"[a] vitriolic and bitter collection of unwarranted nastiness about a silly and harmless comic."
Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.
I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.
Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.
I felt like spewing words here. It seems to be what everybody else does.
ReplyDeleteWill somebody acknowledge my presence? The affirmation of strangers is the only sustenance upon which my will may survive... bereft of praise, I may soon seek solace in the sweet embrace of death...
oh, was there a comic or something
i didn't really notice. it just kind of faded out of my mind
i will always love you anon 5:28
ReplyDeleteRob the comic's title is 1999 not 199 I mean what the fuck
ReplyDeleteThe alt text is right though
Let's come together.
ReplyDeleteRight now.
Oh yeah.
In Sweet Harmony.
{Nothing "interesting" in the "comic" or the "review"}
Holy shit. I'm going to flip a tit because you have one full sentence of unadulterated Megan-joke. For fuck's sake.
ReplyDeletegood god look at just how pathetic everything is
ReplyDeletethe comic is so pathetically non-extant that no form of review could even really be made
so the only review is also pathetic
there's nothing to talk about
this whole... thing
is void
there is nothing
we aren't saying anything of relevance to anything we're just talking to stave off the realization that oh god no I can't put it into words
phew
crisis averted
The xkcd forums are now filling with people saying they remember zombocom and outdoing themselves in reminiscing about ye olde time internet.
ReplyDeleteI'd despair but I've looked at the xkcd forums often enough that I just sigh instead.
If you stare at the xkcd forums long enough, the xkcd forums stare back at you
ReplyDeleteit's like, if you've been on the internet for twenty years, what's your goddamn excuse for not having found a thousand things better than the xkcd forums.
ReplyDeletestill, no thread can compare, in unfiltered obnoxiousness, with the one about comic "learning perl for a weekend was the most useful thing in all of high school".
Of course, Zombocom was already a joke. And far funnier than anything Randall "added".
ReplyDeleteSudo stop making stupid Megan jokes. It hurts me so much!
ReplyDeleteI begrudge nobody of their sources of solace, but THIS BLAG IS VERY WRONG. xkcd IS GREAT, DAMMIT.
If the last few comics haven't shown you I'm at the peak of my creativity, then you are clearly uneducated. Protip: you should spend more time reading Wikipedia.
And by the way Rob, your reviews are fucking jejune as shit.
-Randall (dealing with a family illness) Munroe
44 people on the net in '99? Proof Robdall gave up any pretense and is just trolling now.
ReplyDeleteSo...who else immediately queried "Megan" when the transcript-search went live? It's astounding.
ReplyDeleteCaptcha: robaluno. Rob's a lun[atic]!
"So...who else immediately queried "Megan" when the transcript-search went live? It's astounding."
ReplyDeleteYou mean, ages ago? The transcript search has been up, in that exact form, for a while now.
If you search for Megan you get four pages. If you search for Rob you get eight. I WONDER IF THAT MEANS SOMETHING, HUH, ROBDALL
ReplyDeleteHuh, names for stick figures that didn't have names in the comics as we saw them.
ReplyDeleteRob I didn't know you had a retarded nephew.
I actually kind of liked this one. It's about as good as xkcd ever gets. Underneath all the autism residue and pointless nostalgic jerkoffery, there's the fragile remains of a clever thought.
ReplyDeleteHmm... Jerkoffery. I think I just found a name for my first born.
ReplyDeleteCaptcha: Bryashab. I think I just found a middle name for my first born.
Disregard that.
ReplyDeleteI suck cocks!
I'm late to the game on the cooking comic and am commenting on it here because I imagine that this is where all discussion is taking place.
ReplyDeleteHis flowchart comics are usually at least marginally insightful, even if unfunny, but this one really offers no insight at all. But my reaction to this one is biased because I have little patience for people who can't, as Randall states it, put ingredients into a pan and obtain a worthwhile result. This comic just exudes a kind of intellectual laziness, the same kind which Randall often exhibits toward people who aren't as tech-savvy as he is. You can imagine someone's impatience in watching Randall fiddling helplessly with some basic task like cutting an onion, as the very same impatience as Randall shows to someone having similar issues with using a computer. Yet we can detect an implicit affirmation that the things Randall is good at, like Perl or G-Maps, are inherently more important tasks than the things he isn't good at, like cooking.
I don't even particularly believe that Randall can't cook.
ReplyDeleteI think he's changed (y'know, from getting older) and can no longer write from the heart in the same style as his older comics because, well, he's someone else. So we get:
- Horrible comics in the style of Past Randall, trying to appeal to the student crowd. But, distanced from his target audience by age, his aim is sloppy and the results are patronising comics with obvious "gags".
- Genuine comics from Present Randall, which are creepy and misogynistic.
- Dreadful attempts to make something of his rudimentary cast.
Hence the cooking comic - he can cook just fine, but he remembers what it was like a few years ago. "That'll go down well!" he thinks, as he makes the simplest flowchart he can get away with to make the point "despite best intentions, you will waste food and money if you don't cook enough".
Can you guys suggest some good music for me? I just discovered Mumford and Sons, and they're not terrible.
ReplyDelete(1) Horrible comics in the style of Past Randall, trying to appeal to the student crowd. But, distanced from his target audience by age, his aim is sloppy and the results are patronising comics with obvious "gags".
ReplyDelete(2) Genuine comics from Present Randall, which are creepy and misogynistic.
(3) Dreadful attempts to make something of his rudimentary cast.
Actually, I think that if he made comics in only tone (2), then xkcd would be more of a fringe oddity that would not attract the ire of folks here. The problem is that he tries unsuccessfully to counterbalance the kind of cute, mildly autistic tone of (1) with the bitter, sometimes very spiteful tone of (2). (As for tone (3), he has put so little effort into character development that it's hardly worth mentioning.) The vocal GOOMHR community praises tone (1) comics but turns a blind eye to tone (2)-ers. I'm sure the latter appeals to segment of grad students and young careerists, and like I said if he limited himself to tone (2) then the comic would actually come across as less offensive because it wouldn't have completely contradictory pretenses.
@Sarge: If you want to stay in that particular thematic line, I recommend Spirit of the West. Otherwise, I direct you to Nyusha, who is not remotely similar to Mumford & Sons
ReplyDeleteSpirit of the West is, indeed, not terrible either. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI also like Say Anything. I'm not particularly cool.
@Sarge
ReplyDeleteI live in the Appalachian Mountains, which means I'm legally required to now recommend you check out the Avett Brothers. Their last couple albums have been kinda dull, but go look up "Colorshow" if you like Mumford.
Captcha: Coputric. Sometimes, Rob eats so much cake even his coputric bowels tremble.
855 goatkcd is one of the all time greatest, you guys
ReplyDelete(captcha: trinivag. no comment)
Say Anything is beautiful in the crassest of ways, in the same way 3Oh3! demonstrates what an English degree is capable of producing while refraining from pursuing it except at the slightest margin.
ReplyDeleteI like this comic.
ReplyDeleteAnother review in the style of xkcdexplained.
ReplyDeleteSuccinct.
I like it.
:O
ReplyDeletesarge
sarge seriously
mumford and sons are AWFUL.
seriously man if i wasn't not a loser mumfordandsunssucks.blogspot.com would be even bigger than this crummy place
seriously though
ReplyDeletegoatkcd 855 is incredible
@Sarge: The summary wasn't for you, per-se. It was for anyone who hadn't read it, as they had no foundation on which to base your definition of satire. It was also an effort to create a self contained argument. So that having read the piece in it's entirety would not be completely necessary to understand the point I was trying to make. I wasn't suggesting you hadn't read it.
ReplyDeleteWith that, would you care to explain why or how I was wrong? Coming out and calling someone wrong in a condescending tone is always a great point. But sometimes it's nice to follow it up with some explanation, lest people mistakenly think you're just being an asshole or don't actually know what you're talking about.
PS: Nice Straw-Man with my comma splices. It does a very nice job of discrediting what I said. But while making you look smart, if a bit of a jerk (Which is what makes people popular on this particular blog!)
As I understand it, the Avett Brothers aren't from the Appalachians but more from the piedmont region of North Carolina.
ReplyDelete(cont.) I don't want to be terribly contentious so I thought I would just clarify. First, I could be wrong, but my understanding is that they are from the piedmont (foothills) region. And as a clarification, I'm just saying that if I were from the piedmont (which, as it happens, I am) and went up to some true mountain-folk and told them I hail from the Appalachians, they'd label me a poser at best.
ReplyDeleteAvetts are from the piedmont region indeed (right outside of Charlotte), but they're way bigger a couple hours west, mainly because this region's where most of the bluegrass scene is located.
ReplyDeletewhat
ReplyDeleteit's like that mockery of a man munroe is only capable of making a joke by pointing its rotting finger at something actually entertaining and saying "isn't that good? love me as your prophet, for I point you towards sites better than mine"
this is ridiculous
this is beyond ridiculous
I'm so weakened by that display of idiocy that i don't even have any strength to press shift
i'm just stunned
that's the lowest point for me, and we're talking about xkcd, so that's saying something
wow
@Jasper, that's a fair justification for associating them w/ the Appalachians. Also, it's nice having an Appalachian-associated band which isn't strictly bluegrass (or country), but more just straight-up rock.
ReplyDelete...I actually thought this was pretty @#!*% funny.
ReplyDeleteThen again, given that the past year and a half of comics have sucked balls, it's possible I've just readjusted my humor threshold.
Honestly, I had high hopes for this one. I was expecting kind of a late-90's centric joke, which would have appealed to me because I was into 'net communited before such things had mainstream popularity ... but I've never heard of Zombocom, so naturally the joke fell flat for me.
ReplyDeleteSo, I just got word of this "Webcomic List Awards" thing. Decided to check it out.
ReplyDeleteGuess who won the award for Best Writing? Well, it's obvious, since I'm posting here, but...
XKCD actually won that
What. Nuff said.
@gyq514: The good news is, even if you HAVE heard of Zombocom, it's still a shitty comic, so you didn't miss anything.
ReplyDeleteProfessional Mole: Maybe... they're being sarcastic? I hope? The comic they listed for xkcd was terribly written. I mean, I like puns, but the setup to that one could have been SO much better.
So what was Zombocom anyway?
ReplyDeleteThe only vote that went my way was "gag-a-day". I demand a re-vote, or else that we create our own esteemed awards ceremony!
ReplyDeletethat would be fun! I could post a thread accepting votes and nominations and then completely ignore it and just post the comics that I like
ReplyDeleteWe could call it "the XS Awards" and see if anyone catches on.
ReplyDeletefuck yes
ReplyDeletethe webcomic list awards are hilarious
ReplyDeletei mean look at the nominees for that category
xkcd is unabashedly awful but save for smbc the rest of those are even worse
bug is okay i guess
my point is that webcomics in general are pretty fucking terrible
i don't know man
ReplyDeletethere's this one webcomic which is just a macro photograph of a dick, and every day it's a different part of the dick, and there's a little word bubble saying 'I'M A DICK :)))' every day
that one's pretty awesome
I wish Carl would write something about the zombocom one on his webcomics.me. :( His recent reviews of #851 - #853 were pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteI kind of think the writing award was being ironic, because there are multiple other comics in different categories (meaning the judges were aware of them) that have much MUCH better writing than any of the others. So... the comic about best writing is poorly written? I don't know. Maybe the judges just have absolutely no clue what they're doing.
ReplyDeleteWords* cannot describe how much I hate the latest xkcd.
ReplyDelete*Not even words awkwardly floating** above the previous panel.
**And stop this asterisk shit, Randy.***
***Fuck you.
To be fair: if you compare the writing in xkcd 849 to almost all the recent comics before and after it, then it looks positively brilliant.
ReplyDeleteAnd... I confess, I liked the pun.
I felt left out because I had absolutely no idea what Zombocom was. So I searched wiki but wiki didn't know. Encyclopedia Dramatica knew, but... it's Encyclopedia Dramatica.
ReplyDeleteSo here's what it is (or was): http://www.aboutus.org/Zombo.com. An ancient, ancient meme. Obviously Randall's joke was that it was really old, but honestly, it's almost too old to even joke about how old it is. And too stupid and irrelevant.
The site itself is down due to bandwidth consumption... I wonder why that could be?
Rob: I took about 30 minutes to write a review of 856; I just haven't gotten around to making pretty pictures so people don't skim past the text yet.
ReplyDeleteWhere do I send it to?
there's an email address in my blogger profile. please send it with all your HTML formatting intact, I'm lazy.
ReplyDeletealso sorry to the dude who said he was going to write one for 855, I forgot because I wanted to write a one-sentence review. it got a bit longer because, well, what's a review without a Megan joke in it? but that's what happened here.
also LOL 30 MINUTES GET A LYFE LOOSER
ReplyDelete@ThePirateKing: Even in its time it wasn't a big deal. I think I saw it in or around 2001. It was a joke in my circle of friends for maybe a month tops. Then we all forgot about it. It really didn't have any staying power. Randy is REALLY digging deep in the barrel of Internet memes now.
ReplyDeleteRinnon: so you're saying his memes have depth? LONG LIVE RANDY
ReplyDelete