XKCD Invited To New Yorker "Cartoon-Off" 231
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.'"
Munroe Wins (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Three-fourths Autobiographical? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Munroe Wins (Score:1, Insightful)
"Munroe was the clear winner. 1999 *BC* was just dumb, as were most of Katz's others. The only lame one of Munroe's was the strange skateboard thing. Somewhat off topic, though it gets points for originality."
Katz was the clear winner. favourite food/animal did not deliver, as did most of Munroe's others. The only lame one of Katz was the 1999 BC. Somewhat off topic, though it gets points for originality.
Katz vs Munroe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is sad.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is sad.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Bury a turd somewhere. Never tell anyone. The memory will always be yours alone.
Re:Munroe Wins (Score:3, 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.
Re:That's cartooning? (Score:5, 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.
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.
Re:O__O (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:It's a tie. (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:Now it makes sense (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 funny.
The GP's post on the other hand is not the same joke, it subverts the original joke and it's funny.
Re:Three-fourths Autobiographical? (Score:1, Insightful)
You'd think so, but the odd one out is actually the staple guns. If you look at frames 2 and 3 of the staple gun comic [xkcd.com], you can clearly see that the character's technique is all wrong. In frame 2 the staple would not penetrate through the debian disc into the screen, and he doesn't have the leverage in frame 3 to use the staple gun at all. Munroe is obviously making it up with no real experience.
Re:Munroe Wins (Score:3, Insightful)