Webcomic Review: xkcd

[McClaud]

The best part about xckd is that it not only caters to the intelligent, but it is willing to poke fun at being a nerd/geek.

I think xkcd still represents an annoyingly self-congratulatory slice of "geek culture" -- particularly if you ever look in on the forums or the LiveJournal feed.

-- Alex

Most of the time, his own self-congratulation is merely sarcasm in the way of saying, "Oh yay I'm so great despite the obvious fact that I can't seem to do well in the dating arena and I tend to be so nerdy that I even don't understand WTF I'm doing sometimes."

Case in point - he told a story at a lecture about doing an algorithm using the grid of tiles on the wall behind the urinal he was standing at. When he actually figured out the equation, he then stopped and thought to himself that he was completely retarded for letting that moment get the better of him (making him stand at the urinal longer than any man in the bathroom should ever stand). Many of his comics have the same pause and reflection moments to them. He's a geek, and he pokes fun at himself for being such a huge one.

 

[Alex_P]

Most of the time, his own self-congratulation is merely sarcasm in the way of saying, "Oh yay I'm so great despite the obvious fact that I can't seem to do well in the dating arena and I tend to be so nerdy that I even don't understand WTF I'm doing sometimes."

Case in point - he told a story at a lecture about doing an algorithm using the grid of tiles on the wall behind the urinal he was standing at. When he actually figured out the equation, he then stopped and thought to himself that he was completely retarded for letting that moment get the better of him (making him stand at the urinal longer than any man in the bathroom should ever stand). Many of his comics have the same pause and reflection moments to them. He's a geek, and he pokes fun at himself for being such a huge one.

Yeah. I don't have a problem with that kind of thing. I'm more talking about sentiments like "I don't understand lit-crit so it must all be bullshit".

-- Alex

 

[vultureX21]

Whether it is better or worse than Larson you can happily debate, I personally think it reaches a whole other level of complexity for the same reason you see it as inferior. Munroe doesn't always have to be funny, doesn't always need to do things the "traditional" way by including all the jokes in the panels, in many ways it is an evolutionary version of what Larson did.

Poor comedic timing isn't really "evolutionary". This isn't a matter of exploring new rhythms -- it's about having a tin ear. Ivy bondage is one of Munroe's better ideas, but he botches the execution by placing the ending as a caption rather than breaking the four-panel structure in order to segue naturally into it as its own little scene. It's stuff like that that creates the feeling that his graphic design is, well, chiefly accidental.

I think his tin ear for language is more problematic. Like, okay, check this one out: definitely one of xkcd's better ideas for a pun, but its execution suffers because Munroe can't figure out the fact that "... that ass" completely collapse the double-entendre (and, therefore, the joke) of "tap that":

That's a botched joke, pure and simple. The idea of it is still kind of funny, but the execution's doing nothing for it.

Moreover, I don't think a comic that just doesn't do narrative captions can really claim to be Larson's successor. Looking through the archives, I just can't find any good examples of the caption telling a little story (Larson's signature thing, in my opinion). In this sense, the caption-comic Monkey Fluids does a much, much better job of evoking Larson's rhythm and style, as is the often-childish but usually-more-funny-and-transgressive-than-xkcd daily Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Munroe is what he claims to be, a strange guy, and how amusing or throught-provoking you find him to be depends on what you think about his oddity.

I think his oddity is downright pedestrian. That's why Slashdot and Digg love him so much -- because he does just pretty much say the same geek things about the same geek topics. He had his own little endearing/offputting quirks, but now he's pretty much turned into a geeky guy who writes comics based on the same old geek memes in order to sell t-shirts to geeks.

-- Alex

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal was already on the list of webcomics I want to check out. I'll add in Monkey Fluids too. I guess I am still not completely sold on the argument that Munroe is botching jokes, because your example I find especially representative of how funny he is. That could be my own twisted personal humor though, but I still would stand by the assessment that this is one of the better comics I have ever read.

And, while I called it an evolved Farside, I wouldn't want to make it sound like I put it above Larson already, I just think it has the potential because Munroe's humor, in my eyes, is pushing into a wider variety of subjects. Munroe's work is still pretty young, he's got plenty of time to improve or fall off the map. Among the many webcomics I read, I can definitively say this stands above most.

Of course, I still have hordes of new ones to go through!

 

[Zydrate]

I love XKCD and their forum community has a noticeable lack of idiots. And the idiots are quickly stomped out by their excellance.
It's a joy to be a part of their forums.

 

[Alex_P]

I guess I am still not completely sold on the argument that Munroe is botching jokes, because your example I find especially representative of how funny he is.

"Tap that" is a double-entendre. "Tap that ass" isn't; it has no real non-sexual meaning.
Remove "ass" from panels 1, 2, and 3. Now the punchline is actually a punchline.
Or, if you really wanted to keep "ass", you could improve the flow significantly by changing the text in the fourth panels to something that starts out non-sexual and then escalates to very sexual.

And, while I called it an evolved Farside, I wouldn't want to make it sound like I put it above Larson already, I just think it has the potential because Munroe's humor, in my eyes, is pushing into a wider variety of subjects.

I don't think it's a match stylistically. He's not a successor to The Far Side because his narrative and delivery are nothing like it. Even if I was the biggest xkcd fan in the world, I still wouldn't think it represented a continuation of the pattern of humor used by The Far Side. They tell their jokes very differently, is all.

-- Alex

 

[vultureX21]

I don't think it's a match stylistically. He's not a successor to The Far Side because his narrative and delivery are nothing like it. Even if I was the biggest xkcd fan in the world, I still wouldn't think it represented a continuation of the pattern of humor used by The Far Side. They tell their jokes very differently, is all.

-- Alex

I can agree with it not being a definitive match, I just couldn't help while reading xkcd to feel there was a strong similarity in humor and style. Your examples however, do point out the distinct differences between the two comics.

 

[Doug]

I agree with your review. I've been reading XKCD for at least a year now, and it consistently makes me chuckle, grin, or laugh. Once or twice its let me down, but those rare occasions are just so few and far between they don't matter.

 

[McClaud]

I guess I am still not completely sold on the argument that Munroe is botching jokes, because your example I find especially representative of how funny he is.

"Tap that" is a double-entendre. "Tap that ass" isn't; it has no real non-sexual meaning.
Remove "ass" from panels 1, 2, and 3. Now the punchline is actually a punchline.
Or, if you really wanted to keep "ass", you could improve the flow significantly by changing the text in the fourth panels to something that starts out non-sexual and then escalates to very sexual.

EDITTED (and now it's evident that I did because Vulture quoted me LOL):
I think that is the joke, really. He's been thinking about tapping ass everytime he looks at a chick, so he suddenly thinks, "I'd tap that" about the tree because the tree doesn't have an ass. Which you get if you read the little bloggy things that go with certain comics. And I think that's what people who don't get XKCD don't do - they don't go on and read his other thoughts that connect to his comics. The blog bit that goes with the comic is, "And I suddenly realized that I thought about having sex with a tree ... and it didn't seem to phase me as much as it really should have. Urgh."

Yeah, it's not a perfect joke, but it's an attack on slang. I thought it was funny. Yes, tapping something as a reference to sex is a silly use of slang.

 

[vultureX21]

I guess I am still not completely sold on the argument that Munroe is botching jokes, because your example I find especially representative of how funny he is.

"Tap that" is a double-entendre. "Tap that ass" isn't; it has no real non-sexual meaning.
Remove "ass" from panels 1, 2, and 3. Now the punchline is actually a punchline.
Or, if you really wanted to keep "ass", you could improve the flow significantly by changing the text in the fourth panels to something that starts out non-sexual and then escalates to very sexual.

I think that is the joke, really. He's been thinking about tapping ass everytime he looks at a chick, so he suddenly thinks, "I'd tap that" about the tree because the tree doesn't have an ass. But as he's walking away, his sudden realization is, "I'm thinking about having sex with a tree ... and for some reason, that doesn't seem to phase me."

He's pointing out that the phrase "tap that whatever" is pretty silly, since tapping trees already has a non-sexual meaning. Why are humans tapping other humans? Not to drain sap. But he had to clarify that he had the thought of having sex with a tree, since we normally assume that when someone says they're tapping a tree, they mean draining the syrup.

Yeah, it's not a perfect joke, but it's an attack on slang. I thought it was funny. Yes, tapping something as a reference to sex is silly slang.

That just made the joke even funnier to me.

 

[McClaud]

I revised my thought into a better, more accurate thought above.

I totally didn't think the bit you quoted made sense. lolz

 

[vultureX21]

I revised my thought into a better, more accurate thought above.

I totally didn't think the bit you quoted made sense. lolz

Your second one made more sense, but I got it the first time. Still, nice to see the improvements made on your first post right there in front of me!

 

[Alex_P]

And I think that's what people who don't get XKCD don't do - they don't go on and read his other thoughts that connect to his comics.

Do you have a link?

I looked this one up to see if there's any really noteworthy commentary but came up dry. You can see both concurrently if you subscribe to the comic and the "blag" as RSS feeds, but the comics on the site aren't dated, so it's hard to cross-reference old ones. Anyway, I managed to find the official thread for that strip in the forum (Mar 19, 2008) and went looking around the "blag" for posts near the same time [http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/03/] -- nothing related came up. (I skimmed the forum thread, too, but all I found was a vaguely cute Magic joke -- not really a surprise -- and then some weird image macros of, I dunno, some medical problem or something. The presence of latter dissuaded me from sticking around long enough to search for more wit on the thread.)

...

For me, one reason I dislike xkcd is that I definitely do get it. I have a CS degree. I have enough of a physics background to follow along with what the comic covers. I've experienced research and academia like Runroe has. I'm familiar with free culture, Unix-y operating systems, and all that jazz. Hell, I've read a book by Cory Doctorow (Eastern Standard Tribe, if you're wondering). So the thing that annoys me the most about xkcd, day in and day out, are the fans who don't get it but laugh along anyway. You'll see them on the forums or the LJ feed. They'll have no clue what a particular strip is about, but they'll like it anyway just because they feel like, y'know, there has to be a joke in there somewhere. There's no comprehension there, just a conditioned response.

I perceive that in a lot of folks who do "get it", too: a kind of transference where the idea of "Oh, hey, I wanted to make a joke about wind power and Don Quixote" becomes a stand-in for the actual joke itself. I did that for a while, too, but the I stopped and looked around and noticed that Munroe was making lots of mistakes in actually presenting his ideas -- not just sloppy wording and bad layout but repeated failures to actually deliver a joke rather than just speculate about what a joke would be like if he actually told it, -- and that there was no improvement in this arena over the several-year history of the comic. The fact that the ideas themselves were growing stale didn't help either.

(The other major reason is all those times when, just like Dan Brown, he prattles on without a clue about what the hell he's talking about [http://xkcd.com/451/].)

-- Alex

 

[02cfranklin]

xkcd is major win and I recommend it to everyone.

 

[McClaud]

And I think that's what people who don't get XKCD don't do - they don't go on and read his other thoughts that connect to his comics.

Do you have a link?

I looked this one up to see if there's any really noteworthy commentary but came up dry. You can see both concurrently if you subscribe to the comic and the "blag" as RSS feeds, but the comics on the site aren't dated, so it's hard to cross-reference old ones. Anyway, I managed to find the official thread for that strip in the forum (Mar 19, 2008) and went looking around the "blag" for posts near the same time [http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/03/] -- nothing related came up. (I skimmed the forum thread, too, but all I found was a vaguely cute Magic joke -- not really a surprise -- and then some weird image macros of, I dunno, some medical problem or something. The presence of latter dissuaded me from sticking around long enough to search for more wit on the thread.)

Man, I know he wrote about it somewhere (I, too, am at a loss to find it right now), and my coworkers on IRC all confirm that I'm not crazy. Maybe he mentions in a later blog entry that he went back and talked about the entry. I'm at a loss.

I stopped and looked around and noticed that Munroe was making lots of mistakes in actually presenting his ideas -- not just sloppy wording and bad layout but repeated failures to actually deliver a joke rather than just speculate about what a joke would be like if he actually told it, -- and that there was no improvement in this arena over the several-year history of the comic. The fact that the ideas themselves were growing stale didn't help either.

You should watch an MIT discussion with him sometime. He admits he's not a cartoonist, and has no skill in writing a comic. He's as puzzled as you are sometimes why people find some of his comics super funny when even he doesn't think they are that funny.

He likened various strips of his to being like Family Circus - they aren't really funny per se, but they tend to be horrible puns or worse about things he notices or thinks about on a regular basis.

(The other major reason is all those times when, just like Dan Brown, he prattles on without a clue about what the hell he's talking about [http://xkcd.com/451/].)

I actually found that one really funny. I started college wanting to major in Literature or English, moved to Mass Communications, and then finally to Psychology. I totally understand what he's talking about - 80% of all Literary students can bullshit their way through a 10 page paper saying absolutely nothing, as long as they sound like they know WTF they are talking about. I was one of them. I totally faked out a professor of Literature with a paper that I made up about Atlas Shrugged. Nothing I wrote really made any sense to me - I just strung along several literary terms in the most logical way, knowing I was probably going to fail.

I got an A on that fucking piece of shit dissertation. An A!

I realized right then and there that the entire field is purely speculative and subjective to whoever you are studying under/with. Literature professors can rarely agree on anything written.

So I can see how he can completely fake out Literary Criticism grads. If not for the fact that they spend most of the time thinking about what you said and trying to put it into context of their own thoughts. Using the bullshit vocabulary that goes with Literature.

(I'm a Psychology/Sociology grad. I too picked on the Literature and English students with much wild abandon because I used to be one of them - and it was the only way to get over my embarassment)

(PS - I'm not serious about Literature/English being a horrible subject, just that I found it to be fairly ... inconsistent, boring and inflated. I also find Physics and Engineering to be boring and rather flat, if that's any consolation)

 

[Alex_P]

He likened various strips of his to being like Family Circus - they aren't really funny per se, but they tend to be horrible puns or worse about things he notices or thinks about on a regular basis.

Family Circus.
Thanks. That was the exact analogy I was looking for.

-- Alex

 

[vultureX21]

You're lucky you put in that aside about not really ripping on English majors seeing as I have a bachelor's degree in European Literature. I like to think I got more bang for my buck by learning how to read Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and Middle English, but then again that was more to enhance my other degree in European History.

That concept of the opinionated instructor is the major issue with English courses though. You're supposed to be able to examine literary works from angles as long as you can provide reasonable evidence for your interpretation (reasonable being the key word, too many loonies out there will try to sell you anything "interpretation"). But some teachers will make their own opinion/interpretation of the work THE answer. Fantastic example for you. When I was a freshman they made me take Writing 101 because all courses at my college were writing intensive they had to make sure we could, you know, construct a damn sentence (which is amusing since that should be a prerequisite to getting in, not a tool you pick up on the way). At any rate, we had to read Toni Morrison's book "Beloved" that, despite being Oprah-fied, happens to be a very good book. The main crux of the story is that the protagonist...

Spoiler

...killed her baby to prevent her from being taken from her and sold into slavery. Except the horrible irony is that the men looking for her were trying to protect her, not take her child. She then grows up with her other children and a strange woman shows up that the protagonist (Sethe) feels an odd kindred to. Turns out this is the resurrection or ghost of her child back to get revenge on her or teach her to forgive herself, depending on how you interpret Morrison's message (it's fairly ambiguous).

So my "professor" was of the opinion that the spirit, for all the nasty and cruel things it does to Sethe, was benevolent. I disagreed, I felt she was there to punish her mother and Sethe only overcame her with the help of her family and friends who never believed she was anything but a victim of slavery. I backed my claim up with plenty of in text evidence, criticism, anything I could get my hands on. My "professor" looked at the rough draft and when she handed it back simply said, "You misinterpreted the book. If you rewrite this and show how the spirit was intending to help Sethe I'd definitely give you an A."

Yeah, I openly laughed at her and told her she was undermining the entire point of English, which is to debate and interpret works in as many was as possible within reasonable grounds. I had given her a ton of great evidence, she just didn't like the darker way of looking at the story. I refused to change the paper, she gave me a C and I got a B for the year after having A's all the way through up to that point. I have never been prouder of a B in my life.

It's those teachers, the ones who won't let students pose reasonable theories of interpretation, which might open up different ways of reading and understanding the book, that undermine the value of English as a major. Their job is to facilitate interpretation and keep students from veering into crazy, unsupported fringe theories about literary works, not to tell them what THE answer is. It's an ambiguous field to be sure, but that doesn't make it valueless, just prone to hijacking from so-called professionals.

 

[Woe Is You]

I personally think that some of the best comics xkcd has to offer are those that are about fairly mundane things from the eyes of a geek/hacker, mostly because I can relate to a lot of them. It's not weird, it's the other side of normal.

The actual joke comics are hit or miss (flogging internet memes isn't terribly funny or original, though) but there has been enough of the kind of comic I described in the first paragraph for me to return to the site.