I was looking at my blog, late one night, when
So, I just watched the Friends finale for the first time (thanks, Netflix!), and afterwards I watched the pilot, like to see how they compared, and it really is incredible how much the show changed over ten years. They even have a different editing style, like the shots are generally shorter. And I realized that Friends had (more or less) one style that dominated most of its run, so any deviation from that style seemed out of place*; but the last series I finished, Breaking Bad, was experimental enough with its camerawork and editing that any additional experimentation was just part of the ride.
And I think one of XKCD's greatest strengths is the same lack of formula, it doesn't restrict itself to a set number of panels or even a set amount of space or even a single image type (remember that comic awhile back that was just fifty gifs?). I'd also argue it doesn't use those formats to their fullest potential, but still, today's XKCD uses a completely new panel layout specifically for this joke alone, and I think that's kinda cool.
The joke? Yeah, it's alright. I'd like it more if I didn't feel like White Hat was specifically chosen to be eaten by the spider as punishment for having the wrong opinions in previous comics. The dialogue also doesn't read like a real Skype conversation, with the ellipses in No Hat's first messages and the perfect grammar elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if Randy actually did type like that all the time, but c'mon, no one uses periods in one line sentences.
*See: "The One Where They All Turn Thirty", especially the credits scene.
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