Comics 1259-1261: Lethal Dose Of Xkcd

I am writing this from the middle of a fucking desert where there is NO INTERNET. I had to borrow the wi-fi password from the hotel across the road. And Blogger’s interface has been translated to Turkish*. I clicked on whatever the translation for ‘new post’ is five fucking minutes ago, and the page still hasn’t loaded. FUCK YOU TOO, SHIT DESERT WI-FI.

I am in a really bad mood, so I should be perfect for reviewing some xkcds, IF THE PAGE ACTUALLY LOADS. Oy vey.

Comic 1261: Shake That

As much as I wanted to start with a strongly negative review, I'm afraid to say that I actually liked this one.

I hate nightclubs. I too hate it when the lyrics to popular music are thinly veiled pornography written, by an egomaniac, and sold by corporate scholbs. Get out of my head, Randall. So I like the way he is mocking the trend, by interpreting the lyric literally, thereby robbing it of all its erotic surtext, and reducing it to absurdity. A+ for creating a joke that appeals to my cynical self.

I also quite like the artwork in the first panel. Okay, so the first panel is showing off. But still you can quite easily see that she's in a nightclub, and what is happening in each panel. No space is wasted. So the artwork is good enough to convey the joke well. B+ for artwork.

And just because I'm feeling mean. I'll give it a G-- for standalone value, because I'm assuming 'Shake what your mama gave you' is a reference to a lyric that I haven't heard. And if I haven't heard it, then it is NOT OKAY for Randall to make an xkcd about it. You're welcome to disagree.

Comic 1260: LD50

This... I don't know what to say to this. D- for standalone value. By my guess, half of the xkcd readership does not know what LD50 means. LD50 is not an obvious acronym. It means the minimum lethal dose required to have a 50% fatality rate.Those people will not understand the joke, unless they look it up on Wikipedia. That's not good enough.

The joke itself is... kinda cheap. It's the sort of joke you'd crack a laugh at if you saw it in a scientific article. But that's because you're not expecting a joke. Humour is derived from the subversion of expectations. But people visiting xkcd.com are supposed to expect humour (so I am told). So this gets a mere D+ for humour.

Comic 1259: Bee Orchid

Ah, the golden child of last week's xkcd comics. The perfect analogy for this comic is James Cameron's Avatar - it really enthralls you for the duration it takes to watch/read it. You think it's really profound, and you're willing to forgive the clunky exposition because it looks so pretty. But a few days later, you start to think about it too much and you see all its faults. It's kinda depressing. The environmental message falls flat when you realise it is scientifically inaccurate at best.

Surely it would have already gone extinct by now? Surely if Jake Sully had told the natives that they were in danger, then he could have avoided the destruction of Hometree? Surely Beret's memory is worth nothing if he doesn't also take a photo for others to see? Do the Na'vi even deserve to live if they put their faith in a leader like Randall Munroe... wait?

As limp-dick science major Anonymous 7:17 rightfully pointed out, the bee orchid does have living pollinators. So you know what that means? Z for accuracy. That's right. I used the last letter of the alphabet. Weep in shame, Randall. You couldn't even earn your legs back. 

Now for the artwork. I'm not going to pretend the artwork is not good, because it is. But xkcd produces good artwork so rarely, it's always an unprecedented surprise. This is not a good thing. The point being, there are 10 panels in this comic that don't have artwork of this quality. I know it would be impossible for Randall to produce every panel to this quality. But Tom Siddell manages to do it.

Every panel of Gunnerkrigg Court is of this quality in terms of artwork. It got noticeably better when Siddell went professional with GC (about a year ago) but it was pretty good before then. And it has the same M-W-F schedule as xkcd. So don't praise xkcd for good artwork without seeing the big picture. This comic gets a B+ for artwork, but only a B+.

Pacing of the comic leaves a lot to be desired wall of text occupying the first four panels. Let's just give it a D for pacing and be done with it.

Also, someone on the forum suggested that 'painting by a dying flower' means that Randall's wife did the 5th panel. If that is true, then it gets an A+ for subtlety, but an F- for playing the cancer sympathy card. 

*Fuck you too, Google. Just because I am browsing the Internet in Turkey, does not mean I speak fluent Turkish.

Comics 1256-1258: September Solitudes

Well, summer is ending, and I feel so alone oh God. This blog is all I have for company. Please make me feel less alone by writing a comment.

1258: First

This is awful, Randall. *Takes off belt*

F for observational humour - you are literally just commenting on an established trend, and not even telling a joke about it. G for accuracy - the 'first post' phenomenon is far from dead. H for quantum egotism - it's like you decided that if you don't observe it happening on the forums you frequent, then it doesn't exist. I for actually acknowledging the phenomenon, and encouraging more trolls to do it. And don't you fucking dare say that jinxing it on purpose was the point of the joke, because there was no joke. J for lack of a joke. And it looks like you were still trying to do a dramatic buildup for this nonexistent joke. But instead of a joke we get smugness. K for smugness - wipe that grin off your face, because even if there had been a joke then it would still be L for comic timing. The beat panels literally add nothing. M for artwork - the guy barely moves in three panels, and the other character (presumably a woman) is off-panel. And if I wanted to see a stick figure sitting at a computer, I'd look in the fucking mirror. N for appealing to your core demographic - even the forum thread couldn't find anything good to say about it. It just degraded into a 'last post' forum game, then burned out after two pages. You've created something that even the fora can't nerd out on. Think about that. O for being so bad that even Gizmodo wouldn't touch it. P for wasting precious pixels on my screen. Q for the 23 kilobytes I wasted to download this. R for the 35 minutes I have already spent writing about this. I am so fucking angry at this comic. How fitting it is that the harshest grade so far is the first letter of your name. But I'm going to stop there, because there are some things that can't be said with alphabetical grades.

48 BELT LASHINGS for the worst comic I have ever reviewed, one for each of the comics I have reviewed before this one. *Deep menacing breaths, whimpering, and obscure Yiddish expletives are heard from the corner. Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack...* AYIN KAFIN FAKATA YAN RANDALL. Say first post again. I fucking dare you.

C- for the alt text, which was actually quite good.

1257: Monster

After the 'First' comic, anything looks good in comparison. In hindsight, I probably should have left that one till last.

D+ for dialog. It's terribly stilted, but at least it conveys the joke. B+ for artwork. While it violates show-don't-tell by not actually showing us the monster, I don't actually think that is important. The war room is surprisingly detailed for an xkcd, and showing the monster would ruin the joke. Oh and C+ for the joke. It was not bad, I guess. And B+ for the timing of it. The caption completes the joke, and doesn't whack the reader in the face with an unnecessary explanation. He could have added a few more comparisons in the first two lines of speech to make it more ridiculous, but that's my only real complaint.

1256: Questions

I wanted to hate this one, but when I read it up close, I almost laughed in spite of myself. Funny lines questions like "Why do snakes exist?" make up for at least five not-so-funny ones. This is Randall playing to his strong point, and it works. So I'm actually going to give it a B for humour.

It's funny because the questions are dumb, really dumb. And he's not mocking them in a smug way. B for lack of smugness. They remind me of the sort of questions that a child would ask. With the advent of the Internet, we have become like silly little kids, treating Google as our collective daddy-who-knows-everything. I would have liked to see the comic make a joke about this, or explore it in more detail. D because of what this comic could have been

A for effort. No really, it can't be easy to look at several hundred Google search suggestions, and pick only the stupid ones.

By the way, if you get the reference in this post's title, you don't get a million nerd points or anything. You just get get my unending unconditional love.

Comics 1253-1255: Forever Delayed

Sorry for the long wait. We had a bank holiday here in the UK. Did I mention that I am British? Good.

Next time I delay fail to post a review on time, feel free to complain about it in the comment thread. I like it when I get comments.

1255: Columbus

B- for humour and delivery. The dialog flows quite well, which carries the joke., and the "You first." in the final panel actually makes quite a good (if a little predictable) punchline. I didn't laugh out loud, but I got a rare smile from it.

D for smugness. I should have seen it coming, as the strawman is played by White Hat. But it grates a little that despite the funny joke Randall's original inspiration for the comic was probably about how he should rightfully inform the masses that Christopher Columbus was a fraud, and didn't really direct two Harry Potter movies, or something.

As always, the man is the butt of the joke, and the woman gets the better of him. F for the continued portrayal of women as righteous she-geek goddesses who say and do no wrong. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little, but you get the point.

Something is wrong with the second panel. White Hat should have a speech line, but he doesn't. So it was a little hard to tell who is talking. F-- for quality control. This kind of error is inexcusable, especially when it goes uncorrected for five days. Randall should fucking proofread his comics. It doesn't take long. I write my reviews late at night, so I probably make the occational misktae. But Randall should not be doing the same with his comics. He is the one getting paid.

1254: Preferred Chat System

This is making the exact same point as a previous comic. I forget which one exactly, probably the standards one, of one of the Google+ comics. But either way, it says nothing new. F for originality. 

The punchline almost managed to redeem it, so C+ for punchline. The Harry Potter reference is kinda cute. But even if you didn't know they used owl post in Harry Potter (and to be fair, there are some who don't), it still works as a punchline. So I'd give it B for standalone value.

I have it on good authority that owls can not teleport, even in the Harry Potter universe, so why is it able to respond almost instantaneously? F- for realism. He could have just added a simple beat panel, and it would have improved the pacing.

DETENTION for Gizmodo repost. Guess it's inevitable when the comic is about tech.

1253: Exoplanet Names

Another list based comic. Wow, we haven't had one of those since... last week. Okay, what are its strong points? Well, it's strangely devoid of pop-culture references. It would be so easy to name half of them after planets from Firefly, which would alienate the inferior section of nerds who don't even know the full list of locations from Joss Whedon's opus. He could have so easily done that, and he didn't. That's a solid A for standalone value.

The actual list of planets is fairly bland. I wanted to like this list, believe me. But it somehow feels dull and uninspired. So, C- for humour. It's not terrible. It's just that I feel I could have come up with something better. In fact I'll prove it. Here is my list of names. Tell me if they are funnier than Randall's 

• THE BEST DAMN PLANET
• test
• Hell
• untitled.jpg
• Urpenis
• How do I name planet?
• Help Im trapped in a planet factory
• Your Mom (F- for missing an obivious your mom joke)
• Chocolate planet
• lol
• Not a planet
• FUck
• aertmatdnabkjwrKJBNSUDGNSOANUIRIUWBNKLjANBKJLNkj
• FuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuckFuck
• Cunt-Cunty-Dick-Fuck
• Giant Testicle
• iPlanet
• tinyurl.com/ppgmsaa
• Planet of the Jews

A* for 'Asshole Jupiter', because That was the best part of the comic.

But, someone had to say it. F for realism. Why is that? People are egotistical, and they would name planets after themselves. If Liz got through the spam filter, then what happened to the other names?

And I almost burst our laughing when I wrote Cunt-Cunty-Dick-Fuck. Seriously, why no swearing? It would have been funny as fuck to see xkcd break out in a bout of glorious gratuitous profanity. If ever there was a time to do it, it would be this comic. Randall thinks he is above this, but he's not (hello, 631).

F--- because the list did not include Planet Of The Jews, which feels like a major oversight.

DETENTION for io9 repost, and a letter to io9's mother. io9 should really know better than to hang around with bad influences like xkcd.

Comics 1250-1252: Brought to you by Gizmodo

Before I start the regularly scheduled reviews, I just want to rant for a second about something that annoys me. First, let me say that I never really sympathised with the idea that No One Is Forcing You To Read It (ah, for the days when Rob would bang out 356 words, but I digress). I read xkcd three times a week because I like to watch the slow-motion train wreck, not because my friends are incessantly recommending it to me (I don't have any friends, so I can't personally verify this fact).

But I can't fucking stand it when Gizmodo dot com reposts an xkcd comic with a few hastily written lines of text below it basically explaining the joke, and links back to xkcd, in lieu of an 'article'.

I'd link to an occurrence of this happening, but Gizmodo makes money from every ad view. Reading Gizmodo is my dirty habit, and I don't want anyone else to get addicted.

Why is this bad? I already checked the xkcd feed in my Google Reader Feedly today. I don't need to see it twice. Why waste all the pixels and kilobytes by downloading the same image twice?

Moreover, it's the epitome of lazy journalism - taking someone else's content and adding nothing to it. And yes, the articles they write (quoted in full below) really do add nothing. The headline of the article usually telegraphs the punchline, so if anything they are taking away from it.

And worst of all, it causes more people to read xkcd. They're acting as if xkcd is That Obscure Indie Webcomic that more people need to know about. Linking to a webcomic is a dangerous power - use it responsibly, like io9 does.

No wonder the Gizmodo editors love xkcd - with its faux minimalism, repeated pandering on a familiar theme, and its ability to make people feel smugly superior - it's just like a typical Apple product.

1252: Increased Risk

Surprisingly, the last xkcd comic of the week was actually quite good. The second paragraph would have been a fine punchline all by itself. But then Beret doubles the amount of stupid in the room, and gives us an even better punchline. A well deserved A for humour.

But surely this is just like a typical smug xkcd comic? And I hate smugness, so what's changed? Well, this one doesn't come across as smugly mocking a bunch of idiots, because the idiots are being real smart-asses about it, and therefore deserve to be mocked. There's a chance the one in the middle is being sarcastic, and the other two are taking it seriously, which if anything makes it better. A* for multiple interpretations.

The caption below ruins it a bit, but only a bit. D for explaining the joke in a smug way. But I kind of like the way it sounds. It sounds like the sort of thing I'd say. So B+ for self-affirmation.

And the alt text doesn't get a grade, because I care a non-zero-but-still-pretty-small amount about it. It would be so much easier if I was allowed to say 'could care less', but anyway...

1251: Anti-Glass

Before I say anything, let's see what Gizmodo's own Jamie Condliffe had to say about it.

"For all its promise of being the Next Big Thing in tech, when it comes to Google Glass, haters gotta hate. Still, if you're gonna object to it, you may as well do it properly.

Of course, this might not be strictly ethical. Or even legal for that matter. But, hey, someone is looking at you with a camera strapped to their face. They had it coming."

Fascinating. /s Think about that for a second. Does Mr Condliffe really believe this is the proper way to object to Google Glass, or is he just looking for something, anything, to say? My money is on the latter.

And the second paragraph... that's basically the punchline. Thanks for explaining it. /s

D- for art. The cops hardly move in the three panels they are in. Their hats look too similar to Black Hat's hat. Randall could have easily avoided this ambiguity. One need only reach into the RGB colour space, and colour them blue. Don't be a pussy, Randall.

C- for Black Hat's scheme. It seems to be in his usual style. But I have to question the effort and resources it would have taken to make something that will cause a handful of Google employees momentary annoyance at most.

The dialog in this comic is so fucking bad, I can't even begin to explain how bad it is. But maybe a letter will do. F for stilted dialog. But that's not all - DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

1250: Old Accounts

I don't see the point of this comic. I really don't. Do our accounts get lonely without us? (that would be dumb) Is removing friends somehow a necessity because otherwise those friends will expect us to still be contactable through an old account? (that would be dumber) Is it suggesting that we abandon those accounts before we stop using them? (stop, stop, my brain can't take the stupid!)

F for poor premise. And D for not communicating it very well to the audience. It took me a few read-throughs to 'get it', although I almost wish I hadn't. And all this despite that it would us no good to clear out old accounts that we might still want to use, Randall manages to be smug and preachy about it.

F- for smugness. F-- for preachiness. DETENTION for Gizmodo repost.

Here are Mr Condliffe's fine words about this comic:

"Next time you leave an online community, spare a thought for your account, which will sit there accumulating messages, news and all other kinds of crap which you'll never, ever see again.

Maybe you should do something about it. After all, it's like forgetting to get mail sent to your new address: there's a constant stream of information and news, slowly building up at your old place, that you'll never be party to ever again. And while it may mean nothing to you, it could be breaking somebody else's heart. You're better than that, right?"

That's exactly what the comic said, except in more words. The mailbox analogy doesn't even work, because closing a Blogger account would not somehow redirect its news and updates to Wordpress, hence why we are still here.

Comics 1246-1249: The Scattergun Approach

1249: Meteor Showers

"Surely 16 bad jokes are better than one, right, right?!?" Randall says. To be fair, some of them are quite good. They're just diluted in with the bad ones. I chuckled at "Not viewable in region 2 countries" - this is just the kind of absurdist humour that xkcd thrives on. B- for absurdism, but I don't think it was played up as much as it could have been. In short, he ran out of ideas. Two of the jokes actually seem to be the same (February 10th and August 12th).

The scattergun approach to humour sometimes works well, when the jokes are actually told well with, you know, pictures, like in Circuit Diagram, one of my favourites, but this one is too wordy, and I think the Comma Police are going to come get me for this sentence, So I'm just going to say: D for wordiness, which brings me on to...

F for artwork, because this violates Show Don't Tell in so many ways, has no real artwork, and could have just as easily been made in Excel.

1248: Sphere

Ugh. F- for artwork. I know I gave the last one F, but that one was not designed to be artwork, which is bad enough. But this is an honest-to-gosh attempt at a depiction of two human beings, and it still sucks. No expressions. No movement. No soul. These stick figures are going to hell.

I'm also going to bring out the old F- for characterisation.

And that's without even getting into what they're saying. Stick-Megan's smugness is just radiating off the page. F- for smugness.

That said, it would actually be excusable if there had been some half-decent artwork to make us empathise with the character. Maybe replace the beat panel with a series of zooming out views of the planet. Show Don't Tell! Is it really that hard?

1247: The Mother of All Suspicious Files

This looks like a joke between friends that got out of hand. Randall and a group of his friends were sitting around a table at a LAN party or something, and joking about a computer virus. One of them suggested what the virus might be names. "That's not suspicious at all." someone else sarcastically remarked. The rest of his friends pitch in suggestions for names for this suspiciously named file like its some digital Royal Baby or something, whilst Randall is frantically taking down notes under the heading 'COMEDY GOLD'.

C- for the premise. It's not bad. Just not good either.

D- for the failed attempt at the scattergun approach. Like me, you probably read the whole thing, thinking that there would be a series of little jokes. Alas, those things that seemed so funny amongst Randall's friends at the LAN party are now not so interesting.

F for artwork. I don't think I need to explain why.

1246: Pale Blue Dot

So this is a joke about NASA's famous Pale Blue Dot. Most xkcd readers probably know about this already, but I'm sure some of them don't. So I'm giving this a C for standalone value.

The actual joke is pretty good. It gets a B for humour. I think it was 'lens cap picture' that did it for me.

D for (un)realistic dialogue. D- for the wall of text. D-- for the essay-length alt text. And B+ for artwork, because it's the best we've seen in over a week. 

Comics 1241-1245: The Good, the Bad and the Badly Drawn

Greetings. As you may have noticed I have changed the order of the reviews, just so it makes more sense for people scrolling down the blog,

Note: I said I'd post this 'tomorrow' but since the sun didn't actually rise here in Britain, I waited a day.

As always, hover over the images for alt text, and if you're using a mobile device, you'll just have to see it with your inner eye.

1245: 10-Day Forecast

Now this is a good xkcd. It takes an obviously absurd scenario, and connects it to something mundane like a weather site. This is in the same vein as great comics like Google Maps. A* for absurdism. Negative zip codes are a nice touch.

I like the way it escalates to more terrifying 'weather' each day, eventually leaving the godforsaken place with a forecast of nothing but static and darkness. It gets an A* for that. Perpetual Tuesdays are also a nice touch. And I'm sure some of xkcd's more devoted fans would agree that a land where were always Tuesday (a day that xkcd doesn't update) really would be a living hell.

D for the alt text, sponsored by Amazon.

1244: Six Words

I didn't know what Kerbal Space Program is, until I looked it up to write this review. Apparently it's a simulation game, but I hadn't even heard of it. D- for standalone value. I should not have to look things up to enjoy my comics. I know Dresden Codak has defended this in the past...

The added bonus, for me, is that looking up new information like that is just as enjoyable as reading the strip itself. I’m not sure if everyone likes doing this, so I also try hard to make the comics readable without having to know every reference made, [...]  

(Source)

...but even he tries to make his comics readable to people who don't know the references. xkcd simply doesn't care. He's even mocked Penny Arcade for doing this, but he probably doesn't even realise he's doing it himself. So F for self-consciousness.

1243: Snare

Okay, this bothers me for two reasons. Black Hat is the sort of guy who trolls people by doing legal but annoying things, like using a mosquito buzz as his ringtone, or pretending to write a diary on a train (remember that?).

In comics like these (and some others) his classhole-ism is elevated to the status of outright supervillany, except that Black Hat would make a terrible supervillain because he never has a motive for anything.

This would have been a better comic if it had an actual supervillain character, like Dr Robotnik, or Lex Luthor, or heck even Tony from Real Life Comics. It actually sounds like something Tony would do. True, Tony almost never has a motive for being cartoonishly evil, but he's still a better character than Black Hat. Yes, I just said that Real Life Comics has better characterisation than xkcd. F- for characterisation.

And fuck you Randall for telling and not showing. You should SHOW, DON'T TELL when you're writing a comic about a megastructure designed solely to take down satellites, which might actually look pretty cool.

And forget what it's not showing for a second. They could be talking about anything, and the artwork would still suck. F-- for artwork.

Add another F for the clunky setup in the first two panels, none of which would be necessary if he DREW A FUCKING PICTURE. Jesus.

1242: Scary Names

What's wrong with this comic? I think 'nuclear football' sounds scarier than 'Chernobyl packet', or at very least equal, but our Good Lord Randall (No shit, that is actually what some fans are calling him.) seems to disagree with me. Mustard gas is halfway up the 'sounds scary axis', for pete's sake. C- for accuracy.

And if anyone dares tell me that this stuff is subjective, then I might as well revise my C- to a subjective F.

Also this comic probably set the record for the most people looking things up on Wikipedia due to an xkcd comic. I'll give it a B- for standalone value, since knowledge of those things is not essential to get the comic.

Lastly, do you feel he could have picked some better examples? I don't see 'blue waffles' on that chart. D for rigorousness of the examples.

1241: Annoying Ringtone Champion

The joke? It might raise a smirk if it was told well. And the alt text added to it, so C.

D+ for artwork. It's unclear, really unclear. I would not have got the joke, or understood it in any way if it wasn't for the caption. the 'hmmMMMMmmm' is not a good onomatopoeia for the sound a mosquito makes. It is not clear that the sound is coming from Black Hat's phone. But that's to be expected given the material we got. It's a joke about a noise. I don't think there is a good way to tell it in a visual format, hence the +.

Also, the reason the buzzing mosquito is annoying is because it's right next to your ear, and therefore just about to sting you. The whole point is that you only hear it in one ear. A phone, no matter how good the stereo speakers are, cannot reproduce this unless it is right next to your ear. So F for realism.

No, there is no footnote here. A* (pronounced ay-star) is the British equivalent of A+, and we will now be using it here from now on.

Oh, and if you googled blue waffles, I am not sorry.

Comics 1235-1243: The Humour Quest

I am reviewing nine comics this week, because I felt like reviewing nine comics. Let's go!

1240: Quantum Mechanics

When I read the read the text in the panel, I thought I could see where this is going. But the text below subverted those expectations nicely. A- for legitimate subversion of expectations. However, I'm not the same as saying A- for humour because, well, I didn't really find it that funny. I guess it's just typical Munroevian smugness that inhibits my enjoyment at this comic. D+ for smugness. I'm honestly not just picking these grades randomly.

Next.

1239: Social Media

Now this is what I call a joke. Four panels, two punchlines. The comic timing is all there. A for humour comic timing. A+ for taking a much-needed dig at social media, because every time I hear the phrase 'social media' I want to strangle someone.

B+ for the realistic-ish dialogue. B- for the alt text, which wasn't great, but I couldn't quickly think of anything better. The artwork, while not great,

C- for the artwork. It was pretty much just the same panel four times. He did everything but copy and paste the man and the podium. That being said, I can't see the joke working in plain-text form. It needed that beat panel and the *sigh* to really emphasise the guy's disdain at the unbelievable yet plausible stupidity that there are people dumb enough to ask if social media affects asteroid orbits. So I don't think the C- matters. Does any of this matter?

Next!

1238: Enlightenment

I like the ridiculousness of this whole scenario where the internet equivalent of enlightenment in whatever this is parodying (my guess is on Star Wars, but nerd law forbids me from remembering the prequel trilogy), and the, uh what's the word, quirkiness. Yes, I said and xkcd comic is quirky. B for quirkiness. So shoot me.

C for actually making sense - although I get how the 'I'm better than you' attitude is rooted in insecurity (of course I know that - I'm writing this blog!) I'm not sure how deliberateley typing a sentence with bad grammer is going 2 fix anything.

A for the cheesy dialogue in the final panel. You may call it post-punchline. But I say it adds character to the comic.

Next?

1237: QR Code

A for instant entertainment value. I just love the idea of ten thousand smartphone users suddenly panicking when the realise they have to scan a QR code on the front of the device and wondering whether their plight is the result of bad app design or just good old trolling.

And when you think about it for a second, you think 'how would that work?' Would the user try to take a picture of the phone? Engineer a system of mirrors? Hand-draw the QR code on squared paper, then realise the . The alt text answers one possible question, and allows you to pursue this avenue of thought a little further. So A- for that, as it does strain my willing suspension of disbelief.

B- when you realise that most app stores allow you to install apps with one or two taps of a button, and the entire 'installer' scenario was contrived just for this joke, but it's still a good joke.

And A for succinctness. It's been a while since he's told a joke this good in so few words. And yet it wouldn't work as just text. It makes good use of the visual nature of its medium.

Next...

1236: Seashell

I had to think a little too long for this one. The point he's making is mathematically quite simple. I'd understand it in my own head. However the notation is confusing. I could probably explain it to myself with a venn diagram - in fact hey, why didn't he just do that?

Now, I mentioned the point he's making, rather than any joke. similar to the previous comic. However, rather than making a salient point like the nonexistence of aliens, it wastes its effort explaining why the hearing-the-sea-in-seashells thing is total bullshit. And we knew that already, so... thanks? What is even the problem with that in the first place? It's a cute thing to tell children. It doesn't need to be debunked.

D- for a not-so-good point. F for the notation used to explain it. D- for humour, because fuck it. Oh, and F for smugness. Have I missed anything?

Next‽

1235: Settled

Okay, the thing that bothers me about this one? It just sounds so smug. D- for smugness, or am I jumping the gun?

Explaining the joke? Perhaps. There isn't really a joke to be made, but the point he's making is a sound one. I think he'd be able to make the same point, and make it a little bit funny if he'd just put the lower caption at the top. A for a good point. C- for wordiness. But the wordiness doesn't kill the comic.

I'm not going to question the accuracy of the data. It looks about right. And besides, who needs data to know that the vast majority of people in the western world have some form of cameraphone? B+ for data accuracy.

Whoops, that's only six. But don't worry, you'll get another six tomorrow, provided of course that the sun does rise.