Posts
title: Tradition; alt-text: "An 'American tradition' is anything that happened to a baby boomer twice."
No review showed up today so, while I understand I am under no obligation to do so, I decided to post it here so YOU can tell ME why YOU think it sucks.
This is an example of why xkcd if more often a picto-blag then an actual comic... so, as long as I tell myself "it's not supposed to be a comic" I suppose there's not much I can say against it.
One of the pre-mature-commentators in the last comments thread points out that the "punchline" lands before you have had a chance to inspect the graph and try to work it out for yourself... but meh... let's pretend that that was a guest review:
Randy is really digging this early punchline thing. Then again, maybe I shouldn't complain if it means cutting out graph comics.
It's hardly funny. A clever observation, perhaps, but it's just presented as a fact. I have no reason to appreciate it as being funny though.
ReplyDeleteThis comic is a fact with pretty colors at best.
[A fun fact I discovered while poking around the Xkcd forums: there are at least 143272 of the forums' currently 180794 members who have 0 posts.]
I found this somewhat interesting, if only because I continually notice how much the Baby Boomers dictate our modern pop cultural canon. If this was one point in a larger discussion, I might be intrigued. But, as we all know, sociology isn't a *real* science, so I'm sure that's not what Randall was going for.
ReplyDeleteAs it is, it's a simple observation presented in graph form. It has no joke, and it goes nowhere. No points.
Considerably ugly, in spite of the use of color. I feel as though he's trying to troll my brain, with these awful shades of red and green, that don't give me warm feelings of Christmas at all, but rather look like something drawn by an alien trying to convince me he's human.
ReplyDeleteAWebcomicThatMakesAFactualObservationWithoutHardlyBotheringToTellAJoke says what?
I'm Famous!
ReplyDeleteI always wanted to contribute to this blog... never thought it would be accidental.
The new comic is an interesting halfway breed between a subversion and a shoehorn. After reading the first panel, I thought, "Yet another comic about how technology is changing fast. This is stupid. Life is stupid." Then, Randall Munroe took me in a completely different direction by making the comic about cryogenics. It felt kind of weird but an interesting twist at the time, and that feeling actually won't go away for me. Every time I read it over, I seem to be able to process it as both a cool twist and some stupid right turn in a disjointed comic. I think this is because it is actually the exact halfway point between the two, and it mediates the spectrum. So, not ideal in the "I-wanna-read-a-good-comic" sense, but very interesting to analyze from the literary point of view. A sort of metaproperty. Something for those searching for the next level of meaning. Something for those too bored out of their minds to do anything but criticize a lame but somehow popular webcomic all day long.
ReplyDeleteTODAY
ReplyDelete