« The embarrassment of the liberal left
Missing Link: YHBT. YHL. HAND. »

The cartoonist gets to cheat.

Posted by Jacques Chester on Monday, May 21, 2007

Cartoonists — like poets and short story writers in the tradition of Jorge Louis Borges — have an advantage in that they are forced to make their statements pithy. This one from truly brilliant webcomic xkcd is a good demonstration of the art.



ShareThis This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 1:32 PM and filed under Art and Architecture. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Post a comment or leave a trackback.

8 Responses to “The cartoonist gets to cheat.”

  1. Amanda said:

    Oh I LOVE xkcd. Love love love. My whole family loves xkcd, to prove it: here is my brother in law in Las Vegas recently meeting Penn Jillette in his xkcd Science: It Works, Bitches shirt. I should buy me one of my own.

    Posted on 21-May-07 at 1:52 pm | Permalink
  2. Jacques Chester said:

    I like that shirt too.

    Posted on 21-May-07 at 1:54 pm | Permalink
  3. Jacques Chester said:

    Of course Penn & Teller also have their show Penn & Teller: Bullshit! which is a very brash, brassy advocate for skepticism. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys them taking the piss.

    Posted on 21-May-07 at 1:55 pm | Permalink
  4. Amanda said:

    Yeah, I put my sister and her hubby on to Bullshit a few years ago and that’s why they wanted to go see them. I’m not so convinced by Penn’s contrarian libertarian schtick (getting Michael Fumento and Steven Milloy on as talking heads. Ugh to the power of infinity) but on woo they are brilliant.

    Posted on 21-May-07 at 2:20 pm | Permalink
  5. gilmae said:

    I recently wore my “Science: It Works, Bitches” t-shirt to the office. I figured it’d be okay, my office is way out the back where nobody ventures for fear of Grendels, the people who actually do have desks near me are almost always out on sales calls, and besides, I had a jacket on.

    Turned out the Managing Director was in town that day and meeting with the guy whose office is next to mine. I hadn’t met the MD at that point so was introduced. About five minutes later I realised my jacket was unzipped and there was a reasonable chance the MD was able to read my shirt.

    Posted on 21-May-07 at 2:22 pm | Permalink
  6. Jacques Chester said:

    Amanda;

    I agree that P&T are hardly “without sin” - they make no secret of their bias. But mockery is an important form of dissent, surely?

    Posted on 21-May-07 at 2:26 pm | Permalink
  7. Amanda said:

    Well, for sure. I bow to no one in my worship of P&T and am insanely jealous of my sister. I’m just saying, their “social issues” eps don’t work, IMHO, as well as their woo eps. I could mock astrologers and feng shui-ists and astral travellers and homeopathers and fire walking charalatans all the live long day. The mockier the better.

    Just a personal taste.

    Posted on 21-May-07 at 2:39 pm | Permalink
  8. Damien Eldridge said:

    I am a particular fan of Jorge Cham’s PhD comics. They are an uncannily accurate description of grad school life!!! They can be found online at the following website:

    http://www.phdcomics.com/ .

    Posted on 22-May-07 at 4:51 am | Permalink

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.