[ALT: "Resulting in the Little Rock 9x + C"]
Three installments in, I feel like what can be said about these little five minute comics has mostly been said. The consensus seems to be something like "these are better than usual," though I kind of thought the second installment mostly sucked ass. The question is mostly: why don't these suck so hard as they usually do?
I'm going to go out on a very precarious limb here and suggest that Randy might actually spend more than fifteen minutes on his comics. (I know, I know.) Based on this new evidence, his problem may be, not laziness, but turning the process of writing comics into a hated, hours-long chore, in which he receives no input from the outside world but constantly revises until there is no life left in it.
He wrote these as a game with friends, apparently. This implies he was having fun with other humans, and probably in a good mood. And then he didn't try to fuck around with them and make them perfect. (I seem to remember reading him saying he was a perfectionist. Anyone remember this?) Randy needs to find a way to recapture this. When you're having fun and interacting with other humans, you tend to produce better jokes. That's just how it works.
Of course, the fact that they are Five Minute Comics helps a lot--it lowers expectations! And the fact that they're presented in a group helps a lot--you can ignore the lame ones, you can be pretty sure you won't see them pop up all over the internet because they're harder to separate.
Anyway! I hope you are all as thoroughly bored with this post as I am. Hopefully next week Randy will start sharing his "what is megan doing right now: an erotic adventure into the imagination" sketchbook.
I definitely remember reading him saying he was a perfectionist, but I don't remember where. I always thought it was bullshit though as the guy doesn't even care enough to connect the stickmen's heads to their bodies.
ReplyDeleteI for one welcome our what-is-megan-doing-right-now-an-erotic-adventure-into-the-imagination-sketchbook overlords.
ReplyDeleteCan someone please explain the breastfeed thing to me??? I dont get it and it really creeps me out
ReplyDeleteSome people have a problem with women breastfeeding their children on buses/any public place. He thought it would be funny if he changed this to not liking women who breastfeed him when on a bus.
ReplyDeleteI guess the punchline(?) is him being annoyed cause hes reading. A normal response to something compleltly socially unacceptable and just creepy. Kinda the theme of most of his comics ever.
ah ty :)
ReplyDeleteFirst!
ReplyDelete'Cause you know, cuttlefish aren't people. Seriously, 5 anons? Get identities, people, so we don't have to picture some schizophrenic hydra coming here and telling us about their day.
It's cuddlefish.
ReplyDeleteBULLSHIT
ReplyDeleteI reserve "Cuddlefish" for actual cuttlefish 'cause them be cute. CUTTLEFISH is ugly and voiced. Like the anonymous horde.
ReplyDeleteAlso, please note the tribute to XKCD in the second panel
ReplyDeleteYou can't just use words however you feel like and act like you're not wrong for doing it that way. That's dumb. You're dumb.
ReplyDeleteI blame spell-check for ruining my flawed English. How am I supposed to misspell words when it is always trying to correct things for me? Fuck Spell-check.
ReplyDeleteWe are one body. If we ask ourselves questions or disagree with ourselves then thats just how our hive mind thinks.
ReplyDeleteWe are the future. The accounts shall fall.
oh dear, he's speaking amount himself in the plural again... nurse?
ReplyDeleteSee we even joke with ourselves. Internal banter...
ReplyDeleteHELP I'M TALKING TO MYSELF
ReplyDeleteyour mom is an internal banter
ReplyDeleteZing
ReplyDeleteI found blood thirsty smartphone and 119 little pigs funny.
ReplyDeleteThat is all I have to say.
Well why did you bother speaking at all? Think of all the starving kids in africa who would kill for those words... monster.
ReplyDeleteMany people found some of these funny.
ReplyDeleteThey are all dead.
I mean they are all in the previous thread.
And dead.
Seriously blogspot, italics are okay but not strike? this is bs.
Hey italics are the lifeblood of our economy
ReplyDeleteJohn said...
ReplyDeleteHey italics are the lifeblood of our economy
FTFY
The 119 pigs doesn't really make sense, since when is straw, wood and brick part of the periodic table?
ReplyDeleteSquidward, I don't think you appreciate how elements work.
ReplyDeleteYeah, seriously. A house made out of hydrogen? Good fucking luck. That first pig was just standing around.
ReplyDeleteA house made out of helium? What, balloons? Or was this the squeakiest fucking pig ever?
Next: a house made out of lithium! Great, have fun when THAT one gets rained on. Good fucking job.
But Samantha, at least the third house would help keep the crushing pain of loneliness at bay </3.
ReplyDeleteSamantha you're the reason we can't have nice things.
ReplyDeleteSay what you want about questionable content, at least Jeph Jacques understands how necks work.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't surprising that a QC xkcd guest comic is even worse than normal xkcd.
ReplyDeleteI was looking forward to the technetium house. And the mercury one.
ReplyDeleteAlso: Guest week comic sucked, and it looks like Randy will be back next week.
xkcd and Questionable Content.
ReplyDeleteIt's like Cthulhu mated with Xenu.
And their offspring had the soul of the Anti-Christ.
QC+xkcd:
ReplyDeleteAt least a modicum of self-awareness was used, enough to subvert the "whiny little bitch" trope that Randall's characters always seem to fall into...
I kind of liked the guest comic. The punchline took me by surprise.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the QC guest comic. It was surprisingly funny and a really nice little "fuck you" to whiny melodramatic types, i.e. cuddlefish.
ReplyDeleteThere's probably something wrong if you've been doing an "art style" for years, and make a living doing so, but someone else comes along and in a couple hours is doing your "style" better than you. Probably.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the guest comic, wasn't expecting it, fun idea.
ReplyDeleteSrsly? Who invited that goth kid to the comment box?
ReplyDelete@Coren The same basic thing happens to me in my workplace all the time, except "art style" is "competence at lifting boxes and putting them on shelves." The bosses only keep me because nobody else is willing to stay on long-term.
ReplyDeleteMy advice for Randall: get very drunk every night and mumble expletives into your pillow as you fall asleep.
The guest comic was interesting in that it was Jeph Jacques trying to emulate the "xkcd style" to have his strip fit in. His idea of emulation is a comic about whiny fucks that are so whiny, metahumor ensues. Interesting observation...
ReplyDeleteNew one is ace. I was cringing at the start cos I thought it was gonna be a godawful retread of #642 (the 'cute boy on train still ignoring me' one) where it turns out that 'guys she's thinking the same thing! <3'. But no! ACTUAL JOKE SIGHTED.
ReplyDeleteWoo!
Oddly enough "Erotic Adventures into the Imagination" wasn't far off, since the strip appears to be erotic adventures *of* the imagination.
ReplyDeleteRob = Randall, obviously.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Carl was Randall... Now if Rob and Carl are the same person, it's starting to become quite confusing...
ReplyDeleteI liked the guest comic. It's making fun of xkcd, which is something Randall Munroe (or is it Rob?) rarely does. And... well, there is a punchline, a subversion of expectations, a post punchline silence that is funny in itself and not completely useless...
"a post punchline silence that is funny in itself and not completely useless... "
ReplyDeleteWhat I liked about the post punchline silence is that it is left up in the air as to whether they will actually hook up after this event or if he will just carry on his way as he did every single day beforehand.
The art is also spot-on. Say what you will about Jeph and QC, but he has definitely has put the time into developing his craft as an artist over the past 8 years, something you will never see consistently with Randy.
"something you will never see with randy"
ReplyDeleteftfy seriously
Yeah, seriously. Not a single detached head.
ReplyDeleteInstead just a two foot long neck, which is way more distracting.
ReplyDeleteredux copypasta about the art:
ReplyDelete"The first thing you’ll notice about this comic is the art style, which is similar, yet different. It’s almost improved, in fact, as if somebody who spends more than five minutes on their comics is trying to “downgrade” their style to fit xkcd. The characters actually have props, they’re in positions beyond “stand there facing left” and “stand there facing right”, and the objects and hair have actual lines and shapes. Overall, it looks much more pleasing. Heck, the text is even more legible! You know, I think I’ve been too hard on Randall. It’s clear from just looking at this comic that he’s spent his “hiatus” thoroughly improving his art style and penmanship."
So the QC guest comic of all things was enough to finally motivate me to register on the xkcd forums.
ReplyDeleteAnd now my comment has to be read by a moderator before being submitted?
HOW ORWELLIAN
"I thought that Carl was Randall... Now if Rob and Carl are the same person, it's starting to become quite confusing..."
ReplyDeletewell, it's quite simple. since obviously no one has ever read this blog apart from Carl, every single post here (except for yours, obviously!!! you are the first unique hit to the blog ever) was posted by the same person, in order to make it look like it actually gets a lot of traffic.
and by "post" I mean "comment."
ReplyDeleteand by "comment." you mean "comment". You should know that Randy hates that the period has to be inside of the quotation marks, considering you are him.
ReplyDeletemostly there I was showcasing my mastery of multiple voices and styles. it's pretty amazing how while in my Randy persona I have a pedantic programmer's hatred for the period going inside the quotation marks, in my Rob persona I follow standard American conventions for it.
ReplyDeleteeven the little differences between my Rob persona and my Anon 2:48 persona are fucking exquisite.
@Rob (or is it Carl? or is it Randall?)
ReplyDelete"every single post here (except for yours, obviously!!! you are the first unique hit to the blog ever) was posted by the same person"
You seem to forget that I am just one among the many personalities created by your delusional brain. Yes, you are that lonely.
And by you, I mean me, and by me, I mean Carl, and by Carl, I mean Randall.
listen, Rochambeau-me. the "you" there was obviously directed at the only person who has ever visited this site besides me. I sort of figured that my other identities would be able to figure that out, BUT APPARENTLY I'M JUST NOT SMART ENOUGH FOR THAT
ReplyDeleteRob, everyone knows you're borderline retarded because all the excess fat in your body went into your skull and doesn't leave any space to your brain! Even the figments of your fatty imagination know that!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I like the newest comic. Indeed, a real subversion of the expectations here. In other words, HUMOR, for a change!
...of course, the author couldn't be Randall. Ugh.
Uh...Randall has a lactation fetish.
ReplyDeletewow, you guys have lives. *sarcasm*
ReplyDeletei don't understand why you would need to create an entire blog about your hate for xkcd... it's kinda tacky. o.o