XKCD

OK, so so far I have been doing all these bad comics and to this day none of them has brought me to my knees. However, when I started reading this comic, which is, in my mind, the literary equivalent of accidentally using your mom's toothbrush, I had a sort of a little avalanche in my head. Nothing too serious. Just a mountain goat bleating too loudly, and causing some ice to crack and fall. It didn't knock over any trees, if that's what you're wondering.

XKCD is sort of like the hive of the internet, as in people go in and out of it, all working toward the same cause, and it serves the useful purpose of providing metaphorical pollen for other comics, or "flowers". At the same time, though, I wish it wasn't a part of the process, because XKCD has stung me a grand number of times. As a matter of fact, I'd like to think that the wounds are still in me. It stings like if you were to loose your father, or maybe be emotionally distant from him.

What does it mean to be human? XKCD tries so hard to answer this, but in the end, it turns out to be kind of a stupid question, because no human would read XKCD. Not even a human who didn't know how to love his son, or a robot that was just discovering how to be human.

Take a look at this strip?

It's apparent from this appalling installment that XKCD can't be expected to deliver. It's like the pizza guy just kind of went slack-jawed and didn't even do a thing. It's like the flower shop had a wilting party.

Sometimes it's a perky situation in XKCD. Sometimes we see ideas fall. Sometimes there is love and romance. But there's an ingredient missing...Oh yes there is. Not all love is romance, and somebody forgot about it. Maybe somebody shoved it screaming into a closet and yelled. Maybe somebody hasn't dealt with their past.

Sometimes when I read XKCD I am reminded of episodes from my own life that haunt me. I'm trying not to make this personal, but I just don't like to look at a comic and remember my first dead pet.

The characters:

Stick man: I can't figure this guy out. He's sometimes so open, but he never actually does any leaping off the page. He tells me things, and he talks to me, but I think it's all a front to justify who he is when nobody is watching. I resent him, but in a way I want to be like him.

Stick man with hat: He feels so distant... He's authoritative and he can discipline, but he has problems. Probably with alcohol and with not feeling the same love that he used to. I think that he wants to move on, but I'm terrified.

Sleeping girl: All she can do now is sleep. There is nothing for her when she is awake.

Velociraptor: The big problem with the velociraptors in this comic is that it is too obvious that they symbolize God. Way to hit us over the head with a keyboard from the seventies.

XKCD is more than a comic. It's a metaphor for a life that is just not working right. It's a sigh. It's a cry out for attention. It's a little boy who was raised by a television, and then we wonder why he lashes out and breaks the neighbors arm, and then he has to visit him at the hospital, but he doesn't want to and he screams until his mother says he doesn't have to go to the hospital but for once she would like to have a normal family.

I want to see a different XKCD.

An XKCD that gives hope to certain people who didn't have the best childhoods.

This is what I want to see:

That's what the real readers want. They want something that will comfort them for things that have happened in their lives. I'm sure that every person in the world can relate to at least one part of that comic that I just drew. Even if your dog didn't die, maybe your mom still yelled a lot. There is something here for everybody.

Now let's compare that with another real XKCD.

As you can see, XKCD doesn't really understand the real emotions. Just the fake ones that we put on. The ones that make us seem interesting, or that provoke a thought of attraction in a woman. This is just the kind of thing that makes us all wish that our grandpa had never done what he did in the garage. It makes us all wish we hadn't seen the things we had seen. It makes us all wish that our mothers had never had to tell us that it was going to be a long time before we could go back home again, because we changed the locks but we're never safe if a certain person knows where we live.

So that's XKCD for you. Flat and not real.

Sonty out.

(((~~$$~~Sonty Mick~~$$~~)))