Friday 29 April 2011

Comic 892: Null and Void

Alt-text: Hell, my eighth grade science class managed to conclusively reject it just based on a classroom experiment. It's pretty sad to hear about million-dollar research teams who can't even manage that.
It's a dumb joke. Randall knows it's dumb but went with it anyway, maybe hoping to get a slightly amused groan out of people. No doubt the forums are laughing uproariously at it. Let's take a little look, shall we?

I wouldn't have appreciated it much a year ago, but I've studied so much statistics lately that it's hilarious.

If nothing else, it should shut up the "remember when xkcd was funny?" crowd. Assuming they're part of the target demographic of this particular one.


Thank you, Alltat. Remember folks, if you study a subject, then any joke about that subject automatically becomes funny because then you are in the target demographic. If you've studied so much statistics that you know what a null hypothesis is, this comic is hilarious.

Just as an aside, it occurred to me that maybe Randall is actually married with a child, and Megan is his wife. That might be his family he's drawn up there. I can't find anything to contradict that possibility....

JON LEVI'S BINGO TIME!

What does echochamber produce for us today?


Not too much. I suspect Jon was happy to see that...

Wednesday 27 April 2011

Comic 891: Randall gets old

Alt-text: If you're 15 or younger, then just remember that it's nevertheless probably too late to be a child prodigy.

So Randall has completely copied the concept of an earlier comic, made it into a chart with popular movies, and gone back to masturbating. In fact, the only reaction I got out of this was with the 'Snakes On A Plane' one. Five years ago, really? Doesn't make me feel old though.

Given the recent burst of nostalgia and self-reference to past comics, it seems as though Randall has entered into a quarter-life crisis. He has dropped into the existential funk that some people seem prone to and, at 26, has realised he is not a child anymore. He can celebrate his ball pits and his quirkiness all he wants, but his slowly decaying body will drag him into reality even as he sobs and screams like an infant.

There isn't really much else to say. It's a tired concept. It's another shitty chart. It's dull.

That is all.

JON LEVI'S BINGO TIME!

Our first instance of xkcd forum bingo!





And it's close! No-one disliked this comic? Madness!

Monday 25 April 2011

Comic 890: Star Wars sucks

Alt-text: For some reason, my childhood suspension of disbelief had no problem with the fact that this ancient galaxy is full of humans, but was derailed by language. There's no Asia OR Europe there, so where'd they get all the Indo-European roots?
I'm ambivalent about the artwork of this comic. Given the context that this is a Star Wars scene, the character's haircuts are indeed enough to identify them. Without that context, however, you may well conclude that a guy holding a bearded head on a stick is talking to a guy sitting on a giant furry chair.

Actually, scratch the ambivalence - that first panel is terrible.

The joke itself is par for the course, in that it makes little sense and isn't funny. The garbage in the alt-text about Indo-European roots is simply a convoluted way of saying 'aliens shouldn't be able to speak English'. Obviously he can't say it like that, otherwise the shallow tiredness of the point becomes very, very apparent.

Star Wars is basically a fairy story - it's not 'hard' sci-fi and it doesn't pretend to be. Complaining about the language would be like complaining about noise in space, or ships moving as if in an atmosphere, or any of the tired old bullshit pulled out by nerds with nothing better to do. Everyone knows it's for the sake of convenience and allowing the story to be told, and no-one wants to be bogged down in explanations about why we can understand what's going on.

Also, Randall manages to put together a situation that doesn't make sense. If Luke hasn't heard the word 'falcon' before, wouldn't he just assume it was a name? Why would he ask what it was?

Anyway, if you want an insightful look into why Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and other nerd favourites are terrible stories, go and read Nick Lowe's brilliant article.

BINGO TIME!

Thanks once again to Jon Levi.

 
To prove his sanity, Jon has taken to ticking off the boxes in the most carefully regimented way possible. His psychopathy knows no bounds.

Friday 22 April 2011

Comic 889: Ceci n'est pas une tortue

Alt-text: You're a turtle!

I'm almost at a loss for words.

Let's start with the 'artwork'. Rather shockingly, Randall didn't copy and paste five panels, he instead drew five appalling, tiny renditions of a turtle. And that is the entirety of the artwork. Five centimetre-long turtles.

The alt-text is another reference to an older comic, and the final panel seems rather reminiscent of this comic, only massively reduced in impact. What is up with the self-references recently?

As for the actual content, there's no hiding it at all – this is a stoner comic. There is no way to read this and not think 'Randall got toasted and stared at a turtle for two hours'. He desperately tries to cling on to the idea that this is a nerd comic by the 'I deleted a file!' line, but he's fooling no-one.

I think Red Dwarf sums up the message of this comic rather nicely, so it's quote time:

LISTER: At some point in their lives, most people wish they were someone else. This is going back years, years, before the accident. Kochanski had just finished with me, and I was feeling really pony. So I went for a walk in the botanical gardens, and I saw this squirrel, climbing up and down the tree collecting nuts. And it stopped, and it looked at me, and I thought: "You lucky little sod -- you like your job, you're your own boss, and you've got no woman trouble, so you'll never feel as bad as I feel now. And at that moment, I mean for a split second, I would have given anything -- _anything_ -- to swap places with him.

CAT: Ah, that's awful, man. When a woman screws you up so bad you want to become a squirrel.
BINGO TIME!

Thanks once again to Jon Levi for covering for me!

As you can see by the wavering red lines, there is something clearly wrong with Jon's mental state.

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Comic 888: Tetris Porn

Alt-text: If you've never had sex, this is what it feels like. Complete with the brief feeling of satisfaction, followed by ennui, followed by getting bored and trying to make it happen again.

Another self-referential comic. This time it's a corollary to one that wasn't completely terrible. This one isn't utterly terrible either. It gets the point across, it's reasonably drawn, it even has colour. It's not funny in any way and no-one gives this much of a shit about Tetris (well, maybe this guy), but at least I didn't have to read a novel's worth of boring crap. It would get a passing grade...

...until I read the alt-text. Given that this is Randy, the comparison he makes is probably serious. It brings with it a veritable storm of questions. What form of sex Randall has partaken in to compare it to Tetris? Has he only had really awful sex, or does he like Tetris way too much? Is he suggesting that he has only had sex once, and is still trying to make it happen again, just like in his impossible Tetris scenario? How perfectly does he know his audience, to start the sentence with 'If you've never had sex before'? How difficult was it for me not to write a Megdall fanfic?

You have no idea.

BINGO TIME!

Thanks again to Jon Levi!


Even if he did try to cheat for a double bingo.

Monday 18 April 2011

Comic 887: Not even references

Alt-text: Not shown: the approximately 30,000 identical, vaguely hysterical articles titled "WHITE PEOPLE IN [THE US/BRITAIN] TO BECOME MINORITY BY [YEAR]!", which came up for basically any year I put in.

Oh fucking hell, another list, and it'll take you seven hours to read it! Of course Randall's insistence on hand-drawing this shit means it's an ugly, error-ridden mess, and this time he couldn't even be bothered with any form of graphics. And he ends it on a Zero Wing reference? Tell you what, I'll summarise the whole thing for you just so you don't have to read it:

- People on the internet make crazy claims about the future, don't they?
- ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

If you do read it, you'll probably find something on there mildly amusing just through the sheer volume. It won't be worth the hassle, trust me. Walk away.

BINGO TIME!

Incredibly late, but it's here.

  Too much talk of Subnormality to get a real bingo-friendly thread going.

Friday 15 April 2011

Comic 886: References

Alt-text: $1600 / 1386153BR 3BATH, MODERN SLIDING DOORS, GUEST ROOMS, GARBAGE DISPOSAL. FREE MANDATORY PARKING (ENFORCED). CONVENIENT TO ALDERAAN.

Oh. for fuck's sake. Don't bother with artwork in your webcomic, Randall, just put up a list of fucking nerd references. That'll do great.

Fine. I'll play your shitty game.

  • So the alt-text is the easiest - that's the Death Star. Hell, the little '3 bathroom' joke is almost funny.
  • The first one is a cat lady reference, I guess? Not really nerdish, though. Wonder why he put that in?
  • I guess the spammed square house one is a garage? Haha, you can't trust craigslist! GOOMH Randall, I was thinking that too!
  • No floor and strobe light, with multiple exclamation marks? No idea.
  • Viking one is a slave ship, I assume. The water and heat dispenser joke is probably the funniest one there. That's right, the piss and poop joke is the best one there.
  • 'Klein stairs'? No idea again.
  • Trimmed carpet one is a 'craigslist is for sex' joke. It's passable, I guess.
  • Minotaur one is the Labyrinth on Crete. Hahaha! Mythology! I like mythology too! Hahahaha!
  • Pripyat one is a Chernobyl joke, right after the Japanese earthquake. Classy, Randall, classy.
  • Submarine joke is the worst of them all. Randall realised he couldn't suggest it was a submarine well enough, so he just fucking writes 'IS A SUBMARINE'.
  • Last one is probably a Shining reference, or just generic horror. Dull.

So there's two I don't recognise. Let's pop into the forums to see if they've worked it out, shall we?

"Happy to see a House of Leaves reference."

House of Leaves? Not read it, but I'll guess it's the Klein stairs one. Klein geometry, maybe?

"Anyone else feel like half of these are houses in Minecraft? I mean, square house, door in front..."

Yes, of course! Everything is about Minecraft!

"what's with the no-floor apartment? You just enter and fall forever???"

Useful.

"The only one I don't get is the hammock one. The one about Pripyat got the biggest laugh out of me, but that's just because I've got the weirdest sense of humor ever."

Ugh.

"Aha! I finally get a chance to have a "Get Out Of My Head Randall" moment!
I just moved in to a new place."


...

"There's that "Get the hell out of my head, Randall" moment I've been wanting. I just moved into a new place last week and one was found through a friend, so I avoided the whole Craigslist nightmare."

...

Kill me now.

BINGO TIME!

Many thanks to Jon Levi for doing bingo this time!


A winding down after the bingo before, it seems...

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Comic 885: Paranoia

Alt-text: And given how much of my stuff they go through, they definitely know where I live.

...and now we can add 'paranoia' to that growing list of neuroses that define Randall so completely. We'll skip over just how poorly that conveyor belt is drawn and just dig right into the singular, startlingly obvious flaw in the comic:

Why does Randall think his recycling will get to the centre in its own little batch?

It would be like thinking that your rubbish gets put into its own little compartment in the dumptruck, or that the CIA are recording every phone call you make (it's only like 5% or so).

It is ludicrous thinking, but Randall has allowed his ego and his fear to rule over simple logic. Why is he worried about his recycling? Because it represents his connection to the social mores of his world. He does not recycle for the sake of efficiency or the reduction of overall consumption, he recycles because it connects him to the community around him. It signals to the world that he, Randall Munroe, is an upstanding citizen of the world.

But as with every empty gesture of conformity, he fears the outcomes of his actions. He worries that some small oversight has given him away, has laid bare his hollow lies. And worse, his ego does not permit the idea that no-one cares for his recycling, so every day that truck comes round he must sit and fret over what people will think of him, unaware that his recycling goes unnoticed amongst the compacted waste around it.

We may hate Randall for his amateurish 'art', but we must not forget how difficult life must be for a man so crippled with psychological flaws. To paraphrase a great robot:

He is not guilty of anything other than being Randall Patrick Munroe.

That is his crime.

It is also his punishment.

BINGO TIME!

Well, this time bingo is for two comics: 884 and 885. Let's see how we did:

 
Well, as always it was... wait what?

Is that...?

Bingo?

BINGO BINGO HOLY FUCK BINGO!

HURRAH!

Well done to all those who contributed. Your predictability adds another couple of drops of ego to the vast vat of my narcissism.

Check after the jump to see the relevant posts.

Monday 11 April 2011

Comic 884: Porn names and nostalgia

Alt-text: We can also use middle names in place of first pet's names, but yours is something incomprehensible about dropping tables.

First things first - the joke is about the 'algorithm' used to create your porno/stripper name, which is:

Porn name = name of first pet + street you grew up on.

For instance, if you had a pet killer whale named 'John' while you were growing up on Holmes Street, your porn name would be 'John Holmes'.

Secondly, if like me you didn't grow up in the US, Mr Rogers was a soft-spoken, well-loved children's entertainer, and 'a symbol of compassion, patience and morality'. This was despite having the comically villainous middle name 'McFeely'.

It appears Randy's been on a bit of a nostalgia trip, because both of these references are pretty damn old. Even his alt-text is a nostalgic, self-referential look back to what is probably one of Randy's favourite comics. While he manages not to explicitly scream out his references, he's probably confused half of his audience with this comic simply because they don't know what the hell he's on about.

That alt-text also means the character depicted here, Randy's hypothetical child, is a guy. Not easy to spot given that the only clue to identity in xkcd is hairstyles.

This whole comic seems quite broody and nostalgic. I'm not sure why he specifies the Rogers Street near Somerville, where he lives, but it adds to that feel while horribly mangling that sentence. Does Randall want to start a family? Is he going through a quarter-life crisis, or existential angst over his mortality brought on by recent events?

Probably.

The worst part of this comic is obviously the fact that swarms of idiot fanboys are going to descend on that street like a plague of giant sweaty locusts.

Friday 8 April 2011

Comic 883: Pain

Alt text: If it were a two or above I wouldn't be able to answer because it would mean a pause in the screaming.

I recently found an interesting interview with Randall recently, and though a number of things he says slap you across the face, this one quote really stuck out for me:

CA (Interviewer): It reminds me of what Scott McCloud says in "Understanding Comics" about how the simpler the drawings are, the easier it can be for the reader to project themselves into them.

RM: Yeah, it's like Scott Adams never giving Dilbert's boss a name.


Think about that for a second. Is the interviewer's statement actually related to the fact Dilbert's boss never gets named? Why is everyone else named in Dilbert?

Look at this quote as well:

RM: A lot of times the idea of a comic will be, "Wouldn't it be cool if you..." But instead of doing it, I'll draw a comic about it. Like the rollercoaster chess thing – I really wanted to do that. But then I realized, I didn't really want to do it; I wanted to tell the story of having done it.

He skims so close to saying it outright, but he never does. He never quite tells us that xkcd is his little dreamland. That's why he never draws faces - if he drew actual features, he could not project himself and his fantasy figures into the comic. And if he tried to draw himself, well then, he would have to admit that xkcd is his happy place, his hidey-hole. His Sonichu.

So what does this imply about this comic? It implies that Randall wants to act out this scenario at the hospital next time he is asked to rate his pain. Not that he thinks this could happen to someone, not just that he thinks it's funny to take the situation to it's logical extreme, he wants to act this out. He wants to be asked the question, then act scared and say 'one'. He wants someone to comment on how his imagination is 'not normal'. He wants people to think that he's a zany, interesting, deep and thoughtful character.

But he's too scared to do it in reality, because he knows from experience that he will not get the response he desires. So he bottles up his little flights of fancy and casts them out into the ocean of the internet, and in the dark abyssal depths of this ocean it finds its way to his fellows, his companions in fear, who swim in ugly little droves.

And what is it they fear? They fear that will not be known, that the knowledge they have gathered, the towering intellect they believe they have built brick by painstaking brick, will not be acknowledged. That in their introverted little world, no-one will see that they are zany, interesting, deep and thoughtful.

So they read Randall's little missive to the world, and recognition bursts like fire in their minds. In those blank, circular voids they see themselves. It is zany, they think. It is clever, they believe.

But no! This is not their work! Someone else lays claim to it! Someone else, they think, is claiming territory that belongs to them! And around them others have that light of recognition in their eyes! So they rush and clamour like scavengers to claim a little morsel of zaniness.

Get out of my head, Randall! I was just thinking this!

Just like in my favorite show!

Of course, if they'd done it like this...

Here is an anecdote about the pain scale that I've been dying to tell people...

As a real doctor, I understand this completely.

But what to do with Randall, the source, the lone feeder of their malnourished egos? What to do with the one person that you cannot score points from without risk of damaging yourself? Where do you place the person to whom you have submitted yourself entirely?

At the top, of course, at the very top.

Godhood.



BINGO TIME!

Let's have a look:


So close! And despite reams of inane bullshit, no-one lost their cool and told everyone to shut up. We can only dream of what might have been...

Wednesday 6 April 2011

Comic 882: SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM

Alt-text: So, we did the study again and found no link. It was probably a --' 'RESEARCH CONFLICTED ON GREEN JELLY BEAN/ACNE LINK; MORE STUDY RECOMMENDED'

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?

WHAT THE FUCK?

IMAGE SPAMMING? YOU ARE FUCKING IMAGE SPAMMING ME, YOU FUCKING CUNT?

WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT ADD? WHY DOES THE FUCKING CONVERSATION IN THE FIRST THREE FUCKING PANELS MAKE NO SENSE? ARE THEY MEANT TO SAY 'GREEN JELLY BEANS' THERE OR JUST JELLY BEANS YOU KNOW WHAT I DON'T EVEN FUCKING CARE I REFUSE TO LOOK AT THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT ANY MORE.

FUCK EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING.

BINGO TIME!

It seems that people decided to post misunderstandings of statistical theory rather than proper, decent posts about Rob's obesity and his half-arsed reviews.


 
This was a rubbish effort.

STATISTICAL FACT.

BONUS BINGO INFO!

Here are some bingo stats, just for you!


So what does this mean?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Monday 4 April 2011

Comic 881: To hate or not to hate

Alt-text: My normal approach is useless here, too.
So we arrive at this comic straight after April Fools. This has to be the most personal strip Randall has put out, assuming it's related to previous comics. It's also a pretty good effort at 'show, don't tell', despite the terrible-as-usual artwork (the freaky hand around his stick-waist is a little disturbing, and they appear to be sitting on a desk). But we are used to such things now.

I can't bring myself to hate this one, so I guess I haven't spent enough time on the 'net. Sure, there is a hint of playing for sympathy from someone else's illness, but if this whole deal is happening to a close friend relative, then fair enough, he's allowed sympathy. True, he doesn't have the grit, heart or eloquence of Terry Pratchett or Christopher Hitchens, but then again they are dealing with their own illnesses, not someone else's.

I don't like this comic. I wouldn't share it with people who have or have had cancer. I don't relate to it as someone who has had friends and family diagnosed with cancer. But if a carer drew this and showed it to me, I wouldn't hate it. I would just see it as a little bit of self-expression. I just wish he hadn't made it public, is all.

Anyway, if you want hate you'll probably have to wait and see what Rob pulls together. I doubt he'll pass up such a glorious opportunity to troll.

BINGO TIME!

Not as good a showing, despite two threads and over two hundred comments.


I'm surprised there was no 'Why do you read xkcd?' or 'I am leaving FOREVER'. Oh well.

Friday 1 April 2011

Comic 880: Randall's April Fools

Alt-text: I'm only willing to visit placid lakes, salt flats, and painting exhibits until the world's 3D technology improves.
Well, Randall's shitty art style actually gives him a leg up in his April Fools joke. The 3D program that he got someone to write adds absolutely nothing to his comics, and in fact makes most of them far worse. Just like in the films! Seriously, if that had been the main gist of this comic, it would've got a passing grade. Ragging on 3D effects is by no means a new joke, but this satirical execution is fairly clever and original.

But no, that isn't the main joke of the comic. Instead it's this 'haha, the real world is in 3D too!' bullshit. It's the sort of asinine observation you hear when with a group of friends at the cinema. Someone will put on the glasses, look around the lobby and say 'wow, everything's in 3D!", someone else will slap them down and we all get on with our lives. It's a bad joke even in a context where bad jokes are tolerated.

So Randall decides to base a comic on it.

Never mind. On a more positive note, this is yet another of his recent comics in which he rejects Megan. Has he accepted that he will never have her, and the comics are balancing out as a result? Or is it going to descend into violent, internet-based nerd rage against her? I know which one I'm hoping for.

BINGO TIME!

48 comments and 8 squares

 
That was a sterling effort for such a small comment thread, and all because Rob wrote a standard 'review'.