2015-11-08

XKCD Isn't Funny - #1583 - NASA Press Conference

 Why are we spending billions to ruin Mars with swarms of robots when Elon Musk has promised to ruin Mars for a FRACTION of the cost?

Is this based off of that one time Thom Yorke became a reporter?

More to the point, does anyone have recommendations for good alarm apps for the iphone? Preferably ones that would go off even if the idiot who owns the phone set it to silent.

This is one of the most inconsistent XKCDs ever, from an art standpoint. The first panel has a fairly faithful replication of the NASA logo (kudos to Randy for the non-dialogue exposition), but then we get a bunch of lazy lumpy half-ovals for panel two, and panel three doesn't even have that. Then we have a full crowd for panel four, but also the speaker's stadium is apparently floating in midair.

I'll admit I've never bothered to look into how Randy makes his comics, but it is just something digital, right? He's not painting these on fifty-foot canvases with ink made from pandas. I imagine he has the time and ability to correct his mistakes. I know that people have their own things going on and I'd understand if he couldn't make a better version because he got shot or whatever, but without any indication of such I don't get why he doesn't try harder to make things look good.

So, Beret goes to a NASA conference and asks stupid questions, I can get behind that. Similar things have been done well before. The idea of Mars being ruined because it's gotten wet is actually a pretty good one. Unfortunately, it's poorly phrased: "water on Mars" won't translate to "Mars is wet" in the minds of most people. "Is it ruined?" comes off as a non-sequitur. The "when it dries out" line makes it a little clearer, but still not as much as it should be.

Beret's question in the fourth panel is also really incongruous with his previous questions. The first two are nonsensical but related to the idea of water on Mars, while the last is neither. It's like it was written for another reporter but Randy remembered that Beret was the one with the mic.

Was the Cantina scene really that confusing? They're picking the fight with him to A) show how tough they are and to try and rob the rich upper class white kid and B) to give the filmmakers a chance to show how badass Obi-Wan is and how Luke don't know nothin'. My friend Lightning adds "stahwaurz reffernce" and continues "once again it's that seth macfarlane type humor where it's 'hahah I recognize that so it's funny'".

In conclusion, I couldn't think of anything concrete to say about the writing in the second panel, and Beret's head still looks like an acorn.

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