Comic 668: Deeply Embarrassing

Apparently I was one of the few people who didn't think this graph was all fucked up. Maybe if I look at it real hard I can see that "Deeply embarrassing music" should really be inside the circle it is next to, but honestly, I got the point pretty easily. Far be it from me to dismiss a criticism of xkcd, but I don't really care about that one. How odd.

Leaving that aside, the comic is not too bad. The point is simple - "Pandora plays embarrassing music when people are around" - and simply executed, so it's not likely to make me froth about in a bitter rage, as so often happens (you really should not be near me when I read a new xkcd comic). I didn't find it all that funny - in part because I only listen to embarrassing music, so I am used to this, and also because I tend to listen to Pandora on my own or with headphones (because all my music is embarrassing). Part of me wants to say "why the hell is he making this comic now? Surely he's known about pandora for years, right?" but again, that's not really enough. The worst thing to be said about this comic is that it is oh-so-similar to comic 400, and that's not something I can defend it on. That is just a problem.

Those of you disappointed that I am not more angry today, read on.

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Unrelated to the current comic, but I've been glancing through the xkcd store as it quietly adds new products, and noticed this.

I think that the xkcd store selling shirts entirely based on a joke from the Simpsons movie is pathetic. The writers of that movie worked hard to come up with the script and to take their work and make money off of it is just wrong. I'm not talking about a legal, Creative Commons style debate - I'm just talking about what is being a dick and what is not. (hint: this is being a dick!)

update: No, I don't care that it is being sold to supposedly give money to some charity somewhere. And I also don't care that some comic book once made a similar character in like the 80s or something for a 17 issue kids comic series. the xkcd store fucking quotes the movie. OK? shut up and i hate you all.

Comic 667: Free At Last

yeah this post is late. maybe it's because I was eating dinner last night with...GEORGE WASHINGTON??? anyway, deal with it.

Now unlike everyone else, I had never played this "skiing free" game, and so I had no idea what to say when it was introduced into the comic-story. Monster? It will always kill you? Ok. Of course, I am someone who considers skiing a metaphor for the inevitability of death because I am quite certain you will always fall down, painfully.

So for the billionth time, i must admit that perhaps this comic's point was lost on me, that perhaps you must have felt the terrible dread of the imposing snow creature, felt its putrid breath upon your bescarved neck, and thought that each moment must surely be your last, in order to understand what is happening in this comic. But I have a feeling it doesn't matter. I have certainly played games with the same feature, so I'd like to think I can relate.

But ultimately, what is the point? The girl thinks that the monster will kill her, then she finds out that it won't. So her metaphor was....flawed! HA ha ha. Death isn't inevitable? No, just that her image isn't. That last panel is meant to be a sort of "fill in your own joke here" pause because there is nothing funny Randall could actually write there. Seriously, all she could be thinking is "Huh, guess I was wrong."

Of course, what I think this comic is really trying to say is "Guys, I just found out that you can escape the skifree monster, let me show you my knowledge so you will be impressed." but that's just cynical old me talking.

Comic 666: Evil Spirits

I'll get this out of the way first: I like this comic, at least more than usual. The style of prank is the sort of thing that I think Mr. Hat is funniest at: A whole lot of work for a rather petty (and ironic) conclusion. In this case, making the head of the American Skeptics Society believe in Evil Spirits. Not excatly helpful for any goal besides general impish pranksterism.

That said, silent hammers? What? I think Fred's edit was perfect on this:

Not only is this a crazy implausible idea, not only is it one that the characters seem to brush off like "oh hey, silent hammer, that's cool, i guess, but why?" but it is totally unnecessary! There's plenty of ways that Mr. Hat could have accomplished this goal without needing something as massively silly as "silent hammer." maybe he could have taken all the furniture out of the apartment and sawed it or whatever a few blocks away? Maybe he could just use glue to make some tables taller? I mean, once you've broken into the house you have a lot of options. Heck, just move things around, or leave like creepy notes places. Implausible? Sure. But this is the same guy who filled the US Capitol with playpen balls. So presumably he has some skills. Anyway, it's all more plausible than silent hammer.

But, once you get beyond that (if you get beyond that), then I think this is a nice return to the sort of shenanigans Mr. Hat got famous for.

now that i've written something nice, I fully expect to be attacked as soft-on-xkcd from the more rabid anti-xkcders out there.


silent hammer? COME ON.

Comic 665: The Chronicles of THIS COMIC SUCKS

I think xkcd is in the middle of about 3 or 4 weeks of really mediocre stuff. Nothing that's really pissed me off for a while, just a lot of things that make me want to pat it on the back and say "it's ok, you can stop. You don't have to force yourself this much."

And that's how I originally thought of this one. But then the more i looked at it, the more it filled me with rage. Perhaps it was the lack of dialog that threw me off, perhaps the fact that I so clearly understood what was happening shielded me from the terrible fact that what was happening does not make sense.

Ok, let's talk about this. The girl (who is being smart and tech-savvy, surprise!) is Lucy, from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (god i want to put an oxford comma in there but apparently that's not part of the official title). And instead of just heading straight into Narnia, she sends in some kind of mars-rover type webcam, to scout things out for her!

why the fuck should we give a shit.

Obviously, this option was not available to the Lucy in the story, written as it was in 1950. So it's just another dumb old random media mashup, one that tells us nothing new about any of the characters involved in either. It's not like those parodies where a character from something famous is suddenly put in a crazy new position, where you see how the creator thinks they would act. Here all we know is "what if Lucy had technology, and was really careful?" and the answer is she would use technology to be very careful. That's it! that's all there fucking is!

OK, here is my challenge to the xkcd fans: TELL ME WHY THE FUCK YOU LIKED THIS, or admit that you didn't. And no cheating by saying it wasn't supposed to be funny! it obviously was supposed to be.



what will happen for comic 666??????? maybe: nothing! has he ever done anything special for a certain numbered comic? 404 doesn't count, he didn't post it.

Book Review: "Worst Song, Played on Ugliest Guitar" - Achewood Volume II

Achewood is not like any other webcomic. There is something about it that makes most of its fans - myself included - completely obsessed with it, always trying to read as much as possible about its universe, and rereading the archives on a regular basis. If you ask us why, we will usually say something about characters.

Achewood's characters are unlike anything else in the world of webcomics. Not only does he revel in having them interact with each other, seeing just how their own personalities and speech patterns work with each other and in different situations. For example, when Lyle gives adorable five-year-old Phillipe his copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook, Phillipe does exactly the "right" thing for his character. You read it and you go yes! that is exactly what Phillipe would do!

Chris Onstad is basically obsessed with the world of Achewood. He freakin wrote blogs for all the characters for years. He managed 12 blogs. TWELVE. And they were filled with just more and more conversations between the characters. Here's a Thanksgiving one from a few years back. Here's another, non-thanksgiving one. He wrote a cookbook in the voice of all his characters, and when that wasn't enough, he wrote another one.

All of this is to say that when the second official Achewood book came out (but in many ways the first one doesn't count, so this new one is the first one) no one should be surprised that it is chock full of character stories.

The comics themselves are things we've all seen before - starting with the first comic and taking us up through this one - though not every comic from the period is included. Unlike the Great Outdoor Fight book, it does include alt-texts [as an aside, the alt-texts are included in small type underneath each comic, leading me again to wonder why the xkcd book needed to stick its alt texts in random places and at random angles between panels. Also, the title of each comic is included, something I thought xkcd should have done to help organization].

Note: color comics have been rendered in black and white. It isn't a big deal - there are only, by my count, six color comics in this period, and you can't notice that anything is missing if you don't know what it's supposed to look like - but when the titles are things like Color Monday! it does make it pretty obvious.

Most comics have comments below them, some of which are rather trivial but many of which are pretty interesting for Achewood obsessives like me (and, as I said in the beginning, nearly every Achewood fan is an Achewood obsessive). In addition, this map is reproduced on the title page, and these two are inside the front and back covers. They look damn classy there.

But of course, for those of us who have read all these early comics so many times, the real excitement is the new writing. There are no new comics, but there's a Prologue, featuring a regular day's conversation between Onstad, Ray, and Roast Beef, and there's "A History Of Achewood," explaining just how it is that Phillipe, Cornelius Bear, Téodor, and Lyle ended up living with Onstad. So committed to his world is Onstad, and so aware of this fact are his readers, that we don't think twice when the introduction is missing all the usual introductory stuff - "So here's how I started this comic, then I got famous, now I got a book, thanks for buying it" - but just goes head on into how these stuffed animals came into his life. And it feels right.

What's a little different - but by no means problematic - is that Onstad takes a much more active role in their stories than he usually does in the comic. We know that those characters live in his house, and he made occasional appearances in the early comics, but for the most part, he's faded away. Perhaps it is because these are early comics, but it doesn't feel wrong to have him take this role. In any case, what we all read for is the animals, and we get plenty of that (for example, here's Téodor: "I'm just trying to keep blood out of the food. It imparts an iron taste").

Lastly, a note on organization: The comics are not quite presented in order. Instead, it cuts the 8 month series in half, and reverses the two halves. This actually makes a great deal of sense. The very early comics are a bit random and strange, and take a while to get used to. There are no recurring stories, and the characters aren't really very consistent yet. In fact, Ray and Roast Beef aren't even around. It's fitting, then, that the book puts those first comics at the end (under the title "Before we were Achewood") and starts with the comic that introduced the cats. The "History" segment is also split up, starting at the beginning of the book, continuing between "Achewood" and "Pre-Achewood," and then putting the last installment at the end. It's a clever way to make the book feel like it has more content.

It takes a while for people to get into Achewood (it took me three tries before I realized how much I loved this comic), and many of them may have an easier time with both the print format and the fact that it starts out past all the strange early comics. And of course, Achewood fans will love the book, and will likely take a very long time to get tired of these comics, no matter how often you read them. But then again, Achewood fans already knew that.

Worst Song, Played on Ugliest Guitar: Achewood Volume II is 136 pages, hardcover, and $15.95. Note: xkcd: volume 0 was paperback and costs $18 ($35 for the signed copy!)