1029: Randall sucks at drawing

Alt-text: Screw these 36-degree angles. I'm converting to Judaism.

Oh look, it's another of those "something goes awry, accompanied by wacky commentary" strips. Remember when those used to be funny? Neither do I.

So not only is Randall unable to draw a pentagram, he apparently doesn't even know the word "pentagram". And the alt-text confirms that what he calls a "star" is indeed supposed to be the holy symbol. Either he's stupid or trolling me, but given his past record, I can't eliminate either option.

All in all, it's a pretty boring comic, in the simply-dumb category. And now you know why I usually don't review strips like this.

Comic 950: Zombie Amelia Earhart

Title: Mystery Solved; alt-text: The Roanoke Lost Colonists founded Roanoke, the Franklin Expedition reached the Pacific in 2009 when the Northwest Passage opened, and Jimmy Hoffa currently heads the Teamsters Union--he just started going by 'James'.

Ugh. This comic makes me mad for a couple of reasons. First of all, the mystery of Amelia Earhart HAS been solved, and obviously not in the stupid way Randy is offering. Second, the first panel is entirely unnecessary. In fact, the execution as a whole is bad, but I'll get to that a little later on.

The third, and arguably the worst problem, is the "joke." Amelia, and Randall by proxy, is doing something called "trolling." You say something absolutely and unequivocally retarded, then make fun of your audience for being confused or trying to call you on it. It's like saying, "I've discovered the square root of walrus!" How the heck do you expect people to react? Would a "smarter" person be able to parse that out into any form of sense or logic at all? Anyway, the point is, Randall's trolling. This brings up a rather relevant question.

Why.

Why, Randall, did you feel the need to make this a comic? It's not funny. It's not accurate. It's not relevant. It doesn't have anything to do with romance, sarcasm, math, or language. You're being nonsensical for the sake of nonsensicality (stupid for the sake of stupid, if you will), and randomness by itself does NOT guarantee humor. Sometimes it does. Sometimes, as the same comic shows, it does not. Today it did not.

But, just for the sake of argument, let's say that this was an excellent punchline. You know, hypothetically. If such a thing were possible for Randall. It's still crippled by some of the worst execution outside of walls of text. Why is all the conversation off-screen? Why do we need to be told in such a clunky manner what the plane is or who its pilot is? How would Earhart, now age 114, even be recognizable? Why do we need to be told, word by painful word, every step leading up to the joke?

Look. I'm no cartoonist; I've said that time and time again. Still, I'm going to try my hand at making an actual revision when I get home from work (6PM CST). In the meantime, take a look at this easy, EASY edit to vastly improve the comic.


Look at that and tell me it's not WAY better than the original.


P.S. It's worth noting that this is not the first time that Randall has dug up a dead woman in his strip. Seems like kind of a weird obsession.

P.P.S As promised, here is my edit of the comic.


And before you say, "Randall's looks better," remember that I don't do this for a living. I have a real job.

Comic 919: NFGYAH ASDFNAW PXCNDS WHYYYYY

What? What is it Randall? What do you want? Name it! Make it stop! How could you...what is...I don't even...

AUGHGHGHGHGGHGHGHG

Oh. Some of you may not know what my brain is melting for. Here.


Title: Tween Bromance; alt-text: Verbiage. Va-jay-jay. Irregardless.

The xkcd forumites (an apparently exiled people now that there's no forum link on the xkcd main page) have indicated that this strip is derived solely from a 30-page thread about words they hate. If that's true, that makes this the second worst comic Randall has ever made (beaten only by the infamous 631).

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, this comic was written ONLY to make the fans rage. Think about it! You have probably hundreds of people saying, "I can't stand this word, I can't stand that word," so what does Randall do? HE DRAWS A FREAKING COMIC STRIP WITH THE WORST OF THE WORST.

And he knows it, too! As evidenced by the reaction of Megan in the strip, this is an effort being made only to annoy, irritate, and liquefy the brains of whoever reads/hears it. Look. Sometimes Randall is just lazy. Sometimes he's so lazy that he'll just write out a sentence intended to bug the readers (one that doesn't even make sense, for that matter). But never, NEVER has he been so lazy and mean-spirited to take what HIS OWN FANS explicitly say they hate and just dish it up like that, with nothing else as context! (And if someone on the forums says "goomhr i hate those words too", so help me, I will rape that person with an angry porcupine.)

And when I say "nothing else as context," boy, do I mean it. If you don't know about the forum thing (and you probably don't, given that you CAN'T ACCESS THEM FROM THE MAIN PAGE ANYMORE), who can say what's going on? Was the stick man dictating something to Megan, changing up the words as a cruel joke? Was he quoting something he found on the internet? Does he just walk up to her and say that for no reason at all other than that he's Randall's avatar and Randall is a complete dick?

I couldn't figure out if Randall was trying to make fun of pre-teens and how they talk, or bad fanfiction writers, or furries, or if it was something else all together. Is he referencing something? Is there a precedent for this somewhere? Who knows?

My face started contorting in twitchy disgust by the time I hit the second panel. I haven't felt physical uneasiness from an xkcd since the milk strip (YOU MADE ME GOOGLE "XKCD LACTATION" TO GET THAT LINK I HATE YOU SO MUCH RANDALL DIE DIE DIE), but I did when reading this one. And then I get to the third panel to see Megan doing the exact same thing! Do you get what happened? RANDALL MADE ME IDENTIFY WITH ONE OF HIS CHARACTERS. I never want to be in an xkcd, and I especially don't want to be the stick representation of the girl he's stalking. It's bad enough when Randall includes the readers (me) in his strips unfairly (like here), but when I'm actually IN the strip, in anguish, that's all kinds of messed up. It's messed up that I'm there to begin with, and it's even more messed up that I'm there because Randall KNEW he'd be injuring he readers and put an avatar of us in the strip to prove it.

And the alt-text? What alt-text? It's just more words that we find offensive. Even after the strip is done, even after assaulting us with this supposed "joke" in the title and across all four panels, Randall still doesn't let up. It's like he doesn't even care about his readers! Then again, why should he, given that the original poster in this comic's thread said, "I understand every word but not the comic itself :(", following it up with "And thus my vexation has been alleviated," once the strip was explained. Really? You're okay with being reamed by Randall as long as you know why?

Luckily, not all of the forumites are like him. Most are confused, hurt, miss the point (attempting to sing the title to the tune of "Bad Romance"), or ask what happened to the forum link. Some speculate it's because Randall just posted a a bunch of personal information and wanted to dissuade discussion. He disabled comments for that particular post after all, so perhaps. But if so, that's just the feather in the hat of this awful, awful day for xkcd and xkcd fans. Randall's pulling the strings like a freaking puppeteer. "I'm going to say my piece, but YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT! Oh, here's something to take your mind off that: BROMANCE GUESSTIMATE FRENEMY YIFFED PREGGERS BARBARA STREISAND".

Seriously, Randall, CARE A LITTLE. I know you've got a fanbase who'll generally lap up anything you put before them, but don't abuse that! When they made the "least favorite word" thread, it wasn't subtitled, "Give Randall ideas for his next fan hate strip!" If your fans want to shove drills into their ears and pour bleach into their eyes, they'll do it. Don't give them a reason.


P.S. As I was reading the xkcdsucks comments, someone mentioned Megan's transforming chair. Chalk up another point of failure for this comic (lazy, mean, and now quite possibly the future recipient of a stealth edit).