Slashdot Log In
XKCD Invited To New Yorker "Cartoon-Off"
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Oct 18, 2008 01:35 PM
from the no-raptors dept.
from the no-raptors dept.
UnknowingFool writes "Farley Katz, who draws for New Yorker magazine, ran into xkcd.com's Randall Munroe in a grocery store. He challenged Munroe to a cartoon-off — each cartoonist to produce drawings about the Internet as envisioned by the elderly, String Theory, 1999, and one's favorite animal eating one's favorite food. In the ensuing short interview, Munroe describes XKCD as 'a webcomic about stick figures who do math, play with staple guns, mess around on the Internet, and have lots of sex. It's about three-fourths autobiographical.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
And the winner is... (Score:5, Funny)
hyperbondage
Re:And the winner is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Did anyone else habitually hover over the pic to see the alt text?
Parent
Re:And the winner is... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Munroe Wins (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Munroe Wins (Score:5, Insightful)
They are both funny, the only difference is the target audience. We happen to be the target audience of xkcd, and that is why Munroe is famous on slashdot and Katz is a cartoonist for the New Yorker.
Parent
Re:Munroe Wins (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty simple......show both comics to 10 random people on the street......which do you think will get the most laughs?
FAIL! You didn't specify which street. I call Infinite Loop, Cupertino.
Parent
Re:Munroe Wins (Score:4, Funny)
I'll go a month ago. Oh wait...
You want "Closed timelike curve" - its about 3 blocks south of "infinite loop."
Parent
Re:Munroe Wins (Score:5, Interesting)
Munroe won in my book, and not bad when he's playing an away-game. I did consider a detailed description of exactly why he wins with references and footnotes and sign it "Summer Glau", but I'm gambling that someone else will go to the effort for a +5 Funny
Parent
Re:Munroe Wins (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Meh... (Score:2)
Meh, neither one of them really made me laugh, though the hyperbondage one made me giggle a little.
It's hard to spontaneously be funny about something specific at any given time. Well, unless you're Robin Williams, in which case it's easy. But you get my point. I don't think that improvisation is either one of their strong suit, but given some time to let something come to them, and the freedom to draw about whatever neurons happen to be firing in their brain at the time... That's when the funny happens
Re:Meh... (Score:4, Funny)
Agreed. I actually really like Robin Williams a lot... but only when he's acting in dramatic roles. He was great in One Hour Photo, for example. He really is able to make me feel depressed or sad quite well.
Whenever he tries to be funny, I really think he's trying too hard, and I actually feel sorry for him. ...!
Come to think of it... he's really good at making me feel depressed or sad no matter what he's trying to do.
Parent
One was good... (Score:2)
The one drawing showing the internet as envisioned by the elderly was hilarious.
Re:One was good... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
O__O (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know what's scarier, that Katz's cow drawing has too many nipples - or that I noticed the discrepancy...
Re:O__O (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:O__O (Score:4, Funny)
His cow is part sow (BTW they are teats).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know what's scarier, that Katz's cow drawing has too many nipples - or that I noticed the discrepancy...
How about the fact that that mistake could ruin his political career (in Vermont, at least). [wikipedia.org]
During the televised debate, Tuttle asked a series of humorous local knowledge questions rather than political questions. McMullen was unable to correctly pronounce the names of several Vermont towns, or correctly answer Fred's question "How many teats a Holstein got?," answering "Six", instead of the correct "Four". In the primary, Tuttle defeated McMullen by ten percentage points. Winning the primary with 55 percent of the vote, Tuttle promptly endorsed the incumbent Democrat, Patrick Leahy.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In his defense, I have seen cows with 6 teats before. They were small and non functioning, but it had them.
But that's what comes from working on a dairy farm. You're bound to end up seeing freak teats eventually.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Freak Teats" is a phrase I think I can go a long time without encountering again...
Oh I do hope... (Score:5, Funny)
I sincerely hope the expression "Pulled a Palin" becomes part of the vernacular.
Re:Oh I do hope... (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a second. I'm confused. So are you saying that you are racist?!?
(relax, it's a joke)
Parent
Katz vs Munroe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Katz vs Munroe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Humor needs to be esoteric. There needs to be a pause between seeing the joke and getting the joke.
Katz's work is painfully obvious and looks like something out of a "cartooning 101" workshop. A drunk scientist? A cow biting itself? Those are hackneyed jokes!
My understanding is that the new yorker has this reputation for cartoons so bad that the audience has learned to love their badness. Well, theyre still terrible to me.
Parent
Re:Katz vs Munroe? (Score:4, Interesting)
Inside jokes are still funnier, IMHO. The best jokes are those that have the most surprising punchlines, or engage the maximum of brain activity (while still being decipherable). Personally, I think an unfamiliar academic context goes a long way toward supporting both of those concepts. Actually, a lot of my esoteric science knowledge originally came from researching jokes at the infamous http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/index.html [xs4all.nl] and I remember a lot of those being hilarious well before I had proper context for wholly understanding them. And nowadays I find Dinosaur Comics brilliant, seemingly component to my utter unfamiliarity with the field of linguistics, which Ryan North frequently refers to.
Admittedly, maybe that isn't true for everyone. But for me, anyway, the least funny humorists are always those that condescend or use humorous tropes that have already been done to death. I'd always rather have someone joking way over my head than at the level where I can figure out the punchline before I even hear it.
Parent
Three-fourths? (Score:5, Funny)
I take it Monroe doesn't like staple guns.
Now it makes sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Now it makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
This is actually redundant [slashdot.org] but it was rewarded with "Funny" because it implies that Monroe has lots of sex. You guys like Monroe and heaven forbid if you could separate the moderation guidelines from your personal feelings. Therefore, this is complimentary of Monroe and gets modded up. I made a very similar post that, while intended to be humorous, could have been taken as derogatory of Monroe since it suggested that the three-fourths part did not include sex, so I get modded down into oblivion. That's alright; to be honest, in hindsight, I don't think my own post [slashdot.org] was any good and it probably deserves the moderation it received. However, this post is a carbon copy of mine and was modded up. I contend that either they are both funny or they are both redundant.
No, the difference is that Munroe's original intention in saying "do math, play with staple guns, mess around on the Internet, and have lots of sex. It's about three-fourths autobiographical" was to imply that he does not "have lots of sex". Thus, pointing this out is redundant (because Munroe is already attempting to point it out), while misinterpreting it to mean he doesn't play with staple guns is humorous. Understand the difference?
Believe me, your post would have been funny if you weren't just pointing out what Munroe was trying to say.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Undoubtedly there is abuse of moderation, but this is not an example of it. I'll be charitable and assume you thought you were highlighting an amusing and unintended interpretation, but I'm pretty sure the original was intended to be interpreted that way - it was a deliberate joke, but perhaps subtle enough that you thought you were making the joke. Perhaps you though you were posting an amusing interpretation, but to those who got the joke you were just posting an explanation. Explanations of jokes aren't
One New Yorker comic I didn't get (Score:5, Funny)
What's the deal with the pig at the complaint department saying "I wish I were taller"?
XKCD (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a huge XKCD fan, but out of these 8 strips, it might be a reach to call 2 funny. I think they both failed.
What I'd have preferred instead of arbitrary subjects that intrinsically aren't funny, is for them to play off each other. One writes a comic of their choosing that fits within their comic idiom. The next plays directly off that comic trying to top if, within their idiom.
The back and forth would likely be much better.
Alt-text (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the things that makes xkcd funny is the alt-text... I missed having that here.
Re:Three-fourths Autobiographical? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Three-fourths Autobiographical? (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you Capt. Obvious! It's not as funny if you have to call attention to the joke.
I appreciate that. Being merely Sergeant Obvious was really getting old. Nothing but work, work, work.
Parent
Re:Three-fourths Autobiographical? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Three-fourths Autobiographical? (Score:5, Funny)
Captain Cliche here. Can I have my insult back?
Parent
Re:Three-fourths Autobiographical? (Score:5, Funny)
No, I'm thinking he's done with the staple guns, now that all the XKCD fangirls are lining up to blow him.
Parent
Re:Slashdot Reference (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's cartooning? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
We sincerely appreciate you translating that joke for us. None of us here, I'm certain, would've gotten it if it were not for your blinding insight.
On behalf of the Slashdot community, thank you for sharing your wisdom and erudition with us.
Re:It's a tie. (Score:4, Insightful)
Munroe's elderly comic makes GREAT sense, but you have to get the in-joke. Have you seen the comic captioned "on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog"? And if so, what magazine do you think it first appeared in? I thought it was the best one of all of them, with so many delicious levels of irony and meta-references.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense. Why would anyone's favorite animal be a cow?
In any case, how do you know who proposed each topic and where do you get off calling Katz a cheat? Where is your proof?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Uh, math? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Frosty Piss... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:-1 Redundant (Score:4, Informative)
Not news. We already know xkcd is funny and the New Yorker isn't. Dinosaurs in 1999 B.C.? Is this guy some kind of unfunny creationist?
What you completely missed is that it's a political jab at Palin. See this [youtube.com] if you don't get it.
Parent
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent