2014-07-13

XKCD Isn't Funny - 1394 - SUPERM*N

http://xkcd.com/1394/
 
First thing: That title is terrible. I've never brought up a title before and I don't think I ever will again since it obviously has no bearing on the actual comic, but seriously: "Superm*n". I get that it's supposed to be able to stand for 'superman' or 'supermoon', but there's no real reason that it needs to do that, unless 'SUPERMAN' and 'SUPERMOON' have already been used as titles for some reason.
 

As a joke, it's something I can see the thought process behind, and I can understand why he thought it would be funny. It's not like the blatantly preachy #1390 or the almost dadaist #1388. Supermoons are really only slightly closer than normal moons, but people make a big deal out of them, so what if you applied the same idea to other things? That's a decent premise for a joke, although obviously not one you could use more than once. Superman even makes sense as the target of the application, being recognizable and strong.
 
I can't really fault him on topicality, a quick Google search shows that supermoons have been in the news a decent amount lately. I can fault him on expecting the reader to know exactly what he's talking about: All of the news articles I read had a 'oh, look, the moon's big! cool!' vibe to them, not the 'jesus christ you morons, it's only 7%' tone the comic would seem to indicate. If something explaining that had been included as setup, the joke would have been understandable.
 
On the other hand, according to CNN*, the most recent supermoon (as of time of writing) appeared "14% bigger and 30% brighter", which seems to me like a notable thing. If it was "5% bigger and 7% bigger", I could absolutely understand a "Why do you even care?"-type response, but as it stands, the moon appearing more than a tenth bigger and more than a fourth brighter seems worthy of mention.
 
Maybe Randy just has a secret hipster geek news source I'm just totally unaware of that has a radically different perspective on things, but as things stand right now, this comic looks inadequately explained and possibly factually wrong.
 
 
 
*I'm aware that CNN has a history of being inaccurate at times. If the statistics they gave were wrong, please direct me to a more accurate article.

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