1021: Return of not-lazy art

Alt-text: The investor elevator pitch is "Wheeeeeeee! Elevators are fun!"

Another two weeks have passed and here I am, writing another review and hoping that this will not become a trend. Now, to be honest, I actually was going to write about several strips that came after 1016, but I only had, like, one or two things to say about each at most, and I didn't want to give you guys lackluster reviews. Though I guess I could talk about them now, before I get to today's comic: 1017 was just a picto-blog entry designed to give the "nerdy" xkcd fans something to rave about, 1018 was just a dumb non-joke that had been done much better in Black Books and 1020... well, I'll just respond with this and leave it at that. With that said, let's get to the matter at hand.

As has been already said in the past, it is a position of the xkcd-sucks blog that we give credit where credit is due, and, well, this is what got me to write this in the first place. 1021 is really damn good. The first thing you'll notice is that it hasn't been drawn on a computer, but rather using the good ol' paper and pencil – just like in Ye Olde Days of xkcd. And it is drawn well, too. Not only did Randall convey the scene of a beach beautifully, he did so that his trademark stick figures don't stick out in the detailed environment like a bare ass in the bushes. This comic proves that he can draw well, he just usually chooses to half-ass it instead, like his fanbase is not worth the hassle.

The comic is also handled well content-wise. Not only are Beret Guy's latest wacky shenanigans something that, at least in my opinion, fits his character, but they're presented without a single line of dialogue, something that we don't see all that often in xkcd, and almost never done right, but here it works. I'm not sure if I really get the joke properly or if the punchline is really just "Haha, Beret Guy, you're so silly! You can't sell gulls!"; a quick Wiki search tells me that the word "gull" can mean a type of a sailing dinghy, but that term appears to be rather obscure. Nevertheless, the joke seems adequate to both the scene and the character of Beret Guy.

The alt-text is kinda stupid, but this is the kind of strip that would best profit from not having any alt-text at all. After all, this is a strip that manages to be good with almost no words. Best keep it that way.

This comic is both satisfying, because it is a really good one, and infuriating, because, well, the other ones aren't. For the longest time I had been wondering how could Randall make a living off of something that he obviously didn't even put any real work into most of the time (yes, I am a little jealous). However, I would understand it had every xkcd strip look like this one. This style simply looks better than the sterile computer-aided drawings, and it fits the stick drawings better, too. Maybe we could get such strips more often? Please?