Thanks to one of the members of this forum (valente.mac, I think), these days I have the habit of going to xkcd.org first thing every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for what is usually a very funny few panels of stick men making references to obscure physics (which I sometimes don’t even understand - the guy worked for NASA after all), maths and - frequently - Firefly. There’s one every day at the moment (“The Race”, starting with xkcd.org/577/) which is all about Firefly. And it’s very funny (if you’ve watched Firefly).
Anyway, I just came across this rather alarming site:
Yes, it’s a blog in which someone regularly writes hundreds of words explaining why he thinks particular panels of this webcomic, er, suck. Is this meta-irony or something? Does not compute! How is it possible for someone to dedicate time every couple of days to pick apart a harmless, good-spirited web-comic involving stick men and the occasional hat? I feel as though this is the point where I must become Wonko the Sane and built and inverted assylum…
I’ve been reading xkcd for a few years now and, although I don’t always find them funny or even interesting, I can objectively say that it is nowhere near even the middle of a webcomic hierarchy list in terms of quality.
My personal favorite reaction to any xkcd comic was Cory Doctorow receiving his award from the EFF while wearing his goggles and red cape—as depicted in the comic [http://blag.xkcd.com/2007/03/28/cory-doctorow-part-ii/].
Seems like Carl at xkcd doesn’t have much of a life to write a blog about how much he dislikes a free webcomic. As a writer, I love getting a reaction from readers. I hope the reaction is positive, but strong negative reactions are sometimes far more satisfying.
I’ll look through my bookmarks and pick some out. Most of what I’ve found funny and/or good were from a while back, if that says anything to anyone about it.
Hi Kirkesque, I’m not sure whether I misunderstood your above comment or if you misunderstood my reply. By your above comment I thought you meant that you didn’t place the xkcd webcomic (as a whole) anywhere near the middle of your favourite webcomics; that is, I thought you were saying that you found a lot of other webcomics much better, so I was asking for links to some other great webcomics (not xkcd) to check out. (I am such a sad geek that I went through every one of the xkcd back catalogue over the span of a week or so when I discovered it last year.)
Matt - Yes, Serenity. Of course, it all turns out to be angels at the end. Oh no, wait, that was another show. Firefly and Serenity are superb…
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I’ve tried following a number of webcomics, but most don’t grab me (I think having Calvin & Hobbes when I was a teenager spoiled me for comic strips). The only webcomic I read regularly is Sinfest. http://www.sinfest.net/
Although strips with God, the Devil, and the Buddha are almost always excellent, my favorites feature Percy and Poochy, the cat and dog.
