XKCD Isn't Funny - #1975 - Right Click

There's a game called The Last Guardian, and while I don't know jack crap about programming I've been told it's very impressive from a programming perspective. However, in Previously Recorded's review of the game, they not exasperatedly:

"...they spent six years making this fucking dog, and nobody made an interesting game to go with the dog."

And that's more or less how I feel about this comic. (If you're confused, click the comic to go to xkcd.com, then right click the comic there.) I am genuinely impressed that Randall managed to organize a weird drop-down menu thing within what seems like a normal comic at first. It does also seem like he put a lot of work into making a large number of branching paths. (Although, at time of writing, many of them do lead to dead-ends of one kind or another)

I think that most people, the first time they right-clicked, went to the top-most option first. So, "File" -> "Close", and then that very first button (at time of writing) doesn't do anything. Which, fair enough, it's just "Close", I'm sure the next one will be better. So then most people will probably go "File" -> "Open" -> "A:/" -> "Insert a disc into drive A" -> "Floppy disc" ...which also doesn't do anything. The "Chip card" option under "A:/" does lead to something, but it feels like a 90's-era 'computers are hard to use' joke. After "A:/" comes "C:/", and since "Documents" also doesn't lead anywhere, the first actual joke is in "Music", which turns out to just be a slightly expanded version of #851. I think this setup will give a lot of people a really weak first impression of this comic, which does have actual good parts in it.

It's also worth noting that in this expanded version of #851, two of the 'endings' link back to previous XKCDs, and one links to not the official music video of "Absolutely (Story Of A Girl)" or a funny joke song using the intro to that song, but just someone's random upload of the song.

Really the only section that I think is enhanced by the comic's format is the "Games" section, which includes "Rock Paper Scissors" (where you always lose), "Twenty Questions" (which has jokes instead of an individual answer for each path but I'm not going to hold that against it since that'd be 1,048,576 unique paths), "D&D" (which seems to have mostly broken paths but its still a funny idea), and "ADVENT.EXE" (which did actually give me a genuine sense of accomplishment when I won, even if it was half by luck).

A few other things worthy of note:

"Sequences" is literally just a transcription of an Adult Swim promo.

The "Bookmarks" folder appears to be almost entirely links to previous XKCD comics, for some reason. I do really like how "Secret" leads to "Enable Dark Web", which adds a "Do Crimes" option to the main directory (the first crime is "Say Swears"! Hee!). But then that just leads to more XKCD links for some reason. Randall! You already have a comic archive!!

The "Check Space Usage" sub-directory includes "Dark Matter", "Hydrogen", and "Helium", which comes off as less unoriginal than it actually is due to the comic's format working naturally as a setup.

"Music" -> "Hey now" -> "Hey now na now" -> "Sing 'This Corrosion' to me" inverts the comic's colors, which means that there was the potential for more interactivity between the comic and the different filepaths. This means that there is NO EXCUSE having the "); DROP TABLE Menus;--" just link back to #327 instead of having some hilarious system error thing happen.

I do understand that this was intended specifically as an April Fool's Day comic, and that a few problems I have with it (the number of dead-ends, the jokes that are just links back to previous XKCDs) are likely a result of a lack of time. I also understand that the joke is more the presentation than the actual content. However, I'm someone who likes his dancing bears to dance well, thank you very much, and I have enough faith in Randall to believe that he could have made something that was both novel and entertaining, rather than just novel.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1948 - Campaign Fundraising Emails

I understand that mimicking the Gmail format is part of the joke, but I've been conditioned over the years to not even read the bold parts unless I'm looking for something in particular. I look at this comic and my eyes just glaze over. It's just a big wall of text, the kind that I read comics to procrastinate having to interact with in the first place!

Aside from the GODAWFUL choice of presentation, the comic is eh. Not actually terrible, but not anything above a D+. I really, really like the idea of a Nigerian Prince sending out a campaign email, but it's just one disconnected line that's not even lead up to. A few other lines aren't bad - 'Doom' and 'Outrageous' are pretty good - but overall things just fall flat. 'Wow', the second subjectless one, and 'They say we can't win' are just uninspired and kill any potential momentum to the overall joke-flow.

And another thing, why is this coming out now? I understand that there are elections going on all the time, but it's not really campaigning season. This really seems like a comic that would be best deployed when the campaign cycle is in a fuller swing. Not that jokes have to be topical, but still, it's weird.

Also for the record I do know that there have been a few campaign ads released but 1. most of those were during the Super Bowl, which was after this comic came out and 2. they were for losers nobody cares about. Sorry to Jonathan Lamb if you're reading this but your name is stupid and you're not gonna be president.

XKCD Could Be Improved Somewhat - #1945 - Paper Graph Quality

Hey, XKCD finally reached the "WWII" milestone! We've just killed Hitler! Wooo!!!

Speaking of things to be happy about, I don't hate this one! As always I'm obligated to point out his hypocrisy in failing to give labels to the axises, and graph jokes are always a little bit lazy, but c'mon have you SEEN Nintendo's 2003 E3 presentation? This is something that deserves to be mocked.

Now obviously this would be better with some visual accompaniment. However, I came up with a simple fix that brings this comic from 'passable' to 'brilliant', without any visuals at all. First, shrink down the 'era' marker to the mid-2000s, it's more accurate. The line should still be rising up toward the end. Then, right at the end of that era, have a marker that says "web cartoonists discover graph jokes", and the line goes down again. It'd be AMAZING.

Pedants may say that webcartoons don't count as scientific papers, but I'll have you know that I go to college and -I swear this is true- I've seen XKCD chart comics as part of official class lessons no less than THREE TIMES. So stick that in your [noun] and [verb] it, pedants!

Oh, and the line should go down directly after the 'PowerPoint/MS Paint Era' thing begins, not before. And the line should be a more rapid decline, like the inverse of this:

It makes the correlation, and by extension, the comic, clearer and therefore funnier. 

In conclusion, I'm looking forward to the Cold War over the course of the next few strips. Если вы потратили время, чтобы перевести это, я люблю вас, comrades!

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1936 - Desert Golfing

Happy New Year, everybody! And speaking of years, XKCD finally has enough comics that if each one was a year, we'd be in WWII! Just in time for WWIII!!! Heh heh heh nahhh forreal though good on Randy for making enough of these that by the end of the year he'll have hit the current year in strip number count.

I am a fan of the old "that was a year ago!" etc -type jokes, since I'm a fan of dad jokes in general. Unfortunately, I think that the presentation kinda obscures the joke.

The first three panels should be shrunk down, to at least half their size, probably a third. We just need to see that the guy is playing the game from before the new years midnight to after new years midnight. Drawing it out over three full panels makes the reader focus on the game, which is the least important part of the comic from a humor standpoint. Especially with the double name-drop, in the dialogue and the title, it makes the comic come off like an ad.

One sec, I'll do a quick mockup to show how I think the formatting could have been done better:

Now I know you're all in awe of my amazing image editing skills, but hold that for a moment. You see how speeding up the setup makes the punchline seem better? (Whether or not the punchline itself is funny is irrelevant to this particular point)

The added countdown in panel 2 also adds some missing context. (I'd have written out 'Happy New Year' but I don't have the humor sans font downloaded.) We all understand it now, 'cause of it being the new year and all, but in five weeks someone who's only just now seeing the comic will see it unmoored from time, and they'll be all confused and stuff (until the last panel but they'll still have to do like a double-take thingy)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: apparently the iTunes paypal gift card thing doesn't work for all countries, so I'm doing an Amazon gift card this time, and the code is "JJM5-RDB63J-Y3AB". I thiiiink that will work, as long as you use the "amazon.com" address instead of .co.uk or .fr or .etc. Regardless, I hope you all had a good New Year's Eve, and that you have a good 2018. <3

XKCD Could Be Improved Somewhat - #1902 - State Borders

Actually, the way to fix boarders would be to eliminate them entirely. Smash the state!!

Best, Karl Marx

I'm okay with this one! It's a good concept for a comic, especially since I think we've all had that thought about the bump on top of Missouri or Alaska's tail. Rhode Island doesn't need to be bigger, though, just saying, size doesn't matter.

The problem with this joke, which isn't a big problem but it is still a problem, is the empty space. Traditionally, this kind of joke relies on there being a lot of things to laugh at, so even if one isn't that funny, you can laugh at another. With this map, there are nine whole states that aren't touched at all, and more that are only touched a little bit. There's definitely more that could be fixed, like for instance, the ugly Idaho-Montana boarder.

It seems kinda weird to me that there'd be that "good curve! keep." line off of Georgia, but no other comments on the coastlines, when getting mad at coastlines is inherently funnier than getting mad at man-made social-construct boarders. Plus, there's plenty of design-flaw material there, like how the fourth island of Hawaii should be brought into the curve established by the first three islands.

There's also just a little missed opportunity about the plot. Wouldn't it have been fun to see the graphic designers about to unveil their list of demands, and everyone's all scared there's gonna be fascism (cause fascism's bad), but then they reveal the map and we hear the crowd's reaction like "...oh, that's not so bad." / "Finally, someone's focusing on the real issues!" / etc. That could just be me, though. What do YOU think???

In conclusion, I looked it up, and it turns out that Missouri's bump was actually the result of an incorrectly plotted map, so we can all blame John Mitchell.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1722 - Debugging & #1723 - Meteorite Identification

I'm really on board with the concept of this one, but I think something's lost in having it all described to an audience surrogate. I wish we got a shot of him crawling through a dark tunnel, and in his mouth there's a piece of paper with an IP address written on it in blood, something like that. The sword of Martin The Warrior sounds important, shouldn't it get some kind of actual buildup?

Also, that 'long story short' is bullshit. It reminds me of how amateur fanfiction writers will use the word "somehow" to mean "i couldn't think of an explanation but i wanted it to happen anyway". Half the fun of the joke is the transition from boring tech speak to exciting archaeological (?) discovery, and that takes that away.

That last line by White Hat is totally unnecessary as well, it's just spelling out what's supposed to be funny. The correct reaction would be "...wait, what?".

To steal a joke from Jon Levi, I'm not mad with this comic, I'm just disappointed. This was such a cool idea for a comic and we end up with this bland, nondescript, and non-descriptive 6/10.

I'm gonna get killed by getting hit by a meteorite just to spite this comic.

For real though, who has been so personally affected by people who think rocks are meteorites? That's the only group I can think of that would enjoy this comic. I feel insulted on behalf of people that expected an actual joke out of XKCD on the day this went up; instead, they got lectured that they should give up that hope of ever seeing a meteorite.

That interpretation is probably too harsh but this comic still consists of nothing than "You have not seen a meteorite" and it's like fuck you man! I saw one on Monk once!

I actually considered heading to the American Museum Of Natural History where they apparently have meteorites on display, but that's a three hour trip each way and I ain't got that time to give away, sorry. I drew a rough replica of what the blog would have looked like if I'd done that, tho:

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1708 - Dehydration & #1709 - Inflection

I don't hate the joke in this one. I can appreciate the irony that someone heavily researching water would forget to hydrate. That said, the execution is pretty first-draft.

I know that XKCD is supposed to be minimalist and stuff, but that still doesn't excuse the dialogue in panel one. Who talks like that!? It sounds like someone reading the first line of an autopsy report, it's so clinical and precise. I'd submit it for a Bulwer-Lytton, if it wasn't also so boring.

Then a bunch of people chime in on this BORING conversation and I know it's just a joke comic strip but if you actually read it it's not good.

I am okay with panel three, that gets a pass from me. The laptop/book/whatever in her hand is a nice touch, even if it does disappear a second later.

The final panel has an okay punchline, but then follows it up with three post-punchline things. The first one, okay, that's a reasonable thing to say to a dehydrated person. The second, ehhh, if it's going to be a final punchline it should be moved to a new final panel. The last line is just completely unnecessary and not funny and doesn't make sense even. Have you ever tried drinking water straight from the tap? It's hard, you pretty much just get your lips wet at best. At worst, you just waterboard yourself.

I saw this joke in screenshotted tweet form on tumblr about a year ago, and it didn't have all that boring linguistic stuff in the front.

And if you're going to put two big-ass blocks of text about linguistics in front of a punchline, can it at least be assumed that the reader knows what an alphabet is? Even if the reader doesn't know the subtle nuance of the technical definition, everything needed to understand the comic can be inferred from "you can show the changes through spelling"

Also, where does Bald's question come from? The conversation is entirely based around inflections and suddenly he pops in with that. Pictographic languages aren't touched upon at all until his mention of them. I understand that IRL ("in real life" for all my readers that don't go on the Internet) random comments only tangentially related to the current conversation can get blurted out, but this isn't a conversation we're having over fast-food, this is Dialogue and should be treated as such.

I wish I had an up-to-date iPhone so I could end this review with a bunch of thumbs down emojis, but I don't, so just pretend these squares are emojis that aren't displaying through your browser.

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XKCD Isn't Funny - #1706 - Genetic Testing & #1707 - XKCD Phone 4

This is like a clip from the most boring sitcom ever made. There's no banter over getting the DNA testing, no mini-jokes about what kind of genetic sample was used, not even a Homestar Runner reference!

Not gonna lie, after looking that link up I watched an hour of Homestar Runner stuff. Man, that is top quality internet right there. Coming back to XKCD is like following up a delicious coq au vin with some snot on a paper plate.

This whole comic is just a bunch of set ups to jokes that don't happen. It could almost be funny, if it was intentional anti-humor. As it is, we have "I should probably start avoiding chocolate" as a punchline. Not even "Well, it explains my chocolate allergy". Instead he's tacitly admitting that he's had chocolate before without bad side effects.

Other missed opportunity: Having the percentages in panel three not add up to one hundred. It'd be a little mini gag that some people would miss, making it all the more special to those who spotted it. It'd even go with the theme that ancestry tester places are bullshit.

Oh god he's going to keep making these. He's like Wall-E, keeping on with his useless and unrewarding task because no one is telling him to stop. I haven't seen Wall-E since it came out, does it still hold up?

So, let's pretend it was funny the first time he did this. It wasn't, but let's pretend. He's making fun of how smartphones have useless features and they're poorly made and stuff, okay that's fine. I don't see why Randal Munroe has to tell us this while Maddox is still alive, but to hell with it. Why then, do we need the same joke repeated three more times? 

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1689 - My Friend Catherine & #1690 - Time-Tracking Software

Mark Prindle fans may or may not remember that one of his chief problems with Guided By Voices was that they'd release every single thing they ever recorded, even if it sucked and no one wanted to hear it and it sucked. I heard six GBV songs about fifty years ago, so I can't verify this assertion, but I am inclined to trust a man who tells me that Ween is good. 

I think a similar point can be made about XKCD. When this comic idea popped into Randall's head, rather thank immediately thinking "Wait, haven't I done this seven times before?" he thought something else that made him think another keyboard substitution joke was a good idea. 

The world does not need an update every time Randall Munroe comes up with a new keyboard substitution. Or, at the very least, the world does not need it in comic form. 

Here's an idea: Randall is a tech type guy, right? So he could probably hook us all up with an official "XKCD Keyboard Substitutions" Chrome extension thing. And every time he's about to make one of these comics, he just updates the extension. Unless making Chrome extensions is actually super hard, in which case I apologize for my unreasonable expectation.

This one actually does not get a full thumbs down from me. It's not a thumbs up, either, though. The Star War, Wikipedia, and Jack And Dane captions all come off as "Hey I'm self consciously quirky!"

Brief bit of navel gazing: Maybe the reason that I personally dislike Randall's self-conscious quirkiness is because I've always been self-conscious of my own behavioral abnormalities, and my self loathing manifests as projection. Then again, people who try to seem unique and special are mostly grating by default, so maybe not.

What makes this comic work (or at least, not totally suck) is the "installing and configuring time-tracking software". I feel like it really does say something deep about this human equation with which we are all afflicted. For lack of a better comparison, it's like how Oedipus tried so hard not to fuck his mom that he ended up fucking his mom - this guy tried to keep himself on task through time-tracking software that he ended up going through his work time.

The thing that ruins my quick stint at being an English major is the aforementioned three 'quirky' slices of the pie chart. Irony is so delicious, don't add sides of broccoli. [Broccoli, in this metaphor, represents the bad parts of this comic]

Also it would have probably have been better to show a guy installing the time software on his computer before showing us the graph, but I basically took that criticism as read.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1685 - Patch & #1686 - Feel Old

I have a friend who has programmed for video games and does art commissions with Photoshop, and he didn't get the joke. This isn't just me not knowing computer stuff, this is Randy failing to sell an idea even to people who have years of experience in the field. (Admittedly not super hardcore experience, like he wasn't on the team that made Deep Blue or anything but still)

The joke, as explained to me by explainxkcd, is that GNU and Photoshop both have a tool called 'Patch'. So if you can't do something in GNU, take a screenshot and change the code text in Photoshop. That joke gets an "...I guess..." reaction from me.

Said joke could probably be depicted better. I'm not even referring to my usual whingeing about how things aren't explained enough, although, yes, this joke isn't explained enough; The picture is just of some random code. The caption could be under the source code for the Google homepage and it wouldn't make a difference.

I think this idea has some actual potential (here is where I get into the whingeing I mentioned earlier), show a guy working on code, getting frustrated, and he starts manually slicing it up in Paint. I still wouldn't find it that funny, but it would make the joke a lot more accessible - especially to the people that the joke is intended to be marketed towards.

So, what does it say about me that I'm reviewing this even though I'm one of those voters?

The title text, for those who can't read it, says "'How long are you going to keep this up?' 'Statistically, only four or five more decades.'" and I have lost any sympathy I had for Randy. This marks, by my count, the third time that he's made a "I do this a lot" noise on one of these 'time is passing' jokes. That is not just shitty, that is arrogantly shitty. That is him admitting that he knows he's in a rut and he's going to keep going anyway. 

In his analysis of the French New Wave, Lewis Criswell summarizes one of the movement's philosophies as "If you don't have anything new to say, why say anything?". (I could have used the entire title of Chumbawamba's The Boy Bands Have Won... as a quote there instead - you're welcome) 

In a way, saying something you've already said before is a way of saying nothing. No matter how many times a band rereleases an album, if they've only ever made the one album, they're only going to have the one album listed on their discography page on Wikipedia. And while the statement made by that album may be worth hearing again, this time in remastered surround sound, the statement still isn't a new one.

Here's where the analogy breaks down: Randy isn't literally putting out the same comic over and over. He's doing it figuratively. What he's doing is closer to what we music folk call 'Garrixing' - ripping off yourself by making several songs that have basically the same progression, direction, point, structure, etc. These songs contribute little to nothing to any conversation that they're a part of and are therefore a net drain on those who consume them. These songs take up consumers time, money, and iPod space, and in return the consumer gets something that they have essentially heard before. 

Now, to be fair, Randy is not selling these individual comics. However, he still makes his living off of the interest generated by them. I find it to be self evident that knowingly reproducing content that you are giving to people that pay your salary is kind of a dick move. 

But even beyond that, by not creating or contributing to any discussions, Randy is stagnating artistically. Doing that knowingly goes beyond just being a dick move. Art is how we learn about ourselves. That's why angsty teenagers quote song lyrics all the time - the philosophies of the lyricist are being transferred into them. When Randy knowingly withholds from creating new art (yes, I'm calling XKCD art), he's not just putting off the next Time, he is removing from the pool of knowledge someone can gain from reading XKCD.

To put it in a slightly less antagonistic way, we've moved beyond Windows 95, right? We placed that brick in the ever-taller building of human progress and we built upon it. What Randy is doing is using the same brick over and over, and even though it may be an incredibly minor brick in the scheme of things, we can do better, damn it. 

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1675 - Message in a Bottle

Okay, the idea of combining a mailing list with messages in bottles is cute, but this is the worst possible way to execute that idea.

"Unsubscribe" is presented completely out of context, which makes the reader have to guess about what it's referring to. I think most people in this day and age would think of it in a YouTube sense, which wouldn't make sense at all in this comic.

Maybe the guy could be shown throwing a bottle of his own, and he gets one back, and they have a brief conversation (like it's brief to us, to them it's weeks and weeks) about how they're both trapped on desert islands. And then the guy opens up a differently colored bottle one day and it says "Unsubscribe". Actually, even better - "Hey, sorry, but could you please take me off your mailing list?" It makes the joke clearer and more accessible without sacrificing the original punchline, or at least the intent of the original punchline.

Also, I'd like some more characterization for the guy who opens the bottle. I'm not saying he has to be Walter White or anything, but I'd like to know if he's fending for himself on a deserted island, Far Side -style, or if he's just walking along a regular beach. It kinda changes the way you read the comic depending on which interpretation you go with (in this way, and only in this way, you can compare Randal Munroe to William Shakespeare). If he's alone on an island, he's desperately hoping to get some useful information from the bottle, and his disappointment is funny. This interpretation is funnier if it's a spam ad, though. If the guy is just some shmuck, then I think we need more characterization for the sender.

Maybe the sender is on his island, and he keeps getting tons and tons of bottles, and he's running out of space on his island because he's got so many. In a last ditch effort, he writes: "Unsubscribe from this mailing list?" and checks the box next to it, and when he throws it into the ocean all the bottles disappear.

I kinda find it funny how the art gets increasingly simplified as the comic progresses. First we have that cool front view with a coastline and hills and birds, then the surf loses some of the detail and we switch to a standard side view, then the background disappears completely. It should at least return in the last panel.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1667 - Algorithms

Have any of you ever read Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality? You don't have to read it, it's nothing too special, writing wise. It has one bit early on where Harry goes like "blah blah blah and then you get FTL signaling blah blah blah" because he's science about magic and stuff. In su3su2u1's (unfortunately only archived) critique of the bit in question, he points out that "He even abbreviated faster-than-light as FTL, to keep the density of understandable words to a minimum." (su3su2u1 2). Randy's done something similar here, where instead of just saying "Google search engine" he has to say "google search backend". I've got even less of an idea of what anything to the left of "self driving car" could be.

I've gone back and forth on whether or not XKCD should stick to one level of humor accessibility and I've had people disagree with me on both sides. But, this joke's punchline doesn't actually depend on any of the setup items being specifically what they are. I think we can all agree that Randy's use of jargon here shows a clear misplacement of priorities. The joke could have been made totally accessible to anyone who'd read it, but instead the first half is garbled up with technical terms that confuse everything.

Getting to the punchline itself, it is incredibly specific. I legitimately thought that the church group thing had been in some news article he'd read. Like someone called their grandson to ask why their computer was taking so long and he realized the only file on it was a terrabyte sized excel sheet and he went to the news with it or something. Stranger things have happened; I kissed a girl once.

Ignoring my gullibility, since this is all made up, couldn't Randy have actually showed us the spreadsheet being made? We could get a photomontage of all the different little old church going ladies muttering at their progressively more advanced computers, until one of them is asking the president of NASA if they can borrow their system because they're running out of space. Then the NASA guy could be all "uh, well..." and the church group could say "We brought cookies!" and NASA would be like "...okay." Then whenever NASA is referenced in the comics the person in charge could be depicted as a little old church going lady as a non-intrusive and enjoyable callback!

In conclusion, this comic is less funny than the "Al Gore Rhythm" pun, and it's not just because that pun is hilarious.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1661 - Podium

I find it really ironic that Randy would make a joke with a political-style setup but no actual politics in it during an election year. Especially this election year of all years! For those reading this in the distant future, before the Singaporeans enslaved us all, we had elections, and the one that happened in 2016 was WILD. It was the one year that I think literally anyone could get away with making an easy political joke about what was going on.

If this was an intentional avoidance of making a topical joke, I actually have to give props to Randy, it would have been super easy for him to go the easy route and say "Trump is a foolish man", but he decided that he was going to make a joke that would still work years down the line.

I do think that it could have been better though. Setting aside my usual thing about how there could be multiple panels and more scenery to make the comic come alive more, it just seems un-politician to say "okay, brief tangent". It makes much more sense in the context of the comic if his whole campaign is actually based on finding out if it's 'podium' or 'lectern'. It's funnier, too. Instead of a politician improvising a new part of his campaign, he's going up on stage saying he'll fix terminology, an issue that maybe two people care about.


So, the other day I was talking with Rob, and he mentioned a friend of his who had once complained about 300 'not having enough political intrigue'. And I spent a few days mulling it over a little bit, since - as evidenced by this blog's existence - I tend to be someone who overthinks things, and I came to a conclusion: Criticizing a thing for not pandering to your specific tastes isn't valid criticism, BUT if you can say "oh, 300 totally missed a great opportunity to be smart on top of being an action movie by not adding in political intrigue like it could have", that is valid. (note: I haven't seen 300 so I don't know if the evidence stacks up for my hypothetical rephrased Rob's friend but it works as an example). But I'd like to hear your thoughts on this because I do have "man, I run an XKCD hateblog, that's my claim to fame" kinda bring-down thoughts every now and then and I feel like I was able to self-justify a little.

If you'll bear with me for another slight digression, you don't need to worry about this blog shutting down anytime soon. I feel like I am providing a kind of service, and there is a point to it, even if it isn't readily apparent. There's a Jonah Dempcy tweet that's stuck with me for a while, and it's "Bad critique is still good due to its ironic content. Bad critique ironically directs at the other what is meant for itself." Even if everything I've ever said on this blog is totally wrong, I'm still stimulating discussion and thought and stuff. Plus there turn out to be points to pointless things all the time, like Of Oz The Wizard probably seemed stupid in idea form, but then it turned out to be a super interesting way of relooking at the way we look at film and how pauses are used in dialogue and stuff.

By the way, watch Of Oz The Wizard.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1655 - Doomsday Clock

So, I actually really like the idea here. I give it points for topicality and originality. However, I do think it stumbles a bit on the execution.

The Doomsday Clock doesn't actually affect anything directly, it's basically a measurement tool (it's also not an actual clock but I think that the comic can get away with that for Rule Of Funny and also clarity of the joke). This makes the last panel seem disconnected from the previous three, we don't have an understanding of why the clock is connected to the apocalypse and we aren't given one. There should be a panel or two in between panels three and four showing a military bunker on red alert, with a screen flashing "DOOMSDAY CLOCK PAST MIDNIGHT", and a guy in a hat with stars on it says "The Russians must have finally done it. Launch all weapons in retaliation". And then maybe instead of showing an explosion from the Earth's surface, we could see it from space, and we'd really get that this is Doomsday with a capital D and ain't nobody surviving that.

I'm also not sure how well known the Doomsday Clock is. I know what it is, but I asked two of my friends and neither of them did. Maybe there could have been a panel before the firsts one where a tour guide is explaining what the clock is to a tour group, or something like that.

Speaking of world-ending tragedies, I am pretty annoyed right now. My friend painted my nails, and the color was supposed to be pink, but for some reason it ended up being this really dark magenta that ended up just looking red if it's under any kind of light at all. I don't mind red per se, but I'd have much preferred an ACTUAL dark magenta, thank you very much.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1647 - Diacritics & #1648 - Famous Duos

@ Whoever commented on my last post a thing that began with "Breaking News from The Front: DATELINE INTERNET", please try reposting it. It looked hilarious but it's not displaying for some reason. Blame Google.

Now, those who read the comments (bless your pure and incorruptible souls) know that Jon Levi really likes this one. And frankly I just do not get it. I mean, I understand the joke, but it just does not appeal to me.

I think one issue is that the art is once again regulated to what is essentially background. The joke would be better served if we saw the screen he was typing on, then his roommate could walk up behind him and go "ry-soom-echth?" and he'd say the caption. It'd make this comic feel more like a comic, I think.

Also, this could just be me being a dummy, but did anyone else not know what "diacritics" meant until after they looked it up? Like you can pretty much infer it from the comic, but it'd be instantly understandable if he just said "accent marks".

Also also, I was exceedingly disappointed when I plugged the transcription into a text-to-speech thing and it didn't make a funny noise at the end of the first line. It just said "resum... degree" like some person who wasn't reading something with a million accent marks on it. Not fun at all.

Sorry again Jon but I am MY OWN MAN who has HIS OWN OPINIONS.

This comic pretty much just feels like those really easy tests back in grade school, the ones that were all about matching the words in column A to the definitions in column B. It also kinda reads like he's just showing off how many duos he knows, and I got TVTropes for that, man.

Now, any of these could probably be funny if they were fleshed out into a full comic. Maybe it could be four panels showing the adventures of Mario & The Beast and four panels underneath showing the "Meanwhile..." adventures of Beauty & Luigi.

As it is, we have to imagine those adventures for ourselves, and comedy shouldn't make you imagine the funny bit. This comic is all setup and no punchline.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1664 - Stargazing & #1665 - Toasts

I know it's a long shot, but does anyone happen to know who made that one song that goes like "and if I pretend to like Coldplay, she might let me see her naked, but probably not"? I downloaded it off of bandcamp ages ago but then I deleted it like a FOOL, I TELL YOU, A FOOL.

I've said it before, but I just don't get what Randy's going for with these 'what if someone was really bad at something' comics. Like it could be funny if they had to pretend to be an expert on something they weren't to save face, in a kind of 90's sitcom way. Or she could be bad at it in a way that obstructs another character from getting something, like there's a time bomb but the librarian has to check for ID and since they don't have any she makes them all pose for the picture and get IDs printed. Instead this person is just bad for no reason and with no consequence. The person isn't even being satirical or anything.

The bit about "can't happen soon enough" is kinda clever though, I like that part. I wish we got to hear the explanation though.

This is the kind of thing where I understand why he thought it would be funny. I can totally imagine having a great time if I was at a party and someone quoted the quote (is that something people do at parties?) and everyone started making snowclones of it. Like the other day I was hanging out with the fam and a bunch of us were cracking each other up by making food puns on classic literature since my cousin wants to open a book-themed restaurant. 

Maybe the joke would have worked if that was the type of situation being portrayed, everyone having a good time at a dinner or whatever. This presentation just feels soulless. Everyone's in their own box, we don't see who they're toasting to.

Beret's appearance makes me think that the joke could have worked if the first and last panels were the first two panels of a slightly different joke. Like, Beret's thing is that he's weird, right? Maybe he hears the original toast and doesn't understand why it works so he tries making his own version and it ends up not making sense. It could be funny for the same reason that it's funny to hear someone telling a joke really badly. 

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1642 - Gravitational Waves - #1643 - Degrees

I feel like this comic would have a lot more impact if we saw more of the effort that went into the making of the gravitational wave detector. Like, this probably cost NASA or whatever a trillion dollars, it already seems anticlimatic to have the GWD just the size of a desk. We should have a whole room of things all blinking away, after at least two panels of hard work by the science people trying to make stuff happen.

Speaking of which, if they already knows that it works, why are they just reacting to it in the second panel. The comic actually makes more sense if you read it backwards. It's funnier that way too, you expect them to be all disappointed but then they're all "Hooray!".

Also, the comic would be funnier if he took out the actual sciency stuff from the last panel. The two black hole merger things are (apparently) actual examples of events that the GWD could detect, and it really only distracts from the joke.

This is one of the times that Randy drawing half of a conversation's participants offscreen could make sense. If the guy was standing next to a window with a temperature thingy on it, it'd make sense that the other guy would be calling from offscreen. He's probably folding clothes or something and wants to get it done so he doesn't want to have to leave the room and stop.

As it is, we should see two stick figures, and Offscreen should start his sentence with "While you've got your phone open" because that is the Polite Phrase.

It was nice of Randy to add in the good sides of Fahrenheit, even though it is the obvious inferior system. It feels charitable, and I approve. That last dot on the chart is really telling though. Who thinks "I am going to deliberately respond in a way that my friend will not understand for non-humorous purposes" and then thinks "Hmm... that probably makes me a bad friend."? Like, no, it makes you a straight up asshole. Say... that reminds me of a famous webcomic strip.

The 'radians' punchline just doesn't make sense. Like I'm all for making fun of stupid people and making fun of people who made innocent mistakes (especially if they are small children), but that's just not something someone would say. That's essentially saying gibberish, it doesn't have any relevance to the question. Randy should have made the guy say "Kelvin" instead, since that is an actual temperature scale, so it'd be technically correct but completely useless, unlike the radians answer, which is incorrect on a few different levels as well as being completely useless.


On an unrelated note, I don't know how familiar any of you guys would be with The Cringe Channel, but I'm mildly surprised a screenshot of this blog hasn't been sent in. The caption would be something like "This guy has spent more than two years 'reviewing' XKCD and complaining about how it's not funny."

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1634 - In Case of Emergency & #1635 - Birdsong

Usually when you see "emergency behind glass thing" in cartoons, part of the humor comes from the absurdity of needing that particular thing. My favorite example is from one thing I can't remember where they smash the glass and get the hammer inside to smash the glass for the chamber next to it. I understand the joke is like, you'd be breaking glass to repair glass, but it loses something without someone screaming "Oh no, the glass is going to break!" or something before seeing the glass. Also technically it's not really a visual oxymoron since you'd be breaking glass to repair other glass.

On a side note, do "in case of emergency break glass" things actually exist? Like I know you can buy novelty products but are there real glass breaking things that I've just never seen IRL?

This comic just makes no sense at all. That's an awesome song! Why would he get mad? If anything he should be trying to capture it to keep it as a pet and also bring it on Oprah and make money by exploiting its talents.

Pharrell, tho; this comic should have been structured way differently. The first panel should have the guy saying "What a beautiful day!" with some trees or nature imagery in the background, and the bird should only appear in the third panel (second panel in the actual comic) which would also be the last panel. The joke should be the bird is actually singing, end comic. Him getting mad just distracts from the actual punchline, since all it does is reinforce that he is annoyed by the song, which is not something that needs reinforcing.

The song should have been more famously annoying or shocking, though. Or maybe just go with the classic "Never Gonna Give You Up".

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1630 - Quadcopter & #1631 - Longer Than Usual

I really like the concept here. I think there was a genuinely funny idea behind this comic. However, the parallel he's going for isn't executed correctly. The guy should be flying around a small quadcopter (which, just saying, is a stupid name for a thing) and then a fully grown helicopter snatches it out of the air. Having the quadcopters attack him muddies the metaphor a little. That said, I think the final punchline is still amusing, just not as amusing as it could have been.

The art is pretty iffy on this one, though. I understand why it's hard to draw quadcopters, but that doesn't change the fact that it's really hard to tell what they are from the visuals alone.

It's funny that it took me longer than usual to review this comic, huh? Let's just pretend that was intentional and also that it was funny.

It took me a minute to realize the joke, but when I did I legitimately laughed out loud. It is text only, but to be fair to Randy, I can't see it working with visuals. You'd have to make the visuals really vague for it to be interpreted in these two wildly different ways. Unless maybe you're dating an online AI? Maybe you're dating Google!?

This still loses points for being CouldBeATweet, but the end result still gets a passing grade.


Apologies for the unintentional hiatus lately. As much as I value my fanbase and as much as I enjoy putting out that #content, this blog does end up on the low end of my priority list when Real Life stuff happens. I'll do my best to catch up quickly :)

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1626 - Judgment Day & #1627 - Woosh

Man, Randy should just kinda not write political comics. At least the preachy ones (that's a phrase I hope I never use again) give the people who agree with them agreement chuckles. I actually do agree with this one, it is kinda messed up that we have bombs that could end all human life. And I can see jokes being made about that, just highlighting how absurd it is. But this comic is delivered so matter-of-factly, it's like Randy is scolding us: "What's wrong with you?".

There's also the weird implication that we'd be better off if we were controlled by computer overlords, which is kinda like... no? I would much rather the human race make its own mistakes, thank you.

Also, (and bear with me here) nuclear weapons kinda make sense if you understand the history that lead up to them. Like, yeah, it's probably not the best thing that we still have them armed and ready to fire, but if you look at the political pressures that caused people to develop them, you can understand why we had them at all. No one just made them for kicks, y'know? No one woke up one morning and said "I'm going to fuck everyone over today by making weapons that'll end all life on Earth."

And onto the other side of how robots control our lives, comment bots, arguably the worse of the two.

Honestly if that bot had commented on my thing, I'd have just been confused. The "woosh" as onomatopoeia for 'going over your head' went right over my head. That is my fault though, not the comic's. The comic is actually pretty decent. My main issue with it is that there is not a single website in the world that has icons but not usernames on comments. Unless the squiggly lines underneath are supposed to be the usernames? But then the squigglies wouldn't be underneath the icon and the comment, and they wouldn't be different each time.

Also, I feel like the caption would've matched the comic more if multiple people replied to the "woosh" comment. Like someone else chimes in with "No, you're right, it looks fake, I don't get what he's saying" and another guy's like "Maybe they're saying it's supposed to look fake?". It'd be a picture of mass confusion, instead of just one guy being confused.


So like, speaking of robots, if sapiosexuality is a thing, where people are attracted to intelligence, and there are also people who want to fuck robots, are there people who are solely attracted to HAL 9000 -style artificial intelligences? #DeepThoughts