2014-08-06

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1404 - QUANTUM VACUUM VIRTUAL PLASMA


The dialogue in this one is surprisingly good for XKCD. The second panel is pushing it, but it's not that incredibly blunt, almost wikipedian dialogue that we see in #1330, #1345, or any of the preachy comics. It still doesn't read completely naturally, but it's fantastic compared to the usual level of verbal realism XKCD has.

Sadly, in this case, the comic's best quality is also its worst. The dialogue could probably pass as part of, say, an early-ish comic from Questionable Content if you replaced all the science with obscure music references, but it would only be as the leadup to the actual punchline, with the C+ "If you put 20 kilowatts into me..." joke left in the second panel because Jeph couldn't think of a better bit to use before getting to the good part.

I appreciate the attempt at the double punchline with "I might be.", but if the first joke was a C+, that's a D. That kind of thing really does depend on having a character with more personality to hold it up, in this case a wacky or sarcastic archetype; "You don't know what I get up to, I could be under strange physics conditions, you just haven't seen me do it.".

That last line bugs me a lot, though; "I guess we can't be sure.". While the rest of the third panel was all in reference to the same thing, that line (according to explainxkcd) is in reference to the fact that science will always have 'blind spots' where it just doesn't know the answer to something. This comes out of left field, especially considering that the rest of the comic was pretty much self contained.

Given the subject matter, I'm more aware than usual that I could be entirely wrong with everything I've typed. Please tell me down in the comments what I might or might not have messed up.

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