LOL, this IS funny! (But I bet those inside AMD are not laughing.)
Palek
8 years ago
Are you referring to the comic strip or the resulting comedy in the comments section?
ronch
8 years ago
Specifically, the executioner.
ronch
8 years ago
Hmm, I bet I got those thumb-downs from folks who are offended or don’t find this comic funny at all. Hey, I feel sorry for those AMD guys as much as anyone does, but I do appreciate a funny comic. 🙂
Rakhmaninov3
8 years ago
Reminds me of Dunesbury
travbrad
8 years ago
Leave the giant company who doesn’t give a crap about me alone! /sarcasm
Nice comic 🙂
Krogoth
8 years ago
ITT: Fanboys who are full of butthurt.
BTW, nice comic which nicely sums up AMD in the past few weeks.
ClickClick5
8 years ago
For all you stifs that do not seem to understand ANY humor, here is a comic for you:
[url<]http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=26805[/url<]
Nice job Fred! This reminded me of the first episode of Game Of Thrones.
SonicSilicon
8 years ago
Speaking of execution, the one for this comic is flat.
Going for self-deprecating irony?
Auril4
8 years ago
Is there a comic on this site depicting Intel’s ethical misconduct in the marketplace?
Krogoth
8 years ago
There was one comic that had an Intel bank truck hitting a speed bump (AMD). Some of the money gets toss out, and that amount ends up being used for “Settlement with AMD. The driver said “Did we hit something?” and the fellow passenger said “It was nothing”.
atryus28
8 years ago
Wow, the people that frequent TR since I first started in 2001 have seriously changed. Everyone is “so right” and sensitive all the time about political things in a way I have not seen until recent years.
I see in no way that this is making fun of the now ex employees of AMD at all. It’s poking at how they are obviously confused and out of date in so many ways its actually sad. I personally choose to laugh at these because crying about them isn’t worth it and gets nothing done.
I mean really, execution medieval style (being a separator) but your current slogan is Fusion is being used…. Not hysterical but certainly humorous. It always seems to be the more money people make the dumber they get.
flip-mode
8 years ago
Wow. Ridiculous feedback on this comic. Seems commentators thinks comics should only deal with happy and fun subject matter.
Another thing: not all comics are supposed to be funny. You’re not always supposed to laugh. So many people are always have to comment when a comic isn’t funny – MAYBE ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE.
Comics do all of these things: make us laugh, make us think, speak to current events. tell a story, be irreverant, be edgy, be witty, connect the dots, be sarcastic, be surprising, be unexpected, be outlandish…. and so many other things.
Anyone here who thinks Fred was trying to say that people losing their jobs is something to laugh at really needs to step back and evaluate the very narrow way in which the regard the comic medium.
HEY FRED: Keep creating, man! Hopefully you don’t even read these comments.
dashbarron
8 years ago
Well said. People have assumptions that media types should be a certain way and anything other is blaspheme or wrong.
I.e. Books are only print! Comicbooks are only for kids (graphic novels are a sub-branch and the new term). Talkingbooks are only for blind elders
Palek
8 years ago
+1 for sanity.
ronch
8 years ago
Fred: Keep them coming. You can’t please everyone, after all.
derFunkenstein
8 years ago
You’re only saying that because he pleased you.
Meadows
8 years ago
Oooh, kinky.
d0g_p00p
8 years ago
I love TR and it’s my homepage. That said I really don’t like these comics. None have been funny and the art is not all that impressive (sorry Fred, don’t mean to diss). I also don’t think it really belongs on a tech site like TR it just does not mesh well. That said I appreciate the work Fred does to get the strips done but I think his talent can be put to better use somewhere else on the site. I’m just saying what I think being a long term reader.
clone
8 years ago
Schadenfreude eh Fred?
it’s funny, this is one of your more transparent works, totally unambiguous and still you can’t win….. the irony, it appears comedy just like beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.
I laughed at this one to be sure, not a ROFLMAO of course but in the form of “oh my hehe, might be a little early hehe.” naughty laugh, guilty laugh.
the web loves to judge btw, ppl run in morals held high above their heads, some hoping they are on the side of the majority, others on the side of what they believe the majority should be and still others just crying out for less calamity and a little more sanity.
note to the AMD employees that lost their jobs recently who may be reading this, I hope nothing but the best for you and yours, don’t ever think otherwise despite my endorsement of momentary humor at your expense.
Yeats
8 years ago
Putting aside the matter of “taste” for the moment…
The thing is, as Meadows pointed out, the play on the word “execution” is so obvious, predictable, etc. that there is no comedic jolt. How is a joke funny when you already know the punchline?
Maybe – just maybe – the comic would have been more humorous (and ironic) if the second panel depicted a crowd of AMD employees being crushed by a bulldozer.
clone
8 years ago
the success of a joke is rarely determined by it’s sophistication.
what matters far more is delivery, timing and mood of the target audience, watched a nobody at a comedy club one night, because he was supposed to be funny and because of alcohol consumption he got a pass.
weeks later I saw a recording of his performance and because I was sober and objective I was literally in shock of how unfunny he was, made me wonder just how much I had to drink that night.
MadManOriginal
8 years ago
Being too soon is part of the humor. Saying something humorous others won’t, but want to, because of ‘good taste’ adds its own layer of humor. Then again, I have no sense of ‘too soon’ when it comes to humor.
I came up with this one a few days after the Japanese tsunami earlier this year, about two days after it happened:
“How many Japanese does it take to stop a tsunami?”
“…OVER 9000!!!! “
smilingcrow
8 years ago
I made a joke on 9/11 in front of a group of 70+ people that went down like a lead balloon.
I suggested that it was time for action as we really needed to do something about airline food as people were responding rather violently to being served such crap.
clone
8 years ago
lol, “Lead Balloon”, love that term.
got killed on a joke about the space shuttle Columbia shortly after it crashed, got hit from the self righteous repeatedly until I lost all sense of remorse and began actively defending the joke instead.
WillBach
8 years ago
That’s grossly bad taste, Fred.
Scott, Cyril, are you worried that this will reflect negatively on the rest of TR?
Anonymous Coward
8 years ago
Why would this reflect badly on TR? People are so damned whiny and sensitive these days. EDIT: Actually I think a lot of people these days have somehow managed simultaneously being whiny, sensitive, and jerks.
thefumigator
8 years ago
I have to be honest, I laughed in this one.
sweatshopking
8 years ago
I don’t understand the dicks that frequent this site. Bunch of entitled nerds. My god. Didn’t your mother tell you if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything? seriously. If you think the comic is unethical, that’s one thing, but that’s not what i’m hearing, you just don’t think it’s funny. Get over yourselves. Give the man a break. I like your comics, fred, and keep them coming.
Yeats
8 years ago
[quote<]I don't understand the dicks that frequent this site.[/quote<]
[quote<]Bunch of entitled nerds.[/quote<]
and
[quote<]Didn't your mother tell you if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything?[/quote<]
pot, kettle
Meadows
8 years ago
[quote<]"Didn't your mother tell you if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything?"[/quote<]
She did, but she never realised that critical opinions make the world progress. If nobody ever said anything that's not nice, we'd still be stuck in the Stone Age.
sweatshopking
8 years ago
that’s not exactly true. you’re making a mistake. You’re assuming that being a dick, and being constructively critical, when you are in a position to be so, are the same thing. they’re not. You can be an ass, say dickish things, and guess what? you’re helping nobody, just being mean.
Meadows
8 years ago
You didn’t specify whether they were the same or not, as per mother’s recommendations, so I didn’t specify either. They might as well be the same.
derFunkenstein
8 years ago
For you and your posting style, I believe you really believe that. For most people, they’re not always part of the same package.
Meadows
8 years ago
Their loss, I guess.
tfp
8 years ago
“I don’t understand the dicks that frequent this site. Bunch of entitled nerds.”
See right there you broke your own rule.
“haha” – Nelson
Tristan
8 years ago
AMD still in dark ages
Yeats
8 years ago
“Aren’t you a little short for an Executioner?”
derFunkenstein
8 years ago
This here Star Wars reference is WAY funnier than the actual comic. Good work.
Meadows
8 years ago
Predictable play on the word “execution”, yet somehow strangely distasteful.
I don’t know either, last I checked I was at +2.
Must’ve been NeelyCam again.
NeelyCam
8 years ago
Yeah – I bought some extra thumbdowns from Cyril so I could humiliate you.
clone
8 years ago
no strangely about it, a little early for many is the issue, gave you a thumbs up because it’s an honest review…. not funny but honest lol. 🙂
dashbarron
8 years ago
Grisly. “You’ve got guts kid.”
Arclight
8 years ago
Even though Bulldozer sucks i feel bad for the people who lost their jobs. Still i will have to admit that this comic gave me a few laughs.
NeelyCam
8 years ago
^This. +1
kamikaziechameleon
8 years ago
yeah, lol.
derFunkenstein
8 years ago
I don’t even…
…
What does this mean?
Duck
8 years ago
1400 people were fired from AMD recently.
derFunkenstein
8 years ago
Were they beheaded, too?
tfp
8 years ago
Time to “Toe the line” derFunk
derFunkenstein
8 years ago
Yes, I’ll get back on the company line shortly. BTW how are you at +3 when you’re mocking the people who have been giving me a fat -8? hehe
Anonymous Coward
8 years ago
Ah, I didn’t think it was funny until you pointed out the significance of 1400. Now I think its funny.
jensend
8 years ago
“EXECUTION” YOU KNOW… LIKE A REAL EXECUTION HA HA HA HA HA AREN’T WE PUNNY HA HA HA HA HA
jensend
8 years ago
Classless, unfunny, and stupid. Is Fred Silver [i<]paying [b<]you[/b<][/i<] to publish his fatuous comics? 'Cause I wouldn't publish them even if the work was being done for free.
Vasilyfav
8 years ago
Umad bro?
ALiLPinkMonster
8 years ago
Maybe he is one of the 1400…
jensend
8 years ago
No, I’m just not laughing. Looked back through the archives, and there’s only one of his comics that is even close to being worth a chuckle (the one about the death of local newspapers).
There’s plenty of humor-worthy stuff going on in the tech world, and there’s a bunch of artists managing to draw out that humor and capitalize on it. Fred just isn’t one of them.
Cyril
8 years ago
If only humor was something subjective. 😉
derFunkenstein
8 years ago
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.
Cyril
8 years ago
Yet there are people in this very comments section who seemed to enjoy the comic. Maybe they didn’t go to Stats 101? 😉
We appreciate the feedback, and I’m sure it helps Fred tune his jokes for our audience. But let’s not pretend for a moment that humor can be reduced to absolutes. Everything from culture and upbringing to the chemicals in our blood affect our response to humor. Dead baby jokes cause some people to cringe in disgust and others to laugh uncontrollably; that’s just how comedy works. It’s a very personal thing.
jensend
8 years ago
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.
Yeats
8 years ago
Or maybe it just wasn’t funny.
____________________________________________
Looking at Fred’s other work, most of the criticism is fairly gentle. He also makes use of irony (“Have You Heard?”) and “the times they are a-changing” motif (“72-point mystery”). Criticism, in addition to being hugely present on the Internet, is nearly inescapable in technology enthusiast sites.
Perhaps a mistake is being made by folks who expect Fred’s output to only be “funny”, when in fact he may have other aims.
jensend
8 years ago
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.
Yeats
8 years ago
Comic books aren’t necessarily meant to be funny.
“Comic” can be an artistic style. Charles Schultz’s [i<]Peanuts[/i<] comics were often not "funny", but simply made an observation or a point, or were (intended to be) amusing.
derFunkenstein
8 years ago
I think of these more as Garfield, which is intended to be funny and falls on its face.
MadManOriginal
8 years ago
The something else would most appropriately be called ‘posts by jensend.’
Palek
8 years ago
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]
BobbinThreadbare
8 years ago
I don’t think the joke is about schadenfreude over people losing their jobs, it’s a joke about how AMD is failing to manager their company and about PR double speak.
kamikaziechameleon
8 years ago
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.
YellaChicken
8 years ago
Exactly the same way as I read it. Bulldozer wasn’t ‘Executed’ properly > Management meet and someone mentions execution needs to be improved > Staff get executed. I’m with Kami on this one, Freds making light of idiot management, not people getting sacked.
clone
8 years ago
I said Schadenfreude first, it’s mine!
give it back. 🙂
derFunkenstein
8 years ago
The difference is nobody (well, let’s not get too into absolutes. I’ll qualify that as *almost* nobody) pretends dead baby jokes are tasteful, yet people are pretending this is.
Yeats
8 years ago
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.
indeego
8 years ago
[i<]This[/i<] is crass? Have you been on the Internet [s<]lately[/s<] ever?
NeelyCam
8 years ago
That is not a fact – that’s an opinion.
MadManOriginal
8 years ago
Standards are for people who give a crap about what other people think. Then there is stuff on the internet…
Duck
8 years ago
I upvoted. Gotta have standards I guess.
clone
8 years ago
sellout, had to down vote you for admitting you can be so easily swayed.
indeego
8 years ago
Don’t forget racist for those people who are the opposite of grey.
Kougar
8 years ago
I’ll agree it’s definitely not funny to me. But the comic makes perfect sense in a dreadfully literal fashion. AMD cut into the bone and got rid of some of their best and most dedicated guys. To me, it came off as a senseless act of random cost cutting by a greedy board of directors.
It’s bad enough we’re still wondering if AMD can design a respectable CPU, but now that they have turned to hacking apart the GPU division, one has to wonder how competitive ATI will still be in five years. So yeah, I won’t laugh at this, but it was certainly spot on.
MaxTheLimit
8 years ago
Haters gonna hate…
1love4all
8 years ago
AMD’s return to historical methods!
NeelyCam
8 years ago
Effective, too. I’m sure AMD wouldn’t want these laid-off folks join the competition.
Hah! Brilliant. And so darn true.
LOL, this IS funny! (But I bet those inside AMD are not laughing.)
Are you referring to the comic strip or the resulting comedy in the comments section?
Specifically, the executioner.
Hmm, I bet I got those thumb-downs from folks who are offended or don’t find this comic funny at all. Hey, I feel sorry for those AMD guys as much as anyone does, but I do appreciate a funny comic. 🙂
Reminds me of Dunesbury
Leave the giant company who doesn’t give a crap about me alone! /sarcasm
Nice comic 🙂
ITT: Fanboys who are full of butthurt.
BTW, nice comic which nicely sums up AMD in the past few weeks.
For all you stifs that do not seem to understand ANY humor, here is a comic for you:
[url<]http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=26805[/url<] Nice job Fred! This reminded me of the first episode of Game Of Thrones.
Speaking of execution, the one for this comic is flat.
Going for self-deprecating irony?
Is there a comic on this site depicting Intel’s ethical misconduct in the marketplace?
There was one comic that had an Intel bank truck hitting a speed bump (AMD). Some of the money gets toss out, and that amount ends up being used for “Settlement with AMD. The driver said “Did we hit something?” and the fellow passenger said “It was nothing”.
Wow, the people that frequent TR since I first started in 2001 have seriously changed. Everyone is “so right” and sensitive all the time about political things in a way I have not seen until recent years.
I see in no way that this is making fun of the now ex employees of AMD at all. It’s poking at how they are obviously confused and out of date in so many ways its actually sad. I personally choose to laugh at these because crying about them isn’t worth it and gets nothing done.
I mean really, execution medieval style (being a separator) but your current slogan is Fusion is being used…. Not hysterical but certainly humorous. It always seems to be the more money people make the dumber they get.
Wow. Ridiculous feedback on this comic. Seems commentators thinks comics should only deal with happy and fun subject matter.
Another thing: not all comics are supposed to be funny. You’re not always supposed to laugh. So many people are always have to comment when a comic isn’t funny – MAYBE ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE.
Comics do all of these things: make us laugh, make us think, speak to current events. tell a story, be irreverant, be edgy, be witty, connect the dots, be sarcastic, be surprising, be unexpected, be outlandish…. and so many other things.
Anyone here who thinks Fred was trying to say that people losing their jobs is something to laugh at really needs to step back and evaluate the very narrow way in which the regard the comic medium.
HEY FRED: Keep creating, man! Hopefully you don’t even read these comments.
Well said. People have assumptions that media types should be a certain way and anything other is blaspheme or wrong.
I.e. Books are only print! Comicbooks are only for kids (graphic novels are a sub-branch and the new term). Talkingbooks are only for blind elders
+1 for sanity.
Fred: Keep them coming. You can’t please everyone, after all.
You’re only saying that because he pleased you.
Oooh, kinky.
I love TR and it’s my homepage. That said I really don’t like these comics. None have been funny and the art is not all that impressive (sorry Fred, don’t mean to diss). I also don’t think it really belongs on a tech site like TR it just does not mesh well. That said I appreciate the work Fred does to get the strips done but I think his talent can be put to better use somewhere else on the site. I’m just saying what I think being a long term reader.
Schadenfreude eh Fred?
it’s funny, this is one of your more transparent works, totally unambiguous and still you can’t win….. the irony, it appears comedy just like beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.
I laughed at this one to be sure, not a ROFLMAO of course but in the form of “oh my hehe, might be a little early hehe.” naughty laugh, guilty laugh.
the web loves to judge btw, ppl run in morals held high above their heads, some hoping they are on the side of the majority, others on the side of what they believe the majority should be and still others just crying out for less calamity and a little more sanity.
note to the AMD employees that lost their jobs recently who may be reading this, I hope nothing but the best for you and yours, don’t ever think otherwise despite my endorsement of momentary humor at your expense.
Putting aside the matter of “taste” for the moment…
The thing is, as Meadows pointed out, the play on the word “execution” is so obvious, predictable, etc. that there is no comedic jolt. How is a joke funny when you already know the punchline?
Maybe – just maybe – the comic would have been more humorous (and ironic) if the second panel depicted a crowd of AMD employees being crushed by a bulldozer.
the success of a joke is rarely determined by it’s sophistication.
what matters far more is delivery, timing and mood of the target audience, watched a nobody at a comedy club one night, because he was supposed to be funny and because of alcohol consumption he got a pass.
weeks later I saw a recording of his performance and because I was sober and objective I was literally in shock of how unfunny he was, made me wonder just how much I had to drink that night.
Being too soon is part of the humor. Saying something humorous others won’t, but want to, because of ‘good taste’ adds its own layer of humor. Then again, I have no sense of ‘too soon’ when it comes to humor.
I came up with this one a few days after the Japanese tsunami earlier this year, about two days after it happened:
“How many Japanese does it take to stop a tsunami?”
“…OVER 9000!!!! “
I made a joke on 9/11 in front of a group of 70+ people that went down like a lead balloon.
I suggested that it was time for action as we really needed to do something about airline food as people were responding rather violently to being served such crap.
lol, “Lead Balloon”, love that term.
got killed on a joke about the space shuttle Columbia shortly after it crashed, got hit from the self righteous repeatedly until I lost all sense of remorse and began actively defending the joke instead.
That’s grossly bad taste, Fred.
Scott, Cyril, are you worried that this will reflect negatively on the rest of TR?
Why would this reflect badly on TR? People are so damned whiny and sensitive these days. EDIT: Actually I think a lot of people these days have somehow managed simultaneously being whiny, sensitive, and jerks.
I have to be honest, I laughed in this one.
I don’t understand the dicks that frequent this site. Bunch of entitled nerds. My god. Didn’t your mother tell you if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything? seriously. If you think the comic is unethical, that’s one thing, but that’s not what i’m hearing, you just don’t think it’s funny. Get over yourselves. Give the man a break. I like your comics, fred, and keep them coming.
[quote<]I don't understand the dicks that frequent this site.[/quote<] [quote<]Bunch of entitled nerds.[/quote<] and [quote<]Didn't your mother tell you if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything?[/quote<] pot, kettle
[quote<]"Didn't your mother tell you if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything?"[/quote<] She did, but she never realised that critical opinions make the world progress. If nobody ever said anything that's not nice, we'd still be stuck in the Stone Age.
that’s not exactly true. you’re making a mistake. You’re assuming that being a dick, and being constructively critical, when you are in a position to be so, are the same thing. they’re not. You can be an ass, say dickish things, and guess what? you’re helping nobody, just being mean.
You didn’t specify whether they were the same or not, as per mother’s recommendations, so I didn’t specify either. They might as well be the same.
For you and your posting style, I believe you really believe that. For most people, they’re not always part of the same package.
Their loss, I guess.
“I don’t understand the dicks that frequent this site. Bunch of entitled nerds.”
See right there you broke your own rule.
“haha” – Nelson
AMD still in dark ages
“Aren’t you a little short for an Executioner?”
This here Star Wars reference is WAY funnier than the actual comic. Good work.
Predictable play on the word “execution”, yet somehow strangely distasteful.
Don’t know why you’ve been down-voted. Hackneyed + tasteless = lame.
I don’t know either, last I checked I was at +2.
Must’ve been NeelyCam again.
Yeah – I bought some extra thumbdowns from Cyril so I could humiliate you.
no strangely about it, a little early for many is the issue, gave you a thumbs up because it’s an honest review…. not funny but honest lol. 🙂
Grisly. “You’ve got guts kid.”
Even though Bulldozer sucks i feel bad for the people who lost their jobs. Still i will have to admit that this comic gave me a few laughs.
^This. +1
yeah, lol.
I don’t even…
…
What does this mean?
1400 people were fired from AMD recently.
Were they beheaded, too?
Time to “Toe the line” derFunk
Yes, I’ll get back on the company line shortly. BTW how are you at +3 when you’re mocking the people who have been giving me a fat -8? hehe
Ah, I didn’t think it was funny until you pointed out the significance of 1400. Now I think its funny.
“EXECUTION” YOU KNOW… LIKE A REAL EXECUTION HA HA HA HA HA AREN’T WE PUNNY HA HA HA HA HA
Classless, unfunny, and stupid. Is Fred Silver [i<]paying [b<]you[/b<][/i<] to publish his fatuous comics? 'Cause I wouldn't publish them even if the work was being done for free.
Umad bro?
Maybe he is one of the 1400…
No, I’m just not laughing. Looked back through the archives, and there’s only one of his comics that is even close to being worth a chuckle (the one about the death of local newspapers).
There’s plenty of humor-worthy stuff going on in the tech world, and there’s a bunch of artists managing to draw out that humor and capitalize on it. Fred just isn’t one of them.
If only humor was something subjective. 😉
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.
Yet there are people in this very comments section who seemed to enjoy the comic. Maybe they didn’t go to Stats 101? 😉
We appreciate the feedback, and I’m sure it helps Fred tune his jokes for our audience. But let’s not pretend for a moment that humor can be reduced to absolutes. Everything from culture and upbringing to the chemicals in our blood affect our response to humor. Dead baby jokes cause some people to cringe in disgust and others to laugh uncontrollably; that’s just how comedy works. It’s a very personal thing.
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.
Or maybe it just wasn’t funny.
____________________________________________
Looking at Fred’s other work, most of the criticism is fairly gentle. He also makes use of irony (“Have You Heard?”) and “the times they are a-changing” motif (“72-point mystery”). Criticism, in addition to being hugely present on the Internet, is nearly inescapable in technology enthusiast sites.
Perhaps a mistake is being made by folks who expect Fred’s output to only be “funny”, when in fact he may have other aims.
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.
Comic books aren’t necessarily meant to be funny.
“Comic” can be an artistic style. Charles Schultz’s [i<]Peanuts[/i<] comics were often not "funny", but simply made an observation or a point, or were (intended to be) amusing.
I think of these more as Garfield, which is intended to be funny and falls on its face.
The something else would most appropriately be called ‘posts by jensend.’
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]
I don’t think the joke is about schadenfreude over people losing their jobs, it’s a joke about how AMD is failing to manager their company and about PR double speak.
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.
Exactly the same way as I read it. Bulldozer wasn’t ‘Executed’ properly > Management meet and someone mentions execution needs to be improved > Staff get executed. I’m with Kami on this one, Freds making light of idiot management, not people getting sacked.
I said Schadenfreude first, it’s mine!
give it back. 🙂
The difference is nobody (well, let’s not get too into absolutes. I’ll qualify that as *almost* nobody) pretends dead baby jokes are tasteful, yet people are pretending this is.
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.
[i<]This[/i<] is crass? Have you been on the Internet [s<]lately[/s<] ever?
That is not a fact – that’s an opinion.
Standards are for people who give a crap about what other people think. Then there is stuff on the internet…
I upvoted. Gotta have standards I guess.
sellout, had to down vote you for admitting you can be so easily swayed.
Don’t forget racist for those people who are the opposite of grey.
I’ll agree it’s definitely not funny to me. But the comic makes perfect sense in a dreadfully literal fashion. AMD cut into the bone and got rid of some of their best and most dedicated guys. To me, it came off as a senseless act of random cost cutting by a greedy board of directors.
It’s bad enough we’re still wondering if AMD can design a respectable CPU, but now that they have turned to hacking apart the GPU division, one has to wonder how competitive ATI will still be in five years. So yeah, I won’t laugh at this, but it was certainly spot on.
Haters gonna hate…
AMD’s return to historical methods!
Effective, too. I’m sure AMD wouldn’t want these laid-off folks join the competition.
Sabotage? (<_<)
I liked Paul’s Boutique better
You get a cookie. +1