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...