Posts
Alt-Text: You can't stab Karl Kasell. He sounds all slow and stentorian, but he moves like a snake.
Oh great, another shotgun humor strip, this time about possible headlines for when Peter Sagal does something "newsworthy" (I'll get to that in a minute) in 2012. Okay, no. First, why would Randall need to specify the year 2012? Is the show going away? Or does he believe the "2012 End Of The World" bullshit? Also, Who the hell stockpiles headlines in advance? If something actually happens, any reporter could come up with a headline, especially with such an easy target. Hell, even Randall could come up with enough of them to fill a shitty comic in only two days.
Okay, in Randall's case it was different, because he didn't have to match his stupid headlines to actual stories, and, to be honest, that actually sounds like the point of this strip, "to be prepared for the unforeseen", but in the end it just works against him. First, none of the headlines are funny (okay, the ACCIDENTALLY one cracks me up, but that's because I'm a basement-dweller who finds memes funny), and second, at least one of them directly contradicts the strip's premise, unless of course you think that a celebrity deleting his Facebook account is newsworthy.
In short, this is a very bland comic, with a few awful parts. When will Randall understand that qunatity over quality only works if you have at least some quality? Well, seeing that he's managed to shell out almost 1000 strips on a thrice-weekly basis, probably never.
But I can dream, dammit!
----
Edit: Notorious commenter Michael notes that stockpiling headlines, along with whole stories, is a real practice, employed, for instance, in presidential elections, in order to have all bases covered. However, as another commenter says, I don't think it is done in anticipation of improbable events.
Mother of god, this comic is some kind of shambling nightmare on all levels. I actually am horrified that somebody would think this would make for a clever comic. This is like the kind of joke I make with my friends at 3 in the morning when anything is funny, and then never speak of again because it's actually not.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to question what the joke is even about here. I naturally assumed it was a failed wordplay joke, but maybe he's trying to mock NPR? Or it's a commentary on the lack of creativity in reporting the news these days? There's just so much that doesn't work here that it becomes hard to tell what was even supposed to work in the first place.
I have a friend who has a huge boner for Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Maybe I'll ask him if he finds this funny, and why.
They DO stockpile headlines in advance. Everywhere. I mean, probably not for Peter Sagal, but, for example, they released newspapers claiming that Al Gore has won the election of 2000 that day by accident, because they had both stories already written up and they got a little trigger happy with the presses. Then came the big fuckup with Florida, but that's not the point. So, this IS a practice. But Randall's just being hypothetical here.
ReplyDeleteMichael: They produce articles for both sides of the story in the hours before it breaks, in the example of an election, so they can have the story ready to roll the instant it breaks.
ReplyDeleteThey also reportedly have obituaries pre-written for celebrities (especially those in detox).
However, the reviewer is right. While it may make sense to pre-write an article for an event which is imminent, it makes no sense at all to generate a bunch of headlines for improbable events.
No one is naming names but I'm pretty sure this is making fun of XKCD so I thought this crowd might appreciate it.
ReplyDeletehttp://chainsawsuit.com/2011/12/28/walk-of-shame/
Check out the tags on that comic; they are naming names but only inconspicuously...
ReplyDeleteI don't get the "WAIT WAIT DON'T ME... Peter Sagal accidentally" one... WTF? can someone explain?!?
ReplyDeleteAccidently with a missing verb is a stupid 4chan meme. Randall previously mentioned it in 550.
ReplyDeleteI've played this game before but all the variants had to rhyme with the real one. That makes it kind of tricky. And that makes it funny when someone does it well. Wait, wait, don't "well" me.
ReplyDeleteAlso, about 998: I thought of photoshopping just the text to make it look like a hand-written blog post. There's really no need to look at stick figures while you read Mr. Xkcd's rant.
The first 57 reasons Mr. Xkcd shouldn't have children also involve the unfairness of subjecting innocent people to his know-it-all demeanor and half-assed approach responsibility. You think it's bad being a regular reader...
ReplyDeleteXKCD number 1000 can literally only be interpreted as a self-parody, right down to the title text.
ReplyDeleteMy captcha for that last one was "reject". Sorry to bring the captcha (non-)jokes over to this blog, but it couldn't have been more appropriate.
ReplyDelete