Execution

Even the most subjective topics have objective standards that each individual person uses to evaluate. It’s the weighting that’s subjective.

In this case, it doesn’t matter how it’s weighted. It’s crass. Everything multiplied by zero is zero.

Rhetorical question: if some people found a schadenfreude comic with no real punchline to be laugh-out-loud funny, is it because they didn’t take Stats, or is it because they’re insensitive jerks?

“HA HA, 1400 AMD PEOPLE LOST THEIR JOBS IN A RECESSION! SUCKERS. INTEL FTW!!!!1”

I mean, if he’d had something genuinely funny to say, using the firings as a jumping-off point for the joke might have been excusable. But there’s absolutely no substance to this joke outside of a direct appeal to schadenfreude. A bunch of Fred’s other comics are just bare criticism. I think most people don’t find these approaches very funny, they don’t reflect well on the site, and they certainly aren’t going to make for a comic that draws viewers here.

Look at any moderately successful comic out there that takes material from real-life situations (Penny Arcade would be a particularly good example because of the tech connection and their phenomenal success). Are criticism and schadenfreude involved in many of their comics? Most definitely. Is that ever all there is to it? No. No matter how much they dislike something, if they can’t find a way to couch their criticism in something genuinely humorous they don’t put it in the comic. If misfortune hits those they don’t like, they don’t just point and laugh; they don’t put it in the comic unless they can use that to bring out a humorous situation.

It’s not that we “expect Fred’s output to [i<]only[/i<] be 'funny,'" it's that we expect it to [i<]at least[/i<] be funny. He calls it a [i<]comic[/i<], for pity's sake. If it's not supposed to be funny he should call it something else.

I think of these more as Garfield, which is intended to be funny and falls on its face.

Give it a rest. Get a life. Please.

[Edit]Maybe I didn’t get my point across. Spending this much time and effort on arguing about whether a comic is funny or not is just sad. Like Cyril said, humour is subjective. End of story.[/Edit]

you totally missed the entire point of the strip. Its not making light of the jobs its making light of how AMD approaches its short comings. Its clear that AMD has major issues but they probably don’t come from the bottom but are rather reflected in the management. For some reason AMD’s management doesn’t see its own indecisive nature is responsible so they fire the people who actually do their job. That is the flippin joke. Not, ha people got fired, more like HA those idiots think firing those people fixes the company in any way. If anything this comic in my subjective interpretation sides with those who lost their jobs. Its funny, you not being able to see that would indicate you didn’t got to stats 101.

I said Schadenfreude first, it’s mine!

give it back. 🙂

With dead baby jokes, the use of the dead baby is for shock value, or to give the audience an immediate introduction to the absurdity of the situation. You could substitute “watermelon” for “dead baby” and the logic and mechanics of the joke still work (even though it may not be funny). In the case of “Execution”, the joke is dependent on the great misfortune of (1400 – (golden parachuters)) people.

From a strictly authoring standpoint, the introduction of a medieval executioner makes little sense within the context of the comic. Fred went for the obvious, played-out double entendre of “execution” rather than something more incisive.

That is not a fact – that’s an opinion.