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Alt-text: Ok, so Spirit and Opportunity are pretty awesome. And Kepler. And New Horizons, Cassini, Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity, TiME, and Project M. But c'mon, if the Earth were a basketball, in 40 years no human's been more than half an inch from the surface.
Stop me if you've heard this one before: Stick Figure #1 reads something on the internet and tells Stick Figure #2 about it. Stick Figure #2 comments on it with a you-wish-it-was snappy one-liner. Familiar? Gee, how could that be?
Remember when I said that Randall will never grow as an artist because he doesn't challenge himself? This is a classic sign of that. There are so many ways to make a comic about Something Someone Said On The Internet™, but he will hold on to the tired formula simply because it is easier than coming up with something new every time.
Not that the comic itself is much better on its own merits. All the usual flaws are here - walls of text with little to no action, post-punchline dialogue, you name it. I'd like to note that stick!Randall turns his chair around between panels 1 and 3, just so that he can be shown as facing Megan in the final panel. Apart from the obvious question of "Who does that?", this just shows why even stick figure comics need faces. So that they can look around without moving their whole body.
Some of you may be wondering why I said that the comic contains post-punchline dialogue. Isn't that "deorbited" line the punchline? Actually, no. I have to admit, I don't really get it (maybe because I'm not so well-versed in rocket science), but I get the feeling that even if I did, it still wouldn't be funny. No, the real punchline here is the first line in panel 3. On top of being geuinely funny (though that could be just because I'm a big fat jerk who likes to put everyone down), that line is what the strip is really about, as even the alt-text is building on it. Granted, the alt-text sucks, but the point still stands. I guess this comes to Randall trying hard to be funny and failing, and just being funny somewhere ese by accident.
So, yeah. This would be a great blog post material, but as a comic, it sucks.
"Burn", to lay-rocket-enthusiasts, refers to when you have the rocket's thrusters turned on and possibly how strong or how long you have them turned on... so a stronger "burn" would exert more force on a rocket and increase it's chance of escaping Earth's gravity...
ReplyDelete".....though that could be just because I'm a big fat jerk who likes to put everyone down....."
ReplyDeleteDear oh dear.
Dear oh dear oh dear.
It just goes to show the utter folly of teaching the pedestrian how to read and write.
Your self-declaration of 'big, fat jerk' status notwithstanding you are also unlettered. Whether this is by virtue of your nature or nurture I cannot determine.
Not only do you choose to use a phrasal verb 'put down', for lack of sufficient working vocabulary(1), you insist on 'splitting' it with the noun 'everyone'. To do so has the unfortunate effect of placing an erstwhile preposition at the terminus of your sentence fragment; 'down'.
(1) Derogate? Denigrate? Disparage? And those are just the 'D' words.
You sure do spend a lot of time writing stuff that ultimately amounts to nothing.
DeleteWhat is it that makes you think an inordinate amount of time was spent pixellating my above dross? I suspect it took you copious quantities of temporal investment to determine how truly meaningless my word salad was. You know, you having the reading comprehension of a typical Anglospheric cuntbutler and all.
DeleteThat is the sort of bullshit up with which I will not put.
DeleteAm I the only one that finds it a little bit weird and insecure when Randy writes characters that compliment each other on how clever the lines he wrote are? It's as if he's worried we won't understand that it was supposed to be funny if the characters don't tell us. Either that, or it's just him masturbating to the punchline after he writes it down.
ReplyDeleteEither Way, it is something I have notice and it is one of the things that bothers me about xkcd... he does it so much we should probably start tagging it when he does.
DeleteGood idea. If anyone can come up with a good name for the tag, I'd add it to this post.
DeleteSelf-congratulation? Mental masturbation? Although that could apply to 2/3 of all xkcd strips.
Delete