Comic 1393 - Randall Feels Old

Alt-text: I'm teaching every 8-year-old relative to say this, and every 14-year-old to do the same thing with Toy Story. Also, Pokemon hit the US over a decade ago and kids born after Aladdin came out will turn 18 next year.

Oh wait...that's Comic 647.  Let's try again.

References courtesy of xkcdsucks.

Nope, those aren't right either.  Ah! Here's 1393:
Alt-text:  'Hello, Ghostbusters?' 'ooOOoooo people born years after that movie came out are having a second chiiiild right now ooOoooOoo'

While I can't be bothered to look up other instances of this (891 and 1093 — ed.), I'm positive this isn't the first time Randall has turned around and made fun of the same premises he once used as jokes.  Is it a big deal? It's tough to say.  As these strips indicate, people DO grow older, and as they grow older, their feelings change (look no further than the primary audience of these hate blogs).

For now, I'm willing to accept this change of heart.  Randall did a 180, sure, but he didn't do it with any sort of pretentiousness, and he didn't make "this thing is annoying" the entirety of the joke, as he's done before.  The joke at the end is actually a decent twist, and while I don't think it needed the buildup of three panels (this isn't a newspaper comic, after all - he can use whatever format he likes), there are worse ways of going about it.

That said, I don't believe this was a comic that needed to be made.  Sure, Randall took an unfunny thing and made it funny (and as a cartoonist, that's his job), but it's not really what I'd consider xkcd subject matter.  It's just him saying, "I want to tell people how I feel about this, so I'd better stick a joke at the end."  There's nothing particularly intelligent or scientific about it, and nothing related to romance, sarcasm, math, or language either.  It's just something Randall doesn't like with a joke at the end.

In other words, it's the sort of comic that made me stop caring about xkcd.  Not nerdy enough to have niche appeal, not funny enough to have broad appeal, and not bad enough to have hateblog appeal.  It's just unremarkable; nothing more.

P.S. - My favorite of these sorts of factoids is "Most kids entering high school this year were born in the year 2000."

Gamer_2k4 Done Writing Reviews

You all probably saw this day coming. I knew it was coming from the very first day I learned that this blog was my sole responsibility when Raven left. I had hoped that I could gradually phase myself out of the mix if people sent me enough guest reviews, but it wasn't meant to be.

Truth be told, I just do not care anymore about xkcd. The people who praise it, the people who link to it, the people who think it's the defining webcomic of the internet...leave them. I don't care. The man who writes it and profits off it...whatever. If that's really how he wants to live his life, what am I going to gain by being upset by it?

There was a time when I did feel a hate towards xkcd, or at least towards its fanbase. I couldn't stand that Randall would post something on G+ like "hey i think women need more respect" and dozens of people would praise him for it. Now, I don't care. People who drool over xkcd are rare in my life and dismissed quickly. If I don't go searching for them, I don't find them.

It's not a time issue; I definitely have the time to update this blog. I could update a dozen times a week if Randall made that many comics. I just don't want to. I don't want to have go to xkcd three times a week and think, "Wow, another completely boring comic. What the heck do I say for this one." Some xkcd strips make me angry, yes. But they're so rare these days that it's more likely I'll get angry at how consistently unremarkable the strip has managed to be. What's the point? Randall's not getting any better, and he's not getting worse fast enough that there's an end in sight.

We've reviewed over 60 comics here since the blog began. Out of those, only six got my "worst of xkcd" ire. That means a comic really only makes me feel legitimately angry about once every three weeks. That's just not enough to keep a blog running. Still, we've been here since June, which is pretty remarkable.

I wouldn't have kept going for as long as I did without the support from all of you. Thanks to Jon Levi for bingo, thanks to SinbadEV for "sucks less" submissions and guest reviews, thanks to Ann Apolis for filling in for me here and there, and thanks to T-Jack and sorcfs and all the anons who left so many reviews in my inbox. Thanks to all the commenters who shared their thoughts. You guys kept this blog alive.

I don't know what will happen to this blog. I'll send author invites to the people I named above in case they want to keep contributing here, and I'll retain admin rights so I can check in every so often. I'm sorry it had to go this way, I really am. I joined up with this blog solely because I couldn't stand the awful reviews on the original hateblog, and I wanted to help provide an alternative. I did it because I was a dissatisfied hateblog READER, and I sympathized with other readers. I never wanted to own a blog myself, and you can see the results of that.

It was a good (albeit short) trip, and a wild ride while it lasted. I'm glad all of you were here to share it with me. I hope this blog lives on, but if it doesn't, so be it. Goodbye, everyone.

Comic 981: A Double Helping of Suck

Title: Porn Folder; alt-text: Eww, gross, you modified link()? How could you enjoy abusing a filesystem like that?

Let's ignore all the dialogue for now. Normally, this would improve xkcd vastly, but in this case, it only serves to highlight Randall's awful attempt at illustrating the conversation. As my eyes were drawn to the missing headrest component in panel 2, the ridiculous angle of the chair in panel 3, the fact that the guy picks up his laptop to turn around (who does that?), the uneven lines on the desk and computer, and so on, I realized something. That computer setup looked familiar. Could this be...consistency?

For a second, I was hopeful. Sure enough, a jaunt through the recent archives led me to many more instances of it in comics past. Consistency! However, I soon realized something. Unless the entire cast lives in some fraternity house and are compulsive furniture movers, this doesn't make any sense. Sometimes there's a laptop on the desk. Sometimes it's a computer monitor. Sometimes it's a TV. Sometimes an easy chair is facing the desk, and sometimes it's facing away. Most of the time an office chair is there. My best guess is that Mr. Xkcd (does the generic guy have a name yet?) lives with Megan. Megan is friends with Sarah (the blonde girl). Mr. Hat is that guy that everyone kind of knows but no one really likes, and he just comes over whenever he's bored. It's really the only explanation!

Or, you know, Randall is just awful at drawing, and he can only draw one couch, one chair, one desk, one laptop, and one tv/monitor. Or, worse still, he's NOT that bad at drawing, and is just so darn lazy that anything taking longer than 5 seconds isn't worth his time (unless it's poorly researched collections of colored squares). And the worst thing is, Randall's been doing this for six years. I get that stick figures are his "minimalistic" thing, but flat-out REFUSING to improve the other aspects of the strip is just insulting to the medium.

Okay, I'm done with that little tirade. Bring back the dialogue, toss out the art, and we'll proceed to the second half of the review.

Remember that thing I said about consistency? Yeah, it doesn't exist in xkcd. Megan (who I assume is the person off-screen here) made it very clear 267 strips ago that her porn is NOT about filesystems. In other words, as usual, Randall just makes up personalities for the sake of jokes. I complained about this in just my fourth review here, and it still bugs me. Apparently the appeal of "lulz this is something a super-nerd might do" is enough to create a completely contradictory comic for the sake of that "joke."

And that's really all this comic is. Is this something someone would actually do? Of course not. (More to the point, I doubt someone would be in denial about their porn at first but immediately switch to unashamedly defending it a second later.) And why use the "porn folder" context to frame this joke? The "joke" is "You're not supposed to create hard directory loops and yet this person is doing it." How is that funny? What mood do you have to be in (besides last-minute panic) that your brain generates this idea and you think, "Yeah, that's a pretty good idea for a comic"?

And yeah, I know this is nothing new for Randall. Mediocrity has been his M.O. for years. Still, it's frustrating that comics like this are all xkcd will ever be, and yet legions of fans praise him for it.

xkcd sucks.


P.S. Why are Mr. Xkcd and Megan sharing a drive on a laptop? Isn't the point of a laptop largely that it's your own, and you don't need to share it? Are they really so poor that they can't afford separate computers? (And how could they be poor if they don't have kids?) Personally, I can't imagine sharing a computer with someone (even if they had a separate partition), and I don't even have anything to hide. It's just...it's MY computer, you know?

Comic 978: Randall Makes Up Words for the Internet

First of all, let me clear up a few things. I missed the last two updates simply because I was uninspired and no one sent in any guest posts. I will not review those two strips now, because it's old news and if I didn't care about them when they were new, no one's going to care about them when they're old.

Now, this may cause some concern among you about the stability of this blog. To help ease those fears, let me make you several guarantees that will never change as long as I'm in charge here.

1. I will never find fault where there is none, and I will never write a review that is anything other than (what I believe to be) a legitimate criticism of the comic in question. We all know what happened to the other blog, and I promise you that will not happen here.


2. Unfortunately, if I have to stand behind my words, that means that there are going to be days when I have nothing to say. On those days, I will not waste your time. I will not post nonsense. You will either get a guest review or no review at all.


3. Unless it is absolutely atrocious, I will always post any guest reviews that get emailed to me. This blog was originally intended to be a collaboration, not a one man show, and I'll take all the help I can get.


4. Finally, I will never abandon this blog without an explanation. I may miss a post here and there, as you've recently seen. However, if I step down from running this blog, I will explain why and leave someone willing and capable in charge (if the community so chooses).

Well, that's a weight off my chest. On to why xkcd sucks!


Title: Citogenesis; alt-text: I just read a pop-science book by a respected author. One chapter, and much of the thesis, was based around wildly inaccurate data which traced back to ... Wikipedia. To encourage people to be on their toes, I'm not going to say what book or author.

I initially tagged this as "straw man," thinking that Randall was just making up a problem and assigning it a name, but a brief jaunt through the forums indicate that this has happened before. However, it's also clear that this is a small, isolated issue, and not the universal "Where Citations Come From" problem that Randall implies it is.

The truth is, Wikipedia is often an excellent resource for research. Obviously you should never cite it directly, but the fact that it's open to editing and that the more important articles get more attention mean that on a whole, Wikipedia is self-correcting. In other words, the information on Wikipedia is MORE likely to be accurate than any other source, simply because it remains current and errors can be removed.

It's also worth noting that this problem goes beyond Wikipedia (one poster mentioned Norse genealogies as an example). Randall uses the Wikipedia example because that's where he lives, but doing so presents the issue in a bubble and misdirects blame. The problem isn't Wikipedia; the problem is confirmation bias that cause people to call it good as soon as one thing backs up what they want to believe. That's a known psychological fallacy - well, known to people who have any interest in the "soft sciences," anyway.


P.S. Does anyone else find it hypocritical that Randall uses his webcomic to cry about bad citations, then offers us an alt-text with a claim but no citation at all? "To encourage people to be on their toes" is a retarded reason to withhold information (if said information actually exists, which several forumites doubt).

P.P.S. It's worth noting that there are two consecutive "was"es in the first panel right now. I expect this is an error that will get corrected, but if it was put in there intentionally (some people on the forums are using it as an example of an "erroneous edit"), that's stupid. You only don't see those things if they're separated as they are in the comic. On a Wikipedia page, the error would be obvious.

Comic 974: Randall's Rants, Part 2

Ughhh...I kept hoping and hoping that someone would send me a guest review, but no dice. The main problem here is that I don't really have a lot to say about this comic (and yes, I know every time I say that, it turns into an eight paragraph rant). But, in the interest of posting and update before the next strip comes out, here goes.


Title: The General Problem; alt-text: I find that when someone's taking time to do something right in the present, they're a perfectionist with no ability to prioritize, whereas when someone took time to do something right in the past, they're a master artisan of great foresight.

I'm just going to focus on the alt-text this time, because it feels like Randall is just using the comic as a vehicle for his rants again (the last time, of course, being Comic 971. And, once again, the comic actually misses the point that he's making in the alt-text. If you want to garner sympathy for "people taking the time to do something right," don't use the example of some idiot overthinking condiment passing. It takes half a second to slide a salt shaker across the table. Unless the person is inventing a teleporter, literally nothing he could make would be faster. Besides, they have a "condiment passer" device already. It's called a Lazy Susan.

But the bigger problem here is the alt-text. I could be way off, but it really feels to me like Randall's been told this all his life ("you have no ability to prioritize!") and he's trying to argue that all the "greats" were the same way. Of course he labels himself as a perfectionist (which we all know isn't true), and he somehow fails to see the difference between himself and those master artisans.

Of course, it's a simple distinction to make. They made society better in some way. They made contributions. They produced things of value. Randall hasn't done any of those things.

Comic 971: Randall's Rants

Title: Alternative Literature; alt-text: I just noticed CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with--and labeled similarly to--their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you're giving them medicine, when you know you’re not, because you want their money, isn’t just lying--it’s like an example you’d make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong.

Oh. My. Gosh. I don't know which to criticize first, the comic or the alt-text! This should even be a problem, because normally the two are at least somewhat related. Not this time!

Or, you know what, maybe they are. Maybe the comic is some sort of allegory about homeopathic medicine and how it's like reading blank books. But if that's the case, it needs a LOT of work, because no one's going to naturally assume that from context unless they've just read the alt-text (which makes a completely different point!)

See, until I read the alt-text (ironic, isn't it, that Randall adds novel-length alt-text in a comic about wordless books), I assumed he was just doing what he always does: setting up a strawman that doesn't exist and laughing at him. Look at it. Even the structure of the comic emphasizes just how clueless Randall is about what he's doing wrong. "Not true; there's some ink" and "a smudge" are completely useless to the point the character is making. Guy 1 says something. Guy 2 argues a different point. It's a perfect metaphor for today's update, if Guy 1 is the alt-text and Guy 2 is the the strip itself.

Is this making any sense? Well, at least it can't make any less sense than Comic 971. I mean, I've spent three paragraphs (coming up on four) ranting about this strip and I haven't even addressed its subject matter yet! That's bad, folks.

Look, the joke here is friggin' simple. "All your books are blank!" "My mind makes the books, and I refuse be a part of a system that says otherwise. I'm no sucker." "And you paid how much for these?" I can't stand xkcd, and even I smiled at the "Who sold you all these blank books?" line. You know why? Because that's the punch line! That's the joke! We don't need all these other panels of pointless dialogue!


Image by SinbadEV

But Randall's not content to ruin his comic with an awful setup and a too-delayed punchline. Oh no. Nope, he has to get on one of his, "Boy, people are stupid, and companies just take advantage of them. It's too bad they're not as smart as me" high horses. Carl from xkcdsucks (the original blog; remember when it wasn't awful?) said all there is to say about this sort of thing, so I'll just link to his rant here. In short, it says that people aren't stupid, they know that just because you put two different things together they aren't the same thing, and Randall's a complete douchebag for assuming otherwise.

I dunno, maybe I'm tired and hopped up on pain pills. If I'm missing some deeper point here, someone please tell me. Until then, I'm going to believe that this is just an awful, awful strip, and one of the worst Randall's done in recent memory.


P.S. I was in such disbelief when I read the alt-text, I actually screenshotted it in case Randy changes it. It's just...what was he thinking??

Comics 969 and 970: Randall is Stupid

Still laid up from my injury, which means xkcd remains one of the last things on my mind. Again, I don't have much to say about either Wednesday's or today's strips, but they do both suck.

Comic 969

Title: Delta-P; alt-text: If you fire a Portal gun through the door of the wardrobe, space and time knot together, which leads to a frustrated Aslan trying to impart Christian morality to the Space sphere.

Oh geez I hate this one. Absolute best case for this strip: Randall's equations work, Narnia gets flooded, and the White Witch dies. OH WAIT, AND SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE. That's like saying we could have prevented the Holocaust by killing everyone in the world. Hitler would be gone, so no Holocaust, right?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

My next objections might be considered nitpicks, but dang it, Randy put all his equations right on the comic, so he apparently cares about that kind of detailed analysis.

1. It's not raining so there's no portal.


2. The pressure might just close the doors of the wardrobe, meaning that no water ever gets in.


3. Even if the doors remain open, shouldn't the air and everything else in Narnia simply stop the water from filling it? To see what I mean, invert a cup and push it into some water. Notice how there's still air inside the cup?


4. But okay, let's assume water does make it in, Still, time is completely different in Narnia, so the water would just trickle in, rather than the torrent Randall expects.


5. What the heck do you mean, "space and time knot together if you fire a portal gun through the door"? The door IS a portal! You can't fire a portal gun through an existing portal!

Seriously, Randall. THINK a little before you post garbage like this.

Comic 970

Title: The Important Field; alt-text: I hear in some places, you need one form of ID to buy a gun, but two to pay for it by check. It's interesting who has what incentives to care about what mistakes.

This is a straw man attack if I've ever seen one. Yes, most registration forms require you to enter your email address twice. You know why? BECAUSE IT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT FIELD. If your email is wrong, you don't get registered. Now, compare that to something like the comments box for this blog. You're asked to enter your email once. You know why? Because it's NOT important! Who cares if your email is wrong there?

The situation in this strip is a total fabrication. It's so contrived it hurts. THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN. It's like saying, "I really think the US government should take down freenuclearsecrets.gov. How stupid are they to just offer that up to anyone?" He'd be making a good point if that was how things worked, but IT'S NOT.


I think there's a lesson we can all learn from this: Don't be a retard, Randall.

Comic 968: Tact? What's That?

Hey, all. Sorry in advance, but this post isn't going to be especially timely (as you already know) or hateful (as you're about to find out). The main reason for both is that I broke my pelvis in a climbing accident on Saturday and haven't really felt like running a blog in the meantime. (The meds I'm on kind of leave me fuzzy too, so there's that). Maybe I'll try to get Ann Apolis to finish up the reviews for this week, or if any of you want to send a guest post my way, that would also be fantastic.

Still, let's give this review a shot.


Title: Everything; alt-text: I wanna hold your hand so I don't fall out of your gyrocopter.

I honestly can't tell if this is really sweet or really cold. On the one hand, he's saying, "I know I'm not hopelessly and delusionally in love with you, but I still love the things you do." On the other hand, it also sounds like, "You really mean nothing to me personally, but at least you're entertaining." I think Randall's going for the first, but it comes off as more of the second.

Either way, what it boils down to is that Randall has absolutely no filter between his mind and his mouth, whether it's concerning his odd fetishes (which should be kept inside his head to spare the rest of us), his views of other sciences or professions (which should also remain under wraps because they make him look like an arrogant dickhead), his ideas about relationships (which bare his creepiness to the world), or how he honestly feels about people (because, believe it or not, tact is a virtue).

Some might say that this is just a persona of Randall's creation, or his characters talking. I say that when you present the same mindset frequently and consistently over the span of six years (or whatever it's been), especially with as little self-awareness as xkcd has, you can no longer pass it off something fictional. That's YOU, whether it's intentional or subconscious. Randall's an ignorant, arrogant, tactless creep.

Who knew, right?


P.S. Some people say this is a reference to one of Shakespeare's sonnet's, but that can't be right. Do you really think Randall would soil himself with the liberal arts?

Naaaaaah.

Comic 967: Making Stick Figures Look Even Worse

Title: Prairie; alt-text: Colorado is working to develop coherent amber waves, which would allow them to finally destroy Kansas and Nebraska with a devastating but majestic grain laser.

I was just playing this song on my piano today! GOOMHR!

(No really, I was. Weak.)

Okay, first of all, the observant of you will notice that I've applied the label "art failure" to this review. "Why?" you ask. "That prairie looks pretty good!"

It does. So why the heck do I say it's a failure? Well, just look at it! Because xkcd is a "stick figure webcomic," Randall has to cram his stick figures in there, just like he did with Comic 941. No! You made something nice, Randall! Why cover it up? Why make it ugly?

I know I stopped doing xkcd Sucks Less, but please, for this one comic, take a look at what could have been:


If not for that, this wouldn't be a bad comic! Randall (for once) assumes his readers are smart enough to get the reference, and the alt-text is good alt-text. The joke isn't especially funny, but it's nerdy for for the sake of being nerdy, which is what I'd expect from xkcd. I'd like it and I'd call it a good comic.

But Randall had to ruin the strip. Again.

Comic 966: X Knows - Controlled Demolition!

Yeah, yeah, worst backronym ever. Too bad.


Title: Jet Fuel; alt-text: The 'controlled demoliton [sic]' theory was concocted by the government to distract us. '9/11 was an inside job' was an inside job!

Well, this being a "My Hobby" comic, it means that Randall avoids his usual pitfalls of long, convoluted setups and post-punchline dialogue. This being xkcd, it still sucks.

This isn't much of a comic, which means that this won't be much of a review, either. 9/11 jokes are just old now (it happened TEN YEARS AGO), and this one isn't especially funny. It's an okay (if utterly pointless) idea, but that's the best I can say about it.

Sorry I don't have anything else in this review, but I've been starting at the blog editor off an on since I got into work today, and this is the best you're going to get. Maybe next time.

Comic 964: Dork Side of the Moon

Sorry this review is late. I had a few things I wanted to say about Friday's strip, but no desire to actually put them into complete, well thought out paragraphs. If you want that, you'll have to wait for the guest review of 965, which I'll post this afternoon or evening.


Title: Dorm Poster; alt-text: I was going to record an album with that cover under the name "PINK FTFY", so it'd come after them on the store CD rack. But at this point music stores are just rooms where CDs are set out to age before they're thrown away, so probably nobody would see it.

Okay, first of all, you don't need a convex lens for the rainbow light to refract back into white light with a second prism. Newton didn't use one. Yes, it wouldn't converge as the image shows without the lens, but if you want to delve into minutia, the light lengths are uneven (between the lens and the prisms) and it should be diffracting inside of the prism, not outside. Guess you didn't really "fix that for you," did you Randall.

And while we're referencing the alt-text, get off your frigging elitist high horse, Randall. More people go to record stores than read your stupid webcomic. Just because you and your fanbase all use iTunes or torrents or whatever else doesn't mean that the rest of the world does. I have friends and family with shelves full of CDs. I own a binder full of them myself. Yes, they're not doing as well these days (naturally), but people still do visit them. Sheesh.

Finally, it's nice to see Randall's as timely as ever with his "moving into college dorms" comic. Guess when people started college, Randall? NOT LAST WEEK. And does it seem odd to anyone else that neither person says a word to the other? Yes, the comic is better for it, but it just feels...weird. Maybe Randall should have thought the setting through a little more before writing a comic with it.


P.S. I'm told there was a pointless stealth edit to add glasses and a goatee to the roommate. I don't have a source for this besides the forums, but come up, Randall. Really? Why?

P.P.S There are two oddities that bear mentioning in passing. First the guy's backpack gains a ridiculous level of detail between panels 1 and 6. Second, who the heck carries a poster unrolled?

Comic 962: Randall Discovers Wingsuits

Title: The Corliss Resolution; alt-text: And no avian society ever develops space travel because it's impossible to focus on calculus when you could be outside flying.

I get what Randall is trying to say here. Problem is, it's wrong. I'm not trying to nitpick here; I'm really not. I know that sometimes you have to make some allowances for the sake of humor. But I can't do that in this case. It's just so blatantly false that I can't even consider the attempted joke.

To begin with, wingsuits are not new. Decent ones have been around for about a decade. Randall acts like he's just discovered the answer to Fermi's paradox, when in reality, if this was the answer, we would have had it for at least ten years.

Of course, this isn't the answer. High-adrenaline activities have been around forever (it's worth noting at this point that wingsuit fliers still have parachutes, so it's no more dangerous than basic skydiving). However, that rush and that sense of achievement will never be more "fun" than survival (except in very rare cases). Besides, thrill-seekers and scientists are rarely the same people.

The alt-text takes Randall's fallacy even further. To avian societies, flying would be commonplace. It's only special to us because WE CAN'T DO IT. You don't get a thrill from driving your car, do you? Of course not. Most people do it every day. But to someone who's never done it, it might be very exciting (just ask your dog).

The main problem with this strip (or really, most of xkcd), is that there's no self-awareness. There's no feel of "this is being said tongue-in-cheek." Obviously it IS (I really hope), but even if I give Randall that, it still seems like he thinks he's the first to ever come up with that idea. It would be like if Wednesday's strip talks about how McDonald's is going to have some booming business now that so many cats "can haz cheezburger." It's a half-kidding response to an old thing as though it were new, and that's just not funny.

--

P.S. I've stopped doing "xkcd sucks less" because it just didn't get enough attention. A couple of weeks were really good, but lately I've just been getting submissions from SinbadEV and no one else. Maybe I'll try again once the blog gets bigger.

Comic 961: In Memoriam

Title: Eternal Flame; alt-text: There's always the hope that if you sit and watch for long enough, the beachball will vanish and the thing it interrupted will return.

I held off on reviewing this because I thought that maybe, MAYBE, Randall would do his tribute on Thursday and post another update on Friday. Silly me.

Still, what's to say about this? Not much. It's well done. It's simple. There are no wasted words, no forced punchlines, no irrelevant setups, no art failures, no nerd pandering, and the timeliness is spot on. It reminds me of classic xkcd, before Randall started trying too hard.

It's a good comic.

Comic 960: FedXkcd

Title: Subliminal; alt-text: Once you see it, you can't help seeing it every time. Until your body finishes metabolizing the mushrooms.

You know what, let's start this thing off on a good note. Randall shows instead of telling! The guy sees crazy stuff, and Randall shows us the same thing! Oh. And then he has to tell us what we're seeing. Well, scratch that, I guess.

The main problem with today's strip is that it has no substance. This is essentially equivalent to someone saying, "What do you think that cloud looks like?" and someone else responding with something wacky. If Randall had started there, he would have realized that that's no joke. Problem is, he didn't start there.

No, this joke likely came from Randall discovering the FedEx arrow for the first time and thinking, "I bet I can make a comic about this!" (You can tell by the way he tries to hide it with the line, "I thought everyone knew about it.") Further evidence for this theory comes from the fact that the setup, focus, and punchline of the joke are all distinct from each other (and I'm giving him a lot of credit by not counting the "medication" line as post-punchline dialogue).

Think about it. Subliminal messaging (in this case, the FedEx arrow) is one distinct concept. Seeing shapes and images where they don't exist ("pareidolia" for those of you interested in the so-called "soft" sciences) is one distinct concept. Blaming medication for something is one distinct concept (seriously, think of how many jokes that punchline could finish). Ever seen the "Cartoon Wars" episodes of South Park, where Family Guy jokes are constructed by manatees matching up several random "idea balls"? That's what this is. This is a manatee joke.

Comic 959: Point, Counterpoint

First of all, let me apologize for not posting a "Sucks Less" for this week. It's just kind of turning into "XKCD SUCKS, SinbadEV Edition," and while I don't have a problem with that (I'm glad that he still puts in the effort, and I like his submissions), I don't feel as motivated to update when there's only one submitter to choose from. I imagine you're also feeling let down from the lack of bingo, in which case talk to Jon Levi. I don't know what's happened with that.

However! Today is kind of special, because we have not one, but TWO guest reviews! One is in favor of today's strip and one is against it, so you get both sides of the story. We're nothing if not objective here, folks. I'll start with the positive review, move onto the negative one, then post my own thoughts afterwards. Enjoy!


Title: Caroling; alt-text: For a thousand generations we vowed never to forget how his soldiers feasted on our brother Stephen.

Comic 959: Does Randall Read This Blog?

I like this comic. I mean, it's by no means perfect, but hell, I'll take it.

The setup is simple: Some kids are singing Christams carols (presumably on Mr. Hat's doorstep; I'll get to this later), and Mr. Hat stops them with a cruel remark. And it works. This is exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned the "show, don't tell" rule in my last review: Don't have Mr. Hat talk about how he's being a dick, SHOW him being a dick.

The strip avoids the usual pitfalls: It's short, to the point, has no post-punchline-dialogue and even makes effective use of a beat panel. I could argue a case of bad history (King Wenceslas didn't actually massacre anybody), but since this is Mr. Hat ruining a carol for a bunch of kids, it can be written off as a creative lie.

The art is also passable. The kids apparently exist in a featureless void (seriously, some background would be nice), but as Randall has proven multiple times now, he's good at shading. I, for one, would like to see that in more strips.

The alt-text... Well, I'm not really sure what to say about it. It doesn't really do much more than broaden the strip's punchline, but to be honest, it DID get a chuckle out of me. Maybe you people will have more to say about it.

In view of my last review, it seems to me that Randall does indeed read the blog and is willing to learn from our criticism. Maybe I'm wrong and this is just a coincidence, but if not, well... More power to you, Randall. Cheers.
by T-Jack

Comic 959: Winter in Coming

When I woke up this morning I brewed myself a cup of coffee and headed down to the computer in the basement that is good for little else then to browse web comics and blogs and loaded up xkcd-sucks because I hoped Gamer2K4 would have posted a "Sucks Less" for last week. Because there was none, I skipped over to xkcd itself to see how much it sucked.

The short answer was "a lot" and so I left for the bus doubly disappointed.

On that trip I briefly entertained resentment to Gamer2k4 for not having posted a "Sucks Less" despite me having submitted numerous options for him to choose from. Then I thought to myself, "Perhaps he is busy. I could be proactive and send in a guest review and then he would have time to post my amazing 'Sucks Less' entries." I tend to be long winded so, to this point, I have typically refrained from doing so but... this comic was particularly ripe for criticism.

To begin: Randall is making a joke about a Christmas carol on the first weekday of October which makes me think that he has had this joke in his mind for quite some time and thought that it was now close enough to Christmas to post it. Sadly, this indicates that, in his mind, this joke was so astonishingly funny that he could not wait a minute longer to share it.

Next: It is not even funny to begin with. This "joke" is very similar to how, when people make jokes about person's parents and then the person says, "My father is dead." to ruin the joke. This is not humour, this is buzz-kill.

Also: While I feel like Mr. Hat (who I like to call Black Hat Guy [or BHG for short]) is being a dick who doesn't care about social mores for personal gain... he is again doing so in a way that feels (as mentioned in the 958 blog) to fall short of his character.

Finally: The alt-text IS the joke... it took me a coffee and a half to wake up enough to get it but, given that it is likely the only enjoyment you will garner from the comic I will leave puzzling out the terrible pun as an exercise for the class (which is elitist intellectual for "let you figure it out for yourself").

While the pacing is well done, the comic shows instead of tells and the expressive use of the traditionally minimalist style is put to good use... the lack of "funny", post punchline pun and "not quite right" use of BHG causes the whole experience to fall flat.

In short, xkcd 959 sucks because it is disappointing.
by SinbadEV

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And now for my own thoughts. First of all, thanks to both T-Jack and SinbadEV for their efforts. As I say in the blog header, this comic wasn't supposed to be a one-man effort, and if we can get the community involved (the REAL community, not the 4chan wannabe cesspool in the xkcdsucks comments that Rob and Raven call the community), so much the better.

Secondly, I have my own opinion on this strip. It sucks. A lot.

The two aspects of the comic - the context and the joke - are both out of place. We JUST hit October; it's not even close to the right time of year to be posting Christmas comics. But the joke somehow manages to be worse than that! T-Jack is right (to some degree) that this is technically showing, not telling, but it's "showing" a conversation in progress. As in, it's doing the same thing the "stud finder finder" strip was. And THAT'S where Mr. Hat always falls flat.

The strip itself is ridiculously forced. I imagine Randall read something about the "Feast of Stephen," thought, "ha ha wouldn't it be funny if it was actually about eating a guy named stephen," and extrapolated that to "oh man what if that made wenceslas a mass murderer." KOMEDY GOLD, right? I know! But how would he get that across to his adoring fans? How could he make yet another of his "what if instead of this, that" strips? That's right: by putting those words in the mouth of Mr. Hat and making the strip about caroling.

That's why this feels so out of place, and that's why today's strip is so terrible. Randall's no stranger to writing jokes that require stupid, contrived setups, but here he goes so far as take someone who is canonically a saint and by all accounts was a great person, and portrays him as a mass murderer for the sake of a joke. Yes, I know. Mr. Hat is LYING. That's what he does. But still, without the alt-text to make the joke (as SinbadEV alluded to), this just comes off as lying for the sake of lying. Imagine this comic as follows: In the first panel, people are waving "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" signs. In the second, Mr. Hat says, "Marines eat babies." In the third panel, the sign holders are kind of standing there, stunned.

IT'S THE EXACT SAME COMIC. And it's just not funny.

Comic 957: The Perfect Storm

Title: Development; alt-text: Funding was quickly restored to the NHA and the APA was taken back off hurricane forecast duty.

I was waiting, hoping, and praying that some guest review would, against all odds, find its way into my email inbox today. It was not meant to be, probably because THIS COMIC SUCKS.

A lot.

Really, Randall? Another hurricane comic? I'm tagging this as "dated reference" because Rina HASN'T HAPPENED YET, so the only reason for a hurricane reference was because there was a big deal about Irene earlier this year. Why else would this be about hurricanes? WHY?

This is an important question, because the joke here is a play on the word "development." Are hurricanes REALLY the only things that develop, Randall? Wait, hold on, I bet I can think something else right now. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT! You know, software? Computers? THAT THING YOUR COMIC IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT??

I don't even know if there's a joke to be made with the "software" setup. I expect there is, but right now I don't care enough to try. Someone make a "sucks less" submission for that or something. I DO know that Randall might as well have used it anyway, because there's SURE AS HECK NO JOKE TO BE FOUND IN "HURRICANE DEVELOPMENT."

Geez.

I'm using a lot of caps because I'm tired and friggin' ticked off that Randall couldn't see fit to lob me a softball today. I liked your escalator strip, Randy! I praised it! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?

I mean, look at this! I'm ranting at the fact that there's nothing to rant about! This strip has absolutely nothing of substance. It's not even a new strip! It's reused, SIMPLIFIED art from Comic 944! It's like his recent Craigslist comic where he took the same idea, made the art WORSE, and replaced the text!

Screw you, Randall. Put some effort into your strip. You have thousands of fans who hang on your every update. Do it for them! Have some pride in what you do! I look at this strip and I see the product of one of life's failures: someone who couldn't hold a real job for more than a year, who is quickly forgetting whatever math and science he may have learned in college, and whose only source of income is overpriced t-shirts. Face it, Randall. You're not a webcomic author. You're the carnie of the internet.

Congratulations.

xkcd Sucks Less, Week 6 Followup

Yeah, yeah, there was no official "xkcd Sucks Less, Week 6." Deal with it.

Comic 953: 1 to 10

Alt-Text: Why are there no jokes about hexadecimal numbers?
by SindbadEV

SinbadEV goes on to tell me that the victim is some hippie named "Andrew," so as to not look like he advocates violence against women. Fair enough.


Alt-Text: Pirates don't like math jokes.
by SindbadEV

I assume this is Andrew again. Apparently September 19 was "Talk Like a Pirate Day."

Comic 954: Chin-Up Bar

No additional submissions.

Comic 955: Neutrinos

No additional submissions.

Yeah, it was hard to make last week's xkcd strips suck less. Maybe next time.

Comic 956: Did I Say "Giving Tree"? I Meant RAPING Tree!

Title Reference.


Title: Sharing; alt-text: In the new edition of The Giving Tree, the tree uses social tools to share with it's friend all the best places to buy things.

Hey guys did you know that there are these things called e-books with an established licensing plan and payment model, and if you don't pay for the e-book, you don't get to read it? This is news to Randall!

Look. I have no business condemning piracy. My personal justification for downloading the big stuff (Photoshop and the like) is that if I had to pay for it, I wouldn't buy it. Therefore, I'm not depriving the company of a sale. I do pay for smaller things like music, though. However, I DEFINITELY don't feel that I'm owed those things just for the sake of "sharing." The companies put work into their products, so they decide what to charge. If I don't want to pay that price, I risk not being able to get the product. It's simple.

But the thing is, this statement is so inane and obvious that I can't imagine Randall making a comic about it that takes it at face value. Either he's lazier than we thought, or he's trying to show how "ridiculous" the notion of e-book DRM is. It feels like he's saying, "You don't want to give me the book for free? Well TOO BAD; I never wanted your stupid book anyway!"

O...kay? THAT'S your comic strip, Randy? And you thought that this concept was so brilliant that you had to craft some retarded "tree with a USB port" context to tell us about it? Look. Maybe you didn't read the original story (and how could you? It has DRM!), but it's not called "The Sharing Tree." It's called "The GIVING Tree." The story isn't about how the world would be a better place if everyone shared everything. It's about a tree that gives pieces of itself for the sake of someone else. It's literally becoming less in order to provide the boy with more. Maybe you don't realize it, but file sharing isn't anything like that.

Some may say, "What about the art, Gamer? That's pretty good, right? For xkcd?" Well, yes, normally, I'd count that as the good that I try to find in every bad xkcd. But it's just so frustrating to see Randall whip out passable art at random! Is the joke aided buy having a textured and shaded tree? No? So WHY INCLUDE THAT? Or rather, why include it HERE when you refuse to put effort into strips that could actually benefit from more detailed art? If xkcd was never anything but stick figures, I could understand that. If Randall put some artistic effort into every strip, I could appreciate that. But instead of either of those, he takes a third route that shouldn't even exist and just ups his effort at random. Why?

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Also, some of you are probably wondering where yesterday's "Sucks Less" update is. The truth is, only 953 could have been improved easily (which was the whole point of the feature). 954 was good (in my mind), and no one sent me any suggestions for 955. SinbadEV, my normal go-to guy, could only improve 953 with violence, so instead, I'll leave you with an improvement that someone spontaneously left on the other xkcd hate blog. I think. It was a long time ago, and I'm sure as heck not going to dig through THOSE comments. Yeesh.

Comic 955: Someone is Wrong on the Internet

Title: Neutrinos; alt-text: I can't speak to the paper's scientific merits, but it's really cool how on page 10 you can see that their reference GPS beacon is sensitive enough to pick up continential drift under the detector (interrupted halfway through by an earthquake).

What do you mean, you can't speak to the paper's scientific merits? Surely someone well-versed in something as pure as math should have no trouble with the "softer" studies, right?

Oh. Wrong. Because Randall's not actually well-versed in math.

Anyway! In concept (that is, in a perfect world), this idea makes some degree of sense. It's win-win: a good gamble. But of course, we don't live in a perfect world, so like most of Randall's strips, the comic fails because of its flawed premise.

First of all, if we're to believe the second panel, these arguments are all with people on the internet. How is either going to make good on the bet? Paypal?

Second, even if this was in real life, I would expect that the kind of people who follow articles like this are generally going to be skeptical. It's not like your mom is just going to say, "Hey, did you see this morning's CNN? Apparently neutrinos can travel faster than light!" No, that's the sort of article that you only find if you're looking for it.

Finally, and probably most importantly, why does the guy need cash? I don't see any kids in the strip, so shouldn't he be rolling in the Benjamins?

In short, it's the kind of idea that would be good if it worked, but it doesn't. Surprise, surprise.


P.S. "Have you seen our budget? We couldn't begin to afford our own thought police," is a really stupid thing to say. Have you seen our budget? Congress doesn't care about spending trillions of dollars they don't have! We could "afford" all kinds of thought police. Not that that's the sort of thing that would show up on a national budget, anyway...

Comic 954: Classic Hat

I'm sorry to all of you who came here expecting hate. That's not going to happen, because I really enjoyed today's strip.


Title: Chin-Up Bar; alt-text: Those few who escaped found the emergency cutoff box disabled. The stampede lasted two hours and reach the bottom three times.

Maybe I'm up too late. Maybe something in my brain snapped. Maybe...man, I don't know. All I know is that I'm going to gush about this comic, so be prepared.

Ask and you shall receive, right? Not two strips after we complain about how dull and stupid Mr. Hat is getting, Randall posts this! And...it's perfect. The pacing is just right, Mr. Hat is obscure and quirky with ultimately sinister motives (that go well beyond making "stud finder finder" jokes), the joke is held off until the last panel, and the alt-text does exactly what an alt-text is supposed to do. This honestly might be the best xkcd in HUNDREDS.

This, in my mind, is classic Hat. We reference Comic 169 here a lot, where he just friggin' shanks a guy, but the Mr. Hat that I remember is a bit nutty, a bit random, and more than willing to go to extreme and convoluted lengths just to cause a little (or a lot of) chaos. And the thing I love about this is just how nonchalant he is about everything. In Comic 952, he might be nonchalant, or he might just be a massive dick. It's hard to tell, because anyone making that response would do so in the exact same way. Not so in this one.

It's also nice that Randall sets the scene naturally through the flow of the strip. Of course Mr. Hat would pick the longest escalator in the country to do this on, but the way we learn that is very smooth and elegant. The guy behind him is trying to make small talk on a tedious ride, and Mr. Hat responds in kind. It's logical. It makes sense. It's realistic dialogue. As the exchange progresses, we begin to feel the hesitation and awkwardness of the second guy through judicious use of beat panels. As I said above, the pacing is perfect.

And finally, his mission accomplished, Mr. Hat leaves. He doesn't stand there watching. He doesn't look back as he descends. He's sown his chaos, and now he's done. It just underlines how utterly senseless the whole act is, especially to him.

Now, the one thing I don't get is why the second guy follows Mr. Hat down the other escalator. But hey, if that's the worst I can say about a (10 panel!) strip, that's not bad. This comic made me laugh, and I'm not going to criticize just for the sake of criticism.

Of course, if one of YOU feels critical enough to write a guest post, my email's at the top of the page...