Comics 1283-1294: Fuck You All

Well, the last four weeks of comics have had nothing wrong with them, so there's really not much for me to say. JUST JOKING, THEY ALL SUCKED. Here's why.

1294 - Telescope Names

The premise of the joke is the first thing that's weak. F for bad premise. It's basically a variation on the 'what if they ran out of names for  a particular thing?' gag that he did back in the 'hurricane eggbeater' comic (too lazy to look up the number). It wasn't funny then, and it's not funny now. F+ for recycled joke, because he could have picked worse ones to recycle. Then there's the terrible execution. It's just a bunch of text with some check boxes. I could have drawn that. F* for laziness.

Also, why is there are tick in the box if it's cancelled. Surely there should be a cross or a straight line. F for not thinking things through.

1293 - Job Interview

I think we've all heard the story that Beret guy is supposedly based on Randall's real friends. If that's true, then Randall is obviously trying to mercilessly mock this friend, and the guy just doesn't get it.

F for the bad dialog. You can see painfully clearly that certain lines like 'There are ghosts here.' and 'I hope so.' were just generated by a Beret Non-sequitur generator script, probably one that Randall wrote himself in Python. F for doing a mediocre job of it. Your programming sucks, Randall!

Other lines that came out of the generator included (and I'm just guessing here) 'Are you a zombie?' and 'Really? I thought this was a bakery.'

F* for missing out the panel border in the middle panel. Is it a stylistic choice? Looks like the fucker was too lazy just to draw the fucking panel border, even though it only takes like four seconds with the rectangle tool.

1292 - Pi vs. Tau

F* for referencing the pi vs tau debate, which is one of the stupidest arguments on the Internet today, and that's coming from a guy who reads a bunch of tech blogs where people are arguing about Apple vs Android ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

The reason it's a stupid debate is because no one is going to change 2000 years of textbooks, and render the old symbol obsolete just because some people on the Internet said so. Tau may be better, but it doesn't matter. We're stuck with pi. deal with it.

I'm giving Randall another F* just because this comic is flame bait for the worst kind of nerd. Oh, and F for the alt text. No one uses the octal system, dumbass.

1291 - Shoot for the Moon

I, uh, what the fuck is this? Who let Megan out of her ball pit? And who is the talking to? I NEED TO KNOW. Because this comic makes no sense, my grade is not going to make any sense either. ÌÏÓÔ for bloody everything.

1290 - Syllable Planning

I'm going to give this comic an F*- because it appears to be mocking people who insert fucking into the middle of words. And if it isn't? Who cares? I still hate it. Another F for the premise of the joke, which is founded on the idea that you can't say 'ridicu-fucking-lous'. I just said it! It didn't sound wrong. Your argument is invalid, Ran-fucking-dall.

If you're so smart, tell me where in the word ridiculous would be a better place to insert fucking. There is none. 'Ri-fucking-diculous' and 'ridic-fucking-ulous' both sound worse than 'ridicu-fucking-lous'. Randall, you get an F* for failing to think things through.

1289 - Simple Answers

I choose to counter this comic with my own.

Also, F for smug preachiness, or something. DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

1288 - Substitutions

Another list comic. F for being another list comic. F for recycling the joke from the keyboard/leopard comic. F* for comparing the noble sport of eating contests to elections. Did you know this blog becomes more fun if you replace 'Xkcd' with 'The New Testament'? You do now.

1287 - Puzzle

F* for the terrible confusing notation in the alt text. The white queen can't even get to the square B8, so it makes no sense anyway. Or am I just reading it wrong. Let me know in the comments.

1286 - Encryptic

And calling it 'wonderful' is a bit of an overstatement. F for casual hyperbole. And does Randall really think it's 'wonderful' that all these passwords have been leaked to the public? Sure he does, because it means he gets to preach to them about password security while they scramble to change the password, a password they didn't even want in the first place. Bah. Another F because it also scares uninformed people about passwords. F* for having no coherent characters.

DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

1285 - Third Way

F* for recycling the joke of the Pi vs Tau comic, except this one came first, so... shit. F* anyway.

1284 - Improved Keyboard

I am getting an insufferable smugness vibe from this comic. F for smugness. And even more annoyingly, it's Black Hat who's being the smug one. F* for abusing the character of Black Hat. And F*** for more smugness.

1283 - Headlines

F for no characters. F for no joke. F for no artwork. F for no dignity. F for no shame. The flaws of this comic could apply to almost any one. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFell asleep on the F key. DETENTION for Gizmodo repost. Gizmodo gets a detention as well. Apparently The Guardian reposted this one as well, Britain's last broadsheet. I mean, fuck. What has the world come to? Xkcd is everywhere. Is it even worth trying to fight it anymore? We are the last soldiers in the war on Xkcd. Maybe we've lost. Maybe we'd be happier if we just gave in to the madness. Let me know in the comments section as I shed a single tear for the death of art.

*It's not an asterisk, fuckers. It's a STAR.

Comics 1280-1282: Oh, we're halfway there

Have you heard that they're phasing out alphabetical grades in the British GCSE system? That means their getting rid of the A* grade, and I for one think it's a travesty. Future generations' grades be made better through association with a celestial body. You can rest assured that xkcd-sucks will continue to use alphabetical grades for the foreseeable future. Now on with the reviews.

Comic 1282: Monty Hall

I know it's making reference to a semi-obscure logic problem, yet it's sort of essential to understanding the joke. And it has Beret, second only to Black Hat in his inconsistency as a character. And yet I just can't criticise it. Missing the point of the Monty Hall problem and taking the goat instead strikes like 'typical Beret' and 'something Beret would do'. Furthermore, it's so damn cute. So yeah, A* for just being a perfectly heartwarming comic, and doing what xkcd should do more often. Oh and the alt text is just perfect.

Comic 1281: Minifigs

Liking two xkcds in a row? What's wrong with me? Hear me out here. It may be a graph joke, but it's a good graph joke. A* for concept. The concept of Lego people outnumbering human people is not funny in itself. But it's something that no one else has thought of. Having said that, someone probably has thought of it before. It also gains A* bonus points for being true (probably).

The execution is really great too. This may be a happy accident from the data he's got, but he's labelled the graph so that the label for the 'unfunny' world population graph is what you read first, and then you read the 'funny' data for the world lego population. A for comic timing and data presentation.

B- for the actual punchline though. It feels a little bit like post-punchline dialog, or repeating what the reader already knows. He'd only have to do one thing to improve it. Move the caption to the top, so it's the first thing the reader sees. As it is, the title telegraphs the punchline too much, so maybe change it to something like 'Outnumbered'. Then it would be perfect.

I'm losing it as a critic. I never claimed to be objective, but I can't hate xkcd when I need to. Let's see if the next comic is any improvement...

Comic 1280: Mystery News

Ah, that's more like it. D for concept. E for execution. F for humour. 'Most of my news' is absurdly exaggerated, and not even in a funny way. If I ever get one of those awful auto-playing videos and I can't find the tab it's playing from, I don't stop and listen to it, like this comic implies. F- for implying that anyone would do that, EVER. I usually resort to more drastic measures to avoid listening, like systematically destroying all 6 million tabs pressing the mute button. It would be funny if... no, I got nothing. Also, DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

Yes I know I'm a week behind. Remaining comics to follow shortly.