Comic 786: Lost In Space

[alt: I'm just worried that we'll all leave and you won't get to come along!]

I am very tempted to go the xkcdexplained route here and just write the following analysis and nothing else:

"Mr. Beret is excited because of science. His enthusiasm is lost on a sleepy man."

Alas, my nature compels me to elaborate.

I guess the fun in this comic is supposed to come from his child-like enthusiasm - a common enough theme in xkcd. Often it seems to be set up in way which, like in the comic above, the message is that those who do not have childlike glee are missing out on something and the childlike person is happier and better than the other. They nearly all feel like ripoffs of Calvin and Hobbes, which perhaps was able to get away with this by having its childlike excitement come from an actual child.

I suppose another feature of this comic that is meant to be positive is that he is excited about science in the abstract, and not in any way that will affect him (note the "in a few generations" line). Are we supposed to feel the same way? I hope not. Future scientific discoveries are not always those which people expected several generations earlier, and some things, like travel to another planet with intelligent life, seems too remote to even consider getting excited about.

We are left to conclude that Mr. Beret is a figure to be laughed at for his naiveté. I guess that is starting to be a somewhat defining characteristic for him (finally!) - he is dumb and/or enthusiastic. I am guessing we'll have a few more of these comics which will get very boring very suddenly. Dumb people can be lots of fun but the "I am excited about silly things" trope is rather narrow.

Lastly, the ending to this comic is atrocious, with a print-comicesque line from the sleeping guy and a nonsensical response from Mr. Beret. All of it constitutes post-punchline dialog.

Comic 677: Assholes

I basically don't want to talk about this comic. It strikes me as boring. You all can discuss it for yourselves. All I'll say is that he seems to be in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of situation* and it is no more or less entertaining than any other such situation.

* note: this is not the same as a catch-22. if you think it is, you are dumb. don't make me go on a rant about this.

What I want to talk about the alt-text. Now I frequently complain that Mr. Beret is a dumb character, because none of his actions are consistent with any sort of "character" at all, in the sense that you cannot "characterize" any of his actions into any "category." (note - if you say "but his character is that he is an existentialist!" then I will kick you in the balls and Rob will punch you in the face).

ANYWAY. In one of our earliest sightings of Mr. Beret we were informed that he a) thoughts buildings that were not bakeries were, in fact, bakeries, and b) thought items that were not scones, were, in fact, scones. I thought it was dumb then and I think it's dumb now. It's particularly annoying because in later comics, this one definable, if odd, trait was totally absent.

So you think I'd be happy to see that today's alt-text: "[Shortly thereafter, at a nearby bakery] ::CRASH:: ::RUMBLE:: ::VRRRRRR:: '... I don't know, officer. It just scooped up an entire rack of scones and drove away!'" Because it gets back to the one thing I thought we could count on with this guy. But I'm not happy (surprise!), because we all we get is: He loves scones! He has a murderous love of scones. I was kind of hoping for something that added to his character, not something that just repeated it. It's like if Homer Simpson were defined entirely by his love of donuts. It just gets super boring, really really fast. So he's also got his job, his catchphrase, his various other phrases, his friends, his hangouts, etc. You know, like an actual character.

Have you ever seen the movie Theodore Rex? I recommend it. It is delightfully bad. The point is that the main character has a noticeable love of cookies. He makes it known frequently just how much he loves cookies! I kept expecting it to somehow affect the plot - perhaps he would inadvertently stop the bad guys while simply trying to acquire some cookies across the room? But it never happened! The only purpose to him loving cookies was so that later, they could have him keep loving cookies! WHY.

It's the same problem here: Mr. Beret's love of scones serves no purpose. Why do we care? How does it affect him, or those around him? Besides being able to repeat "he loves scones! isn't that CRAZY?" over and over, what is the point?

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By the way, you haven't noticed this probably, but it is getting really hard to keep up with all the comments. Back in the day, I used to read and respond to them all. Now I'm lucky if I can even read them all. It sucks, because all the good ideas and all the actual funny stuff usually comes from there, and the sense of community and stuff. So - I'll try to keep up, but if I don't, that's why. heck knows i was not expecting this web-blog to turn into a goddamn internet phenomenon. Heck no.

Comic 671: Randall and Me

Holy crap, two 1980s movie comics in a row! That is crazy. Last time was Spinal Tap, this time it's Michael Moore's debut film, Roger and Me. But instead of visiting the head of GM, as that film does, Mr. Beret visits the head of Volvo. And he does it for stupid petty reasons, because Randall Munroe thinks that if he gets one of his characters to say a Dirty Word then people will laugh at his comic. Which they might, because at this point the comic is basically targeted at pretentious fourteen year olds with too much time to spend online.

Now, I hate Mr. Beret. He is the least consistent character ever created, ever, bar none. Why is he now a political/economic activist-turned-immature-preteen? that's not anything he's ever done before. And the stuff he did before - think things were bakeries, think his mom was alive and fat, love staplers - has absolutely no relation to what he is doing now. I hate him so much.

What is that box labeled "VOLVO CARS" in panel 1? Is that the box...that cars come out of?

I would be remiss if I did not link to Way Walkers glorious re-editing of this comic, so click here.

Also, does anyone know why this comic is called "Stephen and Me" ? Wikipedia tells me that the CEO of Volvo is Leif Johansson, not Stephen anything. Also, wikipedia tells me that Leif Johansson plays the ukelele. So...yeah.


update: ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the new comic freaks me the fuck out. agghghghhhhhh gross creepy ahhhhh

Comic 614: Drill Baby Drill

Today's Special Writer is Jake. Let's see how he did.

Jake:
It's 10:09 in the AM and this is XKCD Sucks. I'm your host Jake and with me today is XKCD's very own Beret Man.

Beret Man:
Thanks for having me, Jake.

Jake:
So, Beret Man, we have you today in the comic. Tell us what's happening here.

BM:
Well, Jake, Randall has the dark haired chick (probably Megan, but as this isn't about sex today, I can't be sure) and me talking about a woodpecker (on second thought, maybe this is about sex... o.O). The dark haired chick tells me that the woody-- woodpecker was hatched about a year ago and I make the observation that it's the little guy's birthday.

Jake:
Okay, some birthday action going on here. So then the dark haired girl takes off and we see you standing there alone. What's going through your mind at that moment?

BM:
Well, to be honest, not much. You see, right there in the panels after the girl leaves, Randall has me pondering if anyone told the woodpecker it was the little guy's birthday. So after pondering this a bit, I decide to run out and buy the avian a POWER TOOL! Because, you know, that just makes so much sense in Randall's mind as far as the joke goes, bird has a birthday, so I, Beret Man, will run out and spend some cash buying a power tool to make the little guy's life just a little easier. Ha ha! That's funny... right?

Jake:
I... see... I guess then the alt text is telling us that you'd go all the way to make it happen, you're even willing to splurge on an extension cord?

BM:
And if Randy would add yet another panel, I'd probably even be shown paying for the electrical bill or building a wind turbine. The possibilities are endless.

(Long story short: this comic blew. Hard. There's a lot of Randall's simple drawing and as far as I can tell, this comic is trying to be more existential than funny. Or maybe not... I usually get where Randall is going, even if I don't think it's very funny, but today threw me. I was going to totally analytical and go point by point through the comic, but today's was just so pointless that, well, you just read the result in this post. Kudos to SNL and Tim Meadows for providing the format for today's post and thanks go to Carl for giving me this shot.)

559 Guest Post: No Joke Intended

First off, everyone be sure to check out this blog's Exciting New Project, at XKCD: Could Be Better! that is where we are re-writing xkcd comics to be much, much funnier. check it out, e-mail me with any suggestions or comments or stuff.

Now - about this comic - Commenter Dan got real mad about this comic and e-mailed me about it! Dan is the wonderful human being who started the "xkcd sucks sucks" blog which is lovely. This post is on that blog too but he asked me to post it here and so here we are. DAN, everyone! My own thoughts are at the end.

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It must be said that if trolling was the intention of this latest comic, then CONSIDER ME MOTHERFUCKING TROLL'D, RANDY, YOU FUCK.

In a suitably Carl-esque style, I want to relish ripping this one apart, piece by piece.

THE ART:

Well, well, well. As commentor luckykaa mentioned in the previous post: "Hell, why even bother drawing it? At best this is a twitter comment." and I could not agree more. The art is pretty unecessary, and it seems that Randall seems to think so too - just look at that 2nd panel.

Beret guy looks more like he's holding his head on than facepalming.

This, however, is what we've come to expect from Randall now, I won't carry on battering the drawings, because Carl does that plenty himself.

Overall message:

Randall is often made fun of in this blog for attempting to seem all "high and mighty", as it were, and until now, I've believed him to be innocent of this misdeed, but it seems clear to me now that his ego has gone too far this time. Frequent commentor poore noted the fact that the second panel is completely unecessary.

Unecessary as it may be, it shows us that Randall is now a fully-fledged wanker. I shall explain:

He EXPECTS people to be baffled hours later by his incorrect usage of "no pun intended" rather than just fleetingly bemused.

I mean, come on, if Beret guy was any average guy, after three hours, a nonsensical usage of "no pun intended" after a few impressive-sounding words would have faded entirely from memory. Randall seems to be having an "aren't I so clever!!" moment here, and not realizing that normal people have lives, and girlfriends and shit like that.

The Alt-Text:

FUCKING RAAAAAAAAAAAAGE.

OH GOD I RAGED.

IT IS NOT SPELLED DAMMIT.

IT IS A CONTRACTION OF "DAMN" AND "IT".

THEREFORE - DAMNIT.

NO MATTER WHAT BLINK-182 TOLD YOU.

RANDALL I HATE YOU SO MUCH.

Yes, this whole post is really just a build up to that rage about the alt-text.

So shoot me.

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My own thoughts: The first thing I thought of was "The Producers" because this exact same thing happens there - a character (the director of 'Springtime for Hitler') adds "forgive the pun..." to one of his early lines, prompting confusion in the characters who hear it. Thomas pointed me to the far funnier pun-based screed from Maddox at the Best Page In The Universe. Also, the alt-text is stupid and not related to the comic; no one would actually care that much about a stupid pun, to all you forumites who are ending your posts with 'no pun intended!' or "I'm totally going to do this now...NO PUN INTENDED!!" you are all huge douches, and lastly, like all 'My Hobby' comics, you could change it to "My Hobby: Being Annoying" and it would not be very different.)

Comic 502: Another WACKY Beret-based adventure!

Looks like our good friend Beret Dude (maybe I should call him Mr. Beret) is back, and he once again makes no sense as a character! Last time, I was confused because he had gone from kind of off-beat and meaningful (much like early xkcd as a whole) to obsessed with bakeries and then oddly quiet. Is there a pattern here that makes him a consistent character in anyway? Hardly seems like it, and in the unlikely event that there is some continuity here it's almost certainly obliterated with today's comic.

Seriously, what's going on here? Mr. Beret is, we now discover, a total idiot, and he apparently thinks his fat mom is outside the known universe pulling him or something. I mean I guess the joke is he is very stupid, to the point that he takes the other guy's joke seriously, but that doesn't strike me as all that funny. Anyone have a better sense of it?

As far as I can tell, we have at long last another addition to the "ha ha, bitches, I'm getting all serious on you WITH NO WARNING" series. What I would have liked to see was the comic appear to take a turn for the Serious and Meaningful in the last panel, but then after "pull harder, mom" the dude from the first two panels yells, off-screen, "That's what SHE said!" thus destroying the meaningfulness and messing with the readers in a far more amusing way.

Anyway, what the fuck is up with the Beret guy? He really has nothing to do with any of his other appearances, ever. That's not how characters work, at least not this soon after they've been introduced. It just makes no sense.

I also see that the seated character manages to lose his legs in between the first and second panels. How 'bout that.


Update: Reading over the comments, you can see that a lot of people who usually think the way I do disagree with me on this one and like this comic. This may very well be one of those situations where my inherent anti-xkcd bias is not something I can overcome, and so I will simply point out that I am aware of it and let it be what it is. Come to your own conclusions, folks!


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If you did not come upon it on your own in your daily webcomic perusal, note that Overcompensating made a joke on this same topic on the same day. Amazing! But Jeffery Rowland has some proof that he at least came up with the idea before he saw this. Just an odd story, and in any case, you should read Overcompensating if you aren't already.

Comics 477 and 478: Some praise and some criticism

Just a few quick words on the typrewriter one: Basically it amused me. Obviously it is not realistic at all (you know, he would probably notice at some point that reddit.com did not magically appear on a screen in front of him) and I don't like that the joke in the alt-text is the same as the point of the comic, but I will admit that I am a sucker for the www.fivethirtyeight.com reference...oh well. On the whole, well above average, I would say.

This one, on the other hand, made me think some thoughts. Beret Dude has been seen by my count six times before -he was being very interested in squirrels, kayaking, hanging from a tree, (with his hat stapled to his head) thinking he was going to a bakery, thinking he was in a bakery, and then being inexplicably quiet as a bartender. And now here is he again, being Totally Wacky! and also destructive. So I guess the idea is he is just a crazy and energetic new character? It feels, like the nth Debian reference in there, a little forced. "Say hello to Beret Man! His thing is that he has ENERGY! and he's insane. And that is all. He is SO FUNNY. I will probably put him on a shirt soon." Is this a new character we can count on seeing frequently? If so, I hope he becomes less...single minded and flat.

In any case, the best staple related xkcd will always be #262. Read the alt-text.

And of course, move the Megan Count up to 5.

also, why is the "yes" at the end coming from above? The best I can come up with is that the man has been stapled to the ceiling but that seems unlikely to me.

Comic 452: Back to our story already in progress...

Can someone tell me what is happening here? I mean I understand the story contained within these four panels, but I feel like I'm missing something. I assume that Bakery Boy is the same guy who thought the airport was a bakery and who happened to be in a bakery he loved while he was singing.

When we first met Bakery Boy, I said that I liked the idea of a character always assuming that he was going to a bakery. I don't think it stays funny when he assumes that he is always in a bakery, because that's just incredibly bad perception and possibly developmental disability (he is, after all, eating metal in the end). Even so, I'm not sure the joke works a second time. We know he assumes he is going to a bakery, now...he assumes things are scones. OK.

The real problem is of course that we have no idea what story is going on. We know very little about Bakery Boy and we have no idea anything about the other dude. Where are they? Is there perhaps a logical reason that one could assume they were in a bakery? Why does the normal guy trust the stupid guy with explosives? All of these questions have potentially funny answers. I am hopeful that a few more comics in this series could tell a good and a funny story, but on its own this comic is a little odd.

Also, it's clear that Randall is trying out a lot of very different ideas for what he wants to do next with xkcd - looks like he's leaning towards longer stories with more established characters. Not a bad choice for when you run out of standalone jokes, but still it's a little weird to see him trying it out right in front of us.

Comic 434: xkcd goes to the airport

First off I am very happy that Mr. Hat is back in all his sarcastic, only-mildly-evil goodness. Hurrah for Panel 4.

I don't quite know why Panel 1 has to be an airport it seems like besides the word "airline," which could be anything, and of course the clearly marked "AIRPORT" sign, it could be anywhere. Nonetheless, I like the idea that a character always assumes they are going to a bakery. This is funny, because it is such a specific assumption and is no doubt nearly always wrong, but he still holds it.

Panel 2 is clearly false; I accidentally took a set of lock-picks on a plane recently with no consequence.

Panel 3, eh, I would complain but the 1 and 4 are good enough that I don't have the heart for it. (note: In a comment below, I speculate that "manpage" is a typo for "mainpage." I have since been informed that I am an idiot, and "manpage" is correct.)

Good work today, Randall. Don't fuck it up.

update: I was on a plane today and accidentally left my phone on THE WHOLE TIME. The plane did not crash! What the heck, airline industry? Why do we have to turn off our "mobile devices"?