Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Putting it in a poorly-drawn web cartoon doesn't automatically make a trivial observation funny. Isn't this the topic of, like, 438973489 blog posts and essays?

View on HN

This well drawn cartoon tells the story more completely and succinctly than any blog post. And yes, it is funny.

There's a spectrum running from Bill Watterson to Jim Davis, and I'm entitled to my opinion about where Randall Munroe falls on it. :P

Oh come on, Jim Davis at the bottom? Garfield may be terrible, but have you ever read Marmaduke?

You fail to account for ironic value.

For those who haven't seen them:

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

http://marmadukeexplained.blogspot.com/

Great arguments for transformative fair use if you ever need them.

Garfield is terrible; Garfield died some time around 1990. I don't remember the year exactly, but I distinctly remember the strip; it was a Garfield-stuffs-Odie's-mouth-with-a-watermelon-rind joke---exactly the same joke that had run a decade or so earlier.

But Garfield wasn't terrible. Go back and read the first five or six years of Garfield; at the time, it was a breath of fresh air.

This sums it up well for me: http://plover.net/~bonds/asdf.html

That'll put Munroe in his place.

sprinkle in a little "oh my god i had sex with a real girl look guys look at me she was real and we had actual sex im a god" and you've summarized my opinion of xkcd. thanks for the help.

I have exactly this problem with xkcd too --- girls apparently make hackers feel slightly squicky --- hilarity ensues! Let's have sex in a room-sized ball pit! Awwwww!

xkcd was great back when it was http://xkcd.com/144/ or http://xkcd.com/123/

But no good things last forever.

It used to be funny when the things it said weren't applicable or related to the real world? Huh.

I don't find those two especially funny, just memorable. I read tptacek's comment as a general criticism of xkcd, without the implication that it must be funny to be good.

http://xkcd.com/482/

http://xkcd.com/485/

I agree it's gone a bit downhill lately though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com