Comic 524: Wuzzle Wazzle

Oh how far we've come, from passing a meme along to pretending to be over it. There are a few humor eggs nestled together here, let's pick apart the yolks for starters:

-Mr. Hat hired Rick Astley to do some mischief! Not a bad start, even if it leans on an aging meme.
-Astley's going against the grain and not performing his most popular song. What, then?
-The girl can't stand a mute Astley and goes nuts waiting for him to sing. Mental torture ensues.
-Astley gloats for a moment and pulls a CSI: Miami by flipping sunglasses on during a one-liner.

This comic had appeal for me until that fourth panel. Mr. Hat's in action, Rick Astley is going to do something original...but the victim goes nuts all on her own. You could mute her computer speakers during a Rickroll and get the same reaction. The comic plays on people's obsession with memes, then spins around and endorses them by pretending Rick can beat the system.

Rick appears cool with his girl-maddening powers, but he should be more sad than anything. If the public has such a strong love/hate reaction to his claim to fame, then Mr. Hat must have paid him out of pity, because Astley has no choice but to embrace his Internet-fueled popularity. Why? Because of meme-passers like xkcd that repeat forum-born jokes until only the final person who hears of them is spared the vomit-inducing repetition of "Have you heard of ________ yet?" That's how Astley wound up performing the song during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and he was paid to sing -- he must roll both ways, then.

There's also the loose end of why Mr. Hat wants to drive a seemingly innocuous girl insane, anyway. It's not evil, clever, or in the name of piracy; it's just an anti-Rickroll.

Rickrolling was fun for its time, and like any punchline, can be forgiven in spare doses. But Randall, GET OUT OF ASTLEY'S HEAD. David Caruso thanks you.

Note about the alt text: Those are some lame-ass guesses for the next big trend. Even Urkel did better ("I've fallen, and I can't get up!"), and in my ultrabiased opinion, we folks have, too. While I don't expect anything born here to find a new home, calling Anonymous posters Cuddlefish and shouting down blind worship with "GET OUT OF MY HEAD" are both small, anti-internet-mob gestures (assuming we don't kill the new phrases, too). Randall asks us to place our bets, but only he knows what the Internet will hail next! Tell us, Randall! Deliver to us from on high the catchphrases of your drunk programmer friends, and they shall show us a funnier, more easily repeatable future!

*EDIT* What the hell is this?! We were first, forums!!

Comic 523: Randall Speaks To Us

Hello chaps and chapettes, this is Thomas and I'll be providing a week of snarkiness in Carl's absence. I was nervous about what Randall would hit to me for the start of the week, but now I can rest easy and let his fly ball(s) land directly in my mitt.

This is a combination of "we broke up" + "math in unlikely places," which makes me as repulsed as the out-of-frame lady must be. And the relationship dipped because of the sort of graphing he's doing at this moment! This is like a roommate resolving his gluttony by telling you, "I know you hate it when I clean out the pantry" as he finishes the last slice of pizza and flattens the last beer can against his forehead. And, like a bad roommate, Randall's not very good at recycling, either. There is no charty joke like Randall used to do, just a jokeless chart with one visible character defending its crappiness. He's taken an empty can, pissed in it, and pretended he just found it in the fridge for us.

Nobody's buying you beer anymore, Randall, even if it makes your physics, math, and word games more fun for you. Sober up, climb the 12 Steps (no need to draw memes on them or stretch them out to a weird scale), and when you see the trash you've let accumulate beneath you, hang yourself from the 12th step as a warning to other webcomic authors.

Comic 522: Is There One For XKCD Sucks?

This one just doesn't do it for me. I doubt they are real figures, and even if they are, it just makes me say "so what?" And seriously, Randall? This one isn't even a chart comic. You didn't even draw anything. At all. You just put words out there. That is what blogs are for. Comics ought to at least be visual.

There's just nothing here for me to talk about. It isn't funny. And I am pretty sure none of that information is real. (It is not available on Google Zeitgeist. Google doesn't usually release this sort of data.) And the Wasilla jokes? What happened to being apolitical, Randall?

If it's fictional it's a bad joke. If it's real he didn't do anything interesting. LAME. ALL. ROUND.

Anyway, thank you all for reading. Thomas will be taking over next week. I am excited! You should all be, too. It has been a pleasure, and all of you are awesome, generally speaking. But while Rob season is over, I will always live on in your hearts and minds. And in my blog, which I won't link to because that would just be shameless. But every time you are making out in public places, think of me.

Hugs and kisses!

Comic 521: An XKCDsucks Christmas

First off: Merry Christmas! I hope you are all enjoying yourselves, and not drinking yourselves into oblivion because this comic has brought you more despair than you can handle this holiday season. As my Christmas gift to you, I present you: It's A Wonderful Webcomic, a short story by yours truly.

Randall Munroe was a webcomic, authoring a niche comic that was increasingly less funny. Desperately, he tried to insert geeky references into his works, trying to service as many fans as possible in attempt to save his comic from the dark oblivion. Then, disaster struck. Christmas approached. He was unable to decide on a single internet-based joke for Christmas, and he didn't have time for a whole Christmas story!

Even if he did, his ideas had grown too disparate, too crazy to connect in a coherent plot. He needed a plan. So, late at night, Randall Munroe went out into the lonely bars of Cambridge, drank, and doodled on napkins. He was getting nowhere. He was doomed to write a comic that did not inspire vapid comments on his forums.

His pen broke. Ink started filling one of the panels--one where he had drawn the waitress telling him how she wanted to go ice skating on the Charles river. The resulting comic made no sense--and it was perfect. He immediately thought of a suitably nerdy pattern with which to black out the panels. He told the waitress he loved her, and ran home to write his Christmas special. He could make 12 panels look like 32! He could make the story completely nonsensical, just nerd reference after nerd reference, and everyone would think that was part of the genius!

It was the best Christmas ever. THE END. Happy holidays, loyal fans.

UPDATE: I am going to just make a list of better Christmas comics than this one. Feel free to suggest your own and I will add them, unless they suck, in which case I will cry.

COMIC THE FIRST: A Softer World - Oh, A Softer World. I love you.
COMIC THE SECOND: Cat and Girl - A++ would buy again
COMIC THE THIRD: Kate Beaton - As of this writing, the most recent one. Scroll down until there is Santa.
COMIC THE FOURTH: Nedroid

UPDATE AGAIN, INDEPENDENT OF THE FIRST UPDATE: ugh I forgot to complain. Randall. It is not 'the yggdrasil'. It is Yggdrasil. Just Yggdrasil. You are DOING IT WRONG.

STILL FURTHER UPDATE, RELATED TO THE SECOND UPDATE BECAUSE THAT STILL BOTHERS ME: Yggdrasil means "Ygg's Horse." Ygg means Odin. The Odin's Horse makes no sense. RANDALL FAIL.

crappy xkcd contest finalists!

Remember that crappy contest where you had to finish an xkcd comic? I sure as hell do! They've posted the finalists, and while mine is not among them, they are still very, very bad:

Let's see who could make the best tasteful joke about mobile communications:

Terral Artis: 80% of my calls are to your mom because the other 20% are to your sister! They both have Palm Centros and we always stay connected.

--This falls into the "no joke, just an ad for a palm product" category. I would also say it's so bad it's funny, and I like to think Terral meant it that way.

Aaron Williams: Those are all incoming, She thinks you're having some kind of medical emergency whenever you text her something like "OMG LOL ROTFL"

---This is a "ha ha, old people do not understand the slang that we young people employ!" joke, and it feels so very old. Again, with the terrible constraints of the contest rules, I do not blame Mr. Williams.

Chris Routhe: Well I would have texted her, but I ran out of monthly texts.

--With the joke being....?

David Brown: Because I was using her as a engagement ring consultant. Now it is all ruined! RUINED I SAY!

--One of the better ones, because of the evil-genius'-scheme way he gets that last sentence in there.

Dirk Joseph: 2 reasons 1) I’m showing her how to use her new Palm and every 10 minutes I remember something I forgot to tell her 2) Because 100% would be stalking.

--The saddest one of them all. If he had just said "Because 100% would be stalking" this would be by far the funniest of the bunch. It technically answers the question without answering the real question, and it stays as a "your mom" joke without trying to innocent-ify the comic the way the "oh well i was helping her, i am not actually having sex with her as you may be imagining" comics do. But 1) totally ruins the whole thing. Not funny, not trying, deflates the energy of 2).

Joe Tunon: Have you noticed the other 20% are your Dad? Mark may not be on to us, but your parents are!

--Eh.

John Murray: Um – you say I know nothing about you, well, I’m learning. Your profile says little, your blog says less, but your Mom said a lot, including about that ONE TIME in college – Did you really?!?!

--Eh

Jonathan Esten: Well, she's got some good advice for dealing with you when you freak out and she's the only person we know without a QWERTY smartphone and unlimited texting! ... And from the look on your face, I think I need to call her right now. Can I have my phone back?

--Too long. Some ok ideas but also some stupid unneeded words (what does unlimited texting have to do with any of this?).

Mark Zimmerman: Because she actually thinks my Treo is cool, and never scolds me when I take it out during dinner! There's nothing like a woman who appreciates hi-tech! Great lady, that mother of yours…

--If Mark is implying with "she actually thinks my treo is cool" that most people would not think such a thing - and I think he is implying that - than this wins lots of subversion points.

Rizwan Parvez: If you'd kept up on my Facebook profile, this wouldn't have been such a surprise...

--This originally said "If you'd kept upon my facebook..." which I thought was charmingly off grammar. As it is...it is pretty lame.

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If any of these strike your fancy, you can vote for them, I guess. Instructions here. And of course, I'm still waiting for submissions so I can pick my favorite of your final lines, which of course do not need to conform to any standard of taste or decency.

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update, 1/1/2009: OK I picked my favorites!



Ramsey, with: "81%. I like square numbers. Isn't math awesome?"

Thomas, with: "The Palm Centros has the most powerful vibration on the market, so every night after 10..."

Vlad, with: "I'm trying to tell her not to to buy any Palm products, they're complete pieces of shit."

And our big super special winner...

DoubleBlackbird, with: "Oh man you just worked out that percentage in your head! You are the most perfect woman ever and can I have a bottle of your sweat because I want to sniff it and fantasise."

Maybe you will all win prizes! (ha ha, you will not win anything). EXCELLENT WORK PEOPLE i think maybe I will have to think of some clever contest to do on a somewhat regular basis.