Instant Sunrise wrote:Comics are a visual medium, while xkcd does at least try to make something happening in each frame, I still think that the art itself is unexpressive and still. I am aware that he can draw things like landscapes, amd it has been used for a visual gag. However, comics are a visual medium first and foremost, and while good artwork can sometimes save poor writing, rarely is the reverse true.
Illustration is an inherently limited medium. You have lines on a peice of paper and they are supposed to represent a human being. Stiff art is where all the characters just stand still and move around awkwardly. The best example off the top of my head is that "Ethan falling out a window" gif in the OP.In illustration, a character needs to put their whole body into a pose or a move. If a character throws a punch, a stiff pose would just be the arm extending into the punch, and not leaning into the punch and putting their whole body into it. And a lot of times, it is not as realistic, but it is more natural.
So your criticism is that a comic that uses stick-figures is bad because the art's not good/realistic enough?
Maybe this is just me, but if someone were reading a comic strip with stick-figures with the assumption that the comic is going to get its point across through visual realism... I'd think that person is kind of an idiot.
"A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language" That's what it says at the top of every Xkcd page. It doesn't say anything about visual realism or 'natural' looking figures. I read the comics expecting to find the humour in the language they use, their portrayal of romance, their sarcasm, and puns/jokes involving math. If you're reading the comics with an expectation of realism or naturalism, you're just as stupid as someone who comes to a forum titled "Get your fill of Science, Sci-Fi, and mockery of stupid people" expecting a flame-free board about stock-prices and custom-built cars.
Most if not all of the comics, have a sympathetic protagonist, who the reader is expected, on some level to root for. This is pretty basic stuff here.
Protip: Xkcd is not like most webcomics. There is no over-arching storyline. It's most often a series of short jokes and scenarios that are resolved in one page. The only recurring character is the hat-wearing, sociopathic asshole, who doesn't exactly fit the mold of 'sympathetic protagonist'. Trying to hold it to the same standard as, say, OOTS or Dr. Ninja is like trying to compare Robot Chicken to House MD.
As for superimposing the author into the comic, this is really just the inherent ambiguity of a stick figure comic. If this were a comic that had characters with names, and recognizable features, we wouldn't be having this argument.
And that is your problem. You're coming into this with the assumption that there is some overarching plotline/setting to the entire comic, when there isn't. It's a series of short skits that stand pretty much independent of each other. It's a couple stick figures who act as the vehicles for the author's jokes, not a cohesive storyline that represents some message the author is trying to get across with developed characters that represent aspects of his psyche.
Some of these are clearly written from the perspective of the author, and some are not. However, the everyman character has been shown to do or say things that are kinda creepy and weird from my perspective. The Megan thing was a bit of a stretch in hindsight, and I will conceed that.
I still fail to see what's creepy or weird about it. Yes, if applied in real life, some of what is said would be very fucking creepy. But it's a goddamned *comic*. The situations in which these lines are given take place in a fictional environment that more often than not devolve into completely ludicrous situations. This might come as a bit of a shocker: Comics are not real life. People do things in comics that they would never even consider doing in real life. It's called 'fiction' for a reason.
Again, this is really just because of the inherent ambiguity of a stick figure comic. A blank stick figure like that really requires the reader to put a lot into the character. And what they put in is either going to be themselves, if they sympathize with the character, or the author if they don't. But again, I already concceded that the Megan thing was a stretch.
You're putting far too much into this. The stick figures are there to be a vehicle for whatever joke the current comic is making, nothing more. For fuck's sake, it's a comic with stick-figures, not a novel.
See, that is where I disagree. When I read a lot of these, I don't see tham as really expanding on the memes, just making a callback to it and saying "See remember that thing that is funny? Well here it is!" a'la _____ Movie.
I was hoping the point could be made just by posting the comics, that I wouldn't actually have to explain the humour behind them to you... but...
1st comic I posted, 'The Game'.
A kinda stupid meme that is used mostly to annoy people, that sticks around because people have it locked into their heads that they cannot win 'The Game'. The comic turns it on its head by simply stating that you've won 'The Game', showing that the whole meme is nothing more than a mental block which can be easily demolished.
A regurgitation would be someone going 'You lost the game' and someone else going 'damn'. That is not what happened here.
2nd: The Ring and a Youtube reference.
Starts off as a typical reference to The Ring, but then twists it by essentially condemning at least 363,104 people to death because the video was disseminated through a free mass-media webservice.
A regurgitation would be someone watching the video, and then dying seven days later. That is not what happened here.
3rd: Rick Astley. Already explained.
4th: Fail
'Epic Fail' is an over-used phrase to describe a situation in which someone screws up horribly through their own stupidity. This changes the first word of the meme to something similar sounding and presents a situation where it can be used.
A regurgitation would be someone fucking up and someone else going 'Epic fail', that is not what happened here.
I'm too tired to go on at the moment, but if you can't see the point by now, you're fucking dense. You've claimed Xkcd merely regurgitates memes. I'm claimed that is doesn't, and have shown how it doesn't. Your turn to prove how it does.
Actually, it's funny because Rick Astley never intended for his song to become a meme associated with pulling a joke on someone and making them do a double-take. Do it to him, with his own song, is bringing the meme around full circle to its unintentional creator, and thus is funny.
Why yes, that is an explanation of the joke.
Which shouldn't even need to be given. You're the first person I've ever run into who both knows what a rick-roll is, but doesn't get the humour in the joke.
Erm, actually it seems to be a humourous analogy to the Ron Paul campaign, taken to absurdity with the tron references. Again, my first post on it was innaccurate.
I mean you are right that it DOES try and recontextualize the meme in a new context, but in all of those, the gag still relies on knowing that meme and laughing at it because it is a callback to that meme. Again, I really can't stand that type of humor. Again, xkcd is not trying to create its own humor, but relying upon the jokes of other people.
Well, the meme strips form, oh, at most 1/10th of the totality of Xkcd. Out of those meme strips, maybe half are wholly depended on knowing the meme to get some humour out of the joke. The rest incorporate the meme into a different joke about sex, relationships, or sarcasm. So you're essentially saying that the entire comic is shitty based off of 1/20th its content. The rest, contrary to what you claim, does 'create its own humour'.
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- PeZook
