not funny.
    Halloween: I didn't see the humor in this one, either (it actually reminded me of 812), but it has something VERY good going for it: pacing. If that was a normal xkcd comic, it probably would've been one panel. The kids would be crying about the blood, and under the panel it would say, "This is why I don't get trick or treaters anymore." It would've been utterly stupid. This, on the other hand, was structured reasonably well.
    Bail: Mixing the meanings of a phrase (by itself) is not humor. There's such a thing as subverting expectations, and then there's this, which is just lazy.
    Sandwich: Already done much better in a YouTube video called "The Most Dramatically Normal Day Ever."
    Black Lightsaber: Boring.
    Jury: Boring.
    Vader: Boring.

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  114. There's a magic flute in Link to the Past. It looks hella like an ocarina, but it's a flute.

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  115. did anyone read yesterday's dinosaur comics comic

    here it is
    http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1840

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  116. 8:30
    I had previously been able to ignore Randall's plagiarism. But no longer. Fuck you Randall. Fuck you.

    I did like the blacklight one.
    Also, I don't understand how the pony one is better than the TGI fridays (anatomy text, #631) one. I personally laugh at other people's suffering, which is why I laughed at the TGI fridays one (imagining the look on the waiter's face? dang...). But I don't see how its any different from the pony one (which I also laughed at).

    Tl;dr if you found the pony one, search for the same humor in the TGI fridays one. You might find it.

    Or you should be disgusted by both.

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  117. The girl down the well strip: The Simpsons did it (better).

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  118. I don't really get the sniper one, I can't make out the art. The guy runs onto the diving board, there's a ninja under the diving board, the ninja kicks the diving board up, and... the guy gets hit in the head with a shuriken from another ninja? No wait, it's a sniper on a grassy knoll. What was the ninja doing? Did the ninja get shot as well?

    Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: Is this a Lolita reference?

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  119. An ocarina is an aerophone like the flute, but if an ocarina is a flute, then so is a tin whistle. There is a distinction, albeit a minor one.

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  120. Elementary mistake there 11.46: while that one looks like a flute it's actually a whistle.

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  121. On 820:

    Wow. I actually think that Randy should stick to this form (form monday and today) forever. Even though he has some terrible strips, there a few that are worth it in each. It's like before, it was randy shooting at a target, and he is a terrible shot. Now, he gets several shots at least.

    Also, seems to only feel the need to pander to the "nerds" that read his strip once per comic, which used to be the entire comic but now is only a portion of it.

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  122. I'll join Mr. 1:47 on this: Randall sure would do a better job doing 5-minute comics everyday.

    I mean... look at these! Sure they aren't all ingenious, but neither is every SMBC, but I can forgive Zach Weiner for doing a bad comic because I know tomorrow he might give us a better one.

    Also, I think it's been well stablished that Randall can't spend more than 15 minutes doing his comics that are published once every 2 days(Sundays thrown out for good measuer). That's 47 hours and 45 minutes of idle time. What does he do with all that idle time considering his webcomic is the doorway to his business(his posters and prints), and he doesn't really work?

    So, here's my proposal for the imaginary Randall we address in this blog: update every day instead of thrice a week, you have no real reason to leave your fans waiting and you'd do much better with your hit and miss humor if you tried to shoot more times!

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  123. @Pro Mole

    Agree with the shotgun sentiment as it relates to SMBC, disagree with which comics suck more this time go 'round.

    Before it was a long held belief that he should just not stick to a schedule, that he should update when he has something funny. He thought TGI Vagina was komedy gold, so obviously this solution is wrong and the correct one is counter intuitive. Update every single day, do the 5 minute game with your 'friends', get a buffer going, and be able to push one out everyday, 'cause there is going seem to be a whole lot less suck this way, even though the suckage will actually remain constant.

    Pregnant sick figure was funny, I don't care who knows I think that, but then I have a good time laughing at clips from "I didn't know I was pregnant".

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  124. AnnA: Dang... you're right. Well, whistles are technically flutes in the same way that ocarinas are technically flutes, and it was definitely a flute by the second game.

    So, I stand by my original assessment of Sepia's post.

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  125. Our mistake was to think that a webcomic artist has a fixed number of good ideas per month, so that the average quality of the comics is a decreasing function of the number of comics:

    Q=G/N

    Where Q is the average quality, G is the number of good comics (a good comic takes value 1, a bad comic takes value 0.) G is constant, which means that increasing N will decrease Q.

    In a second model, the average quality of comics is a constant, so that increasing the number of comics increases the number of good comics (as well as the number of bad comics.)

    Q=G/N

    G=QN, where Q is a constant.

    Increasing N will increase G, but Q will say the same.

    I think the right model is a third model where the more you produce, the better your comics get on average, so that:

    Q=f(N)

    Where f is an increasing function of N.

    G=QN=f(N)N=g(N) g'(n)>0

    Increasing the number of comics increases both quality and number of good comics.

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  126. I've considered stopping reading xkcd-related shit to lessen stress in my life. However, if I see someone link to or mention xkcd on some random website I get extremely pissed and need to come here to refresh my faith in humanity. If Randall does a few (or even ONE) five-minute comics every day, I will be able to ignore xkcd forever, knowing that it is just an okay-occasionally-bad-but-sometimes-good comic.

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  127. @Anon 8:51: I was disgusted by both 631 and the pony comic. Apparently I am in the minority however, as most people seemed to like the pony comic best. I am also in the minority because I thought that 820 on average was funnier than 819. And I chuckled out loud at the Vader comic.

    @Rochambeau: I also thought the "bail out" comic had to do with the economic bail-out. The drawing was so terrible that I thought maybe the men were supposed to be throwing money out of the airplane (at companies presumably). I actually think that is slightly funnier than bailing out water.

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  128. Today I went to my university and read the cheap newspaper, and there was an old XKCD strip in the back. I was kinda saddened.

    Second comic: Meh? I didn't really care for any.

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  129. Two weeks ago I was at MIT for a conference.

    The recent xkcd map of the internet was in the comics section.

    The MIT Press Bookstore had 'xkcd now in stock' in giant letters in the window.

    I was SO. SAD.

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  130. "was in the comics section" —› of the campus newspaper.

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  131. @that douchebag who was comparing 631 to the pony comic:

    What the fuck?
    The pony comic is infinitely better because RANDALL DIDN'T DRAW ANY VAGINAS ON IT. It is just some dark humor.

    The vaginafest comic was some weird, creepy, fucked up look into the psyche of Randall Munroe. It didn't have a 'joke'. Or, if you assume the joke is that "hahaha the waiter has to look at naked people!" (which is a fucking piece of shit joke anyway), even then, it was entirely unnecessary for randall to illustrate it in graphic detail. As someone's mentioned before, it would have been funnier (or at least less disturbing) if he'd just had it be drawings of stick figures with labels like "human female vagina", but I guess he had to go down the "graphic anatomy" route.

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  132. Do you think Randy ever throws out an idea? Because if he doesn't, he's doing something very wrong.

    Don't try and hammer a bad idea into something barely worth publishing; just admit you've had an unfunny idea and let it go.

    And, yes, I used a semi-colon because I'm an illiterate fuckhead.

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  133. "I don't really get the sniper one, I can't make out the art. The guy runs onto the diving board, there's a ninja under the diving board, the ninja kicks the diving board up, and... the guy gets hit in the head with a shuriken from another ninja? No wait, it's a sniper on a grassy knoll. What was the ninja doing? Did the ninja get shot as well?"

    The ninja got knocked out by the guy jumping on the board. It's supposed to be a "LOL OWNED" moment, but it gets immediately broken by the sniper. Kill me, but I actually found that pretty funny. The rest is quite worthless.

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  134. 1:47 here.

    I think the fact that pretty much everyone here is saying "comics x (and y) were good, the rest sucked", with x and y different for every person, supports what I said before (the shotgun stuff). He doesn't seem to have time to come up with 7-ish comic ideas that pander exclusively to the circle-jerkers that make up his regular audience, so he actually makes comics that appeal to other kinds of people.

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  135. @Rochambeau

    That's way more math than I ever want to apply to web comic.

    I know John Nash supposedly made it cool to do shit like that, but still ... you lost me when you started taking the derivative of creativity. That's like finding the cube root of old cheese.

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  136. Someone posted a link to the latest xkcd on Facebook. I don't remember what he said about it, but the post ended with "my life is now complete."

    Similarly, another person posted this Cyanide and Happiness (http://www.explosm.net/comics/2236/) saying it was "curiously moving."

    I feel sick to my stomach.

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  137. @Capn

    "That's like finding the cube root of old cheese."
    It's e^pi.

    @Anonymous 12:00
    I really like C&H. It is true that 2236 was a bit boring and not the best, but they often make me laugh out loud.

    I think Carl hates it too, because he said so once here. What do you think?

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  138. Anon 12:00 here, I actually used to read C&H a lot and thought it was pretty funny but they sorta lost steam some time ago so I eventually lost interest. It's still sort of funny from time to time, I guess, but to be "moved" by... whatever the point to 2236 is supposed to be? That's friggin' weird.

    CAPTCHA: pampires, pampered vampires.

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  139. @Rochambeau

    "It's e^pi".

    HA HA HA. God that's funny how you just dropped some random math like that. You should write your own webcomic where you make awesome references to high school mathematics. It'd be the funniest thing EVER.

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  140. Arthur you forgot to call him retarded and mention which orifice your blood is spraying from this time

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  141. "I even like the little Jupiter humping on the dude..."

    Now I can't not see it!

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