XKCD Isn't Funny - #1969 - Not Available [dedicated to Munch the cat]

There's a tendency among bad internet reviewers (like me!) to make hyperbolic statements, especially in the openings. Please understand, it's only because we want love and affection (and also because most of us don't know how to write a real introductary paragraph). So please be aware that when I say "I'm honestly not sure if this is supposed to be an anti-joke or not", I am aware that it reads like a forced and poor attempt to be funny and quotable, but no really I seriously can't tell.

Let's do a brief thought experiment. Imagine you check XKCD one day, and the picture is of one stick figure punching another. The caption is "If you ever really want to make people made, punch people in the face." See? It just doesn't work. Like... yeah, I know that would make people mad, it's a shitty thing to do. I have almost the same reaction to that hypothetical comic as I do to this one. The difference is that face-punching has a fun slapstick element to it, whereas region-locking is cold and boring.

Please note that I'm 100% aware that a lot of region-locking is because of copyright restrictions. Please also note that I think current copyright law is almost universally bad.

Explainxkcd tells me that this might be a joke on people who use VPNs to access region-locked content. That's like, maybe funny, but it'd be funnier to actually see someone trying different regions and failing, and then we could see Black Hat chuckling to himself or something. The alt-text is kinda clever too - a flag being region locked, get it?! But it's alt-text and it doesn't count.


When I was a kid Ed, Edd, n Eddy, I was kinda confused when I saw the Paul Boyd memorial note after the ending of "Look Before You Ed". It seemed kinda weird to me, since I thought cartoons were for kids. I didn't get why they'd want to put his name on a cartoon instead of a park bench or something. I didn't get back then that when you really love someone, you want them to be remembered, and thought of, by as many people as possible, as much as possible.

My cat Munch had to be put down this week.

My family got her when I was in fifth grade, from a cousin who got her from a friend who got her from someone else. Because of this, nobody is really sure exactly how old she was. She was originally named "Munchlax" by one of her previous owners, since she ate a lot. I'm pretty sure that at some point in her life she was abused. She was missing a tail (if you felt the tip it seemed bent in a way that I don't think a naturally missing tail would be) and when we first got her the first thing she did was run into the basement and hide for hours. It took more than a year before before she'd let me pet her. But eventually she realized I wouldn't hurt her and she slowly became the snuggliest cat in the world. I would wake up with her sitting on my back or cuddled up to my chest, usually purring like a tiny lawnmower. Back when I was more into trying to play the piano, she would always jump on my lap and headbutt my arms.

She loved to climb people. She would meow at me to pick her up, which had her head roughly level with my shoulder, and she'd climb up onto my shoulders and ride me around while I did things. She especially liked if I wore my hoodie so she could sit in the hood and have her paws on my shoulder. She'd do it to other people to, hilariously annoying multiple members of my extended family.

She loved to lay down in a woodpile outside my old house, and she'd blend in to the point where you wouldn't see her if you weren't looking. When she was sitting up and the sun would hit her right, she would almost glow, all her fur catching the light like a halo around her.

When my family first got her, there were crickets in the basement, but she was such a good cricket hunter that they were all gone within a year. Even when she was getting older she'd jump up and catch moths between her paws and eat them.

Speaking as someone who is at best a C+ and at worst barely functioning as a human being, Munch was the perfect therapy cat. I would look at her and I'd think about how much I loved her even though she was missing her tail and how she used to be scared of everything but wasn't anymore, and feel better about my own future. She was super soft and fluffy, and she could purr loud enough to wake people up.

This is one of the last pictures I took of her. She was sleeping and I didn't want to wake her up by petting her.

Rest in peace, Munch (????-2018). You were the best cat, and you were the best at being a cat.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1846 - Drone Problems

When I have drone problems, it's usually because of unrelenting low-pitched hums! coming toward me from the sky as government-issued robots attempt to kill me
Best, anyone the US doesn't like

Speaking of pointless cruelty, what this comic needs is some Black Hat. Think about it, it makes perfect sense. For one, the girl's story doesn't make sense. If the drones are being flown so haphazardly, shouldn't she have known she wouldn't be able to hit them? And wouldn't it also mean that people flying drones near her were doing it by accident, and were therefore undeserving of having their property destroyed?

The comic improves a bunch if you rewrite it to have Black Hat as the shooting-down-y person. He's a jackass who doesn't care about shit, we're all down for his wanton havoc. If we just have our standard XKCD Guy™ and XKCD Girl®, it's not quite normalized, but it's more grounded than something done by Black 'Stole A Russian Sub Once' Hat.

That's not to say that Black Hat hasn't previously been used as a mouthpiece, he has, but it's been in a clearly over-the-top way. This comic, in contrast, is subdued, with the destructive idea as the setup, not the punchline. Instead of the mayhem being the part we're supposed to laugh at, it's just how we get to the actual joke. This makes the mayhem seem like just something that happens, especially with how the guy just goes along with it when he finds out. I don't think Randy is actually advocating for shooting down drones, but the comic's structure makes it look like he is. He even says "my system" in the alt-text!"

Even if we put all that aside, the joke is still poorly done. The last three panels are all the same idea, which slows down the delivery of the punchline and minimizes its impact. The two panels in the middle should be replaced by a single panel with a line like "Okay, setting up. I can't wait!", THEN cut to them three hours later.


By the way, if you're missing my #content, feel free to check out XKCD Still Sucks, a new blog on the scene! He's keeping the fire alive, plus he says I've got bonhommie! I looked it up, and it means I'm a really nice guy!!

Update

I may or may not have bitten off more than I can chew. 

Back when I started this blog, I was in high school and had no other real life commitments. It was easy to find time to write a review, and it was easy to think of new things to say. 

Now, I'm in college, which is haaard, maaan. I'm also trying to do a podcast thing, which at this point I find more rewarding than this blog. Like, with Panel Beat, me and Jon can have a fun time talking about whatever we want, but with this blog, I have to talk about how a comic is dumb. And it's harder to find new ways to say a comic is dumb when so many of them are dumb in the same ways. 

That's not to say that I regret doing this blog. I'm glad that I had a device that helped me improve my writing. But I'm not getting any real spiritual (or physical, since none of you jerks buy my tunes) benefits from writing it anymore. And I don't want to force myself to do this; I won't enjoy it, and my writing won't be as good.

And that's not to say that this blog is going to die, either. I'm just going to switch focus. Instead of trying to review every single XKCD, I'm going to talk about the ones that I feel like I actually have something to say about. And I'm going to be expanding in scope, talking about other webcomics and maybe other stuff too. Probably a once-a-week schedule from now on?

Feel free to yell at me in the comments.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1687 - World War III+ & #1688 - Map Age Guide

The problem I have with this type of joke, where a random topic is exaggerated, is that the joke starts and ends at the exaggeration. Yes, I get that that's the point, but nothing is tethering the joke to anything.

You can do Randy's style of exaggeration with almost anything. Fabric patterns: plaid, polka-dots, swastika. Mailing: envelopes, box, tank. Pets; cats, dogs, people. It's almost like satire, except it's satire on completely random topics that don't really have potential for being satired.

If this was actual satire, we would be learning something about something. In Candide, we learn that things aren't perfect and we shouldn't expect them to be (it was more shocking back in 18th-century France). In this comic, there isn't anything like that.

I don't need all my comedy to teach me something, but this way of presenting a joke lends itself best to jokes that are trying to make a point of some kind.

I'm not sure I'm articulating this properly. Feel even more free than usual to let me know if there's something I need to explain better.

While I appreciate the amount of effort that probably went into this, and that he even added fictional maps, I really don't see why this was needed. Unless I'm missing something and part of the joke is how no one needs to know the age of a map.

I feel like it would have been funny if there had been a single-panel buildup where we see Randy talking directly to the reader, saying something like "I know how many of you have trouble with your maps" and then we get the infographic. It'd make the expanse of the infographic into a joke in and of itself.

I would actually be really interested to know his reasoning behind making this, since it will be of pretty much no use to anyone ever. Everyone just uses Google now, you dingus!


Also! I don't know if you heard, but me and Jon Levi (of xkcd-sucks.blogspot.com and DiaBA fame) have started a podcast! It's about webcomics, on occasion, and it's called Panel Beat! Website here, and Twitter here. We're also on iTunes, if that's your speed! Check it out!!!!!!

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 - #1619 - Watson Medical Algorithm

Two years ago (as of original time of writing, 2015-12-22), I posted "Birth". I remember thinking to myself as I wrote it: "I'm going to be writing three reviews a week, even if I write this to the absolute best of my ability it's gonna read like crap compared to my later stuff, since I'll get so much writing practice." And, proving that I am a genius in yet another way, it does.

You can actually see me steadily improve if you flip through the archives, like a text-only flipbook that took two years to make. At some point I'll probably have to go back and rewrite all the crappy early reviews, and fill in the missed updates.

I want to take a moment to thank all my readers. Your comments and views give me hella motivation to keep up this blog, I really appreciate it. I'd also like to thank Jon Levi and Rob Mason for endorsing and supporting my endeavors. xkcdsucks and Died In A Blogging Accident may have ended, but once an XKCD hateblogger, always an XKCD hateblogger. #FriendsTillTheEnd!

It's funny how it seems like I've been doing this blog forever, and at the same time, it seems like just yesterday I was first reading through Carl's 'angriest rants'. I'm looking forward to writing my five year anniversary post and thinking that this post reads like crap compared to what I've got going on by then.

In other news, the comic sucks because even though it's a graph joke it's got too many words and like half of them are forced wackiness.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1618 - Cold Medicine

Hey, Randy, if you're reading this, I'm sorry to hear that you've had such an elongated cold. Hope you feel better soon, man. If it makes you feel better, it's led you to create a fairly decent comic. It is an easy kind of relatable, but it's not GetOutOfMyHeadRandy-bait. And check out that actually well-done exposition in the first three comics! Check out that surprisingly detailed background decor in the first! (which unfortunately goes away in the second and third panels but you can't have everything)

Also, I'm very amused by the idea of Randy drawing this comic while incapacitated by his cold. Imagine him being all "I must be funny! But also I can't focus because of all my symptoms! woe is me! woeeee!"

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1590 - The Source

The hell kind of white void house does Randy live in? It's like Martin's alien blue sex cube but boring. And it hurts the joke, too. The guy should hear the high-pitched hum, check several of his electronic devices which aren't The Source, and then see the HPHG (High-Pitched Hum Generator).

But instead, we don't know there's a high pitched hum until we see the HPHG (Harry Potter & the Horrible Gorrible). The joke becomes as the decor in Randy's House: bland and nondescript.

And of course The Source is the HPHG (Hungry Patriots Hate Golf), it's the only thing he owns! Why would it have been plugged in at all? Unless it's a really bad white noise generator and he realized he doesn't want it anymore, in which case this is just a really boring story about a guy who bought a broken thing.

Also if you haven't heard, Ghost is back and you all need to spread it around like WAULDFAUR

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1558 - Vet

I agree completely with Randall that Roombas are adorable. They're like circular cats that can clean! In fact, the implication of an innocent Roomba slowly running out of juice surrounded by forest predators just gives me bad vibrations. I'm honesty surprised there isn't a mention of it, considering this is the author who gave us #695.

I'm also surprised that this is a Short Hair Girl (a.k.a. Megan) comic. Assuming a Roomba is a dog is such a Beret thing to do. Remember way back when he thought lug nuts were scones? So, unfortunately for this comic, it suffers from the same problems as that one. Why does this woman think a Roomba is a dog? That's potentially funny, learning that information. Does she actually think that or is she being a bitch for some reason? She admits to being wrong in panel 3, which makes me think she's supposed to be pulling some kind of performance joke, but she's not being watched in panel 4, which makes me think she's just crazy.

The other day, The Webcomics Review posted a thing about some of the joke formulas XKCD uses, and one of them was described as "people doing random things for no reason", and that's totally what this is.

On the positive side of things, that's a nicely drawn tree in the final panel, and it doesn't feel like it's compensating for could-be-a-tweet-itude, like it has previously.


In other news, there's something special about this review: It's the first review written in my new dorm! College has officially started for Greg Greenwell.

I'd just like to say that I think it's really cool that this blog's coming with me, and I'm glad I have readers along for the ride, so to speak. I'm looking forward to continuing as long as XKCD does (and if it stops, I'll just move on to Questionable Content or something).

XKCD Is Alright - #1551 - Pluto [+Announcement]

"It's interesting how Randy's thought process when he saw the picture of Pluto was instantly "I can make a comic out of this" while mine was "That would make a bitchin album cover"."

That's the only sentence I wrote of this review on the Wednesday this comic was posted. Since then, I've had a personal emergency that I'm not currently comfortable talking about publicly, which left me without internet access for five days and also did other things. It's possible I'll say what happened at some point in the future, but at this point, suffice to say I'm alright now.

Just like this comic, actually (well, not JUST like this comic, but whatevs). I'm personally not a fan of the drawn outline jokes, since I've seen the "heart" shape compared to like three other things and that makes me think that everyone's forcing themselves to see things that aren't there. But thankfully, there're also jokes like "charging socket", "new netherlands", and etc, some of which are kinda amusing to me. It's not a bad way to go, making enough little jokes that most people could find at least one to laugh at. Some of them are kinda repetitive, though. C'mon, three medical-type jokes? All in all, though, pretty alright.

Just like me, actually (now). However, for reasons related to the personal emergency and what resulted, I'm going to be extending the small posting hiatus for a little while longer. Regular posts should resume mid-August, with attempted updates every day until I catch back up to XKCD. I apologize for the inconvenience and unprofessionalism and thank you for your patience and understanding.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1447 - META-ANALYSIS

It's been a while since I've seen meta humor, but that might just be because XKCD is really the only webcomic I still bother keeping up with on the regular.

This was fine as an idea, but I really dislike how it's been presented. I understand that it's supposed to be a paper, but was it really that hard to translate this to a dialogue?

(quick rough example dialogue)
Kevin: (checks mail) "Aw, damn, my paper got rejected."
Sasha: "Which one?"
Kevin: "Y'know how people have made meta-meta-analyses on meta-analyses? I made a meta-meta-meta analyses on those meta-meta-analyses."
Sasha: "Well, at least you're the first person to get a paper rejected with the comment 'Too meta'."

Really the only thing that actually bothers me about this comic is the word "meta" is used too much. A lack of varied vocabulary creates a greater sense of repetition in a reading, which makes the sentences come off as stiffer. However, that was unavoidable in this instance without changing the joke, so I guess I can let it slide. Even I'm not demanding enough to ask Randy to scrap any idea that isn't perfect.


The other day I lost a reader because I was neutral on #gamergate, and (without getting into any debates here) that was incredibly weird to me. Not that someone wouldn't want to support someone that didn't condemn what they saw as dispicable, but that they considered me someone who was at one point worthy of supporting.

Like... I'm not any kind of spokesperson. My claims to fame amount to mildly harrassing a webcomic and getting retweeted by Dara O Briain that one time. Reading this blog isn't giving me power over the minds of millions, it's looking at reactionary hack writing done by a random guy who saw there was an audience and thought serving that audience was something worth doing.

(although if anyone does want to actually support me in any way for some reason, it would be totally hype of you to buy one of my albums over at my bandcamp)

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1445 - EFFICIENCY

Quick announcement: XKCD Isn't Funny is taking its own advice and getting an editor, Andrew Colanininero, whom I previously worked for on Cubified, the free game available through Desura. Posts will continue to be written in what I have been told repeatedly is first person, but they'll hopefully be, y'know, better.

However, since Andrew is a busy man working for Nintendo, Sega, and Microsoft at the same time, he may not be able to edit through all of my crap. Posts that we've both worked on will be tagged "Andrew and Greg" and posts with only one author will be tagged with "Greg" (or "Andrew" if he decides to fly solo for a bit).

Regardless! This comic sucks! Linkara! It takes two common XKCD bad habits and slams them together, like peanut butter and jelly only evil. This isn't just a graph joke, presenting a concept in it's blandest and therefore least funny form, this is also Get Out Of My Head Randy -bait. I looked through the forums to find examples of people saying how much they related to this comic so I could feel superior, but they're mostly debating other efficiency theories.

However, one astute poster helpfully pointed out that just #974 and #1205, which really just makes my job easier.

Since #1205 was already just an infographic version of #974, this is a distillation of a non joke version of a comic which already had issues. It's like if someone listened to Chumbawamba's cover of "Her Majesty" and decided to make a ten second version. There's a core good idea there, but it's been resculpted and then cut into forths, failing to live up to the original or the reinterpretation.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1354 - HEARTBLEED EXPLANATION

 

 



Since Randy's decided to give us a PSA instead of a joke, I'll give a little announcement of my own.

I recently started my very own record label, where I'll be uploading my music for the forseeable future. Also it'll be entirely pay-what-you-want (even $0!) so you don't even have to pay if you don't want to. Neat! Check it out!
I currently have a few albums and EPs in the works for future release. The most finished are Fast Food Friday, the debut album by my drum 'n' bass project Mick, and Seapunk Is Stupid, the debut thing by my vaporwave/sound collage project Vaporlnd. I'm really proud of what I've got so far, but I'm going to be polishing it up extra shiny before I release anything, since I want it to be quality stuffs for your enjoyment.

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1353 - HEARTBLEED

Since Randy's decided to give us a PSA instead of a joke, I'll give a little announcement of my own.

I recently started my very own record label, where I'll be uploading my music for the forseeable future. Also it'll be entirely pay-what-you-want (even $0!) so you don't even have to pay if you don't want to. Neat! Check it out!