5 ms·

XKCD “Time” Wins Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story

239 points by doctoboggan 12y ago

sparkzilla 12y ago
Really boring. Switched off after five minutes.
andrevoget 12y ago
Explanation of the story: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190:_Time http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190:_Time
doctoboggan 12y ago
You can browse through all the panels here: http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/ http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/
- mynameishere 12y ago
  Clicked through the whole goddamn thing. Summary: Stick figures talk about the sea going up. They run through identical landscape for about 2000 panels, with dialogue that would be embarrassing in "Troll 2". Then, the reader/clicker is rewarded with a character whose lines are smudged up, which is presumably the visual equivalent of a thick accent. Being already sick to death of this crap, the reader doesn't hurt his eyeballs squinting at it. Perhaps it contained some hidden wisdom. Perhaps not. Then the characters run around some more, and talk to each other like the idiots they are. The end.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    Hi mynameishere; I'd like to offer you a job. I'm sure you will enjoy it. There is a lot of tedious work and absolutely no pay. I gather that, having clicked through the "whole goddamn thing", continuing despite not enjoying it one bit, your time is completely worthless and you simply delight in pointless, boring, menial tasks. I think we will be a good fit for each other. Let me know if you're interested.
    - kyberias 12y ago
      mynameishere didn't like the comic and you feel this is necessary?
  - kaoD 12y ago
    [SPOILER] The story is about the Mediterranean sea which completely dries and then fills back up in a massive flood. http://blog.xkcd.com/2013/07/29/1190-time/ http://blog.xkcd.com/2013/07/29/1190-time/ [/SPOILER] There's a lot of subtext in Time, but you only caught what was immediately apparent. I'm very sorry!
HCIdivision17 12y ago
For those wondering just what makes this such a neat comic series, there was a memorable thread a year ago on it: [Spoiler warning!] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6113636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6113636 Check it out, the story of figuring out the story is pretty great! Edit: added afterburner's spoiler warning.
- afterburner 12y ago
  Careful, there are spoilers, right at the top. I'm glad I didn't read it before seeing the comic. (Heck, even revealing there's something to spoil is kind of a spoiler.)
Splendor 12y ago
xkcd link: http://www.xkcd.com/1190/ http://www.xkcd.com/1190/
rsfinn 12y ago
Well, I don't like to say I told you so, but: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6148415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6148415 (No, I didn't actually nominate it; I'm too lazy. But I'm delighted it won, even though it beat Saga to do so.)
germs12 12y ago
I want my hour back.
saganus 12y ago
Woops. Forgot to put spoilers warning. Sorry. I don't see much comments so I thought I could give most of the interesting points. Better delete it. Without giving much, TL;DR It's not just a comic, it's a deep story with lots of very interesting and well-thought clues that give many more dimensions to a stick-figure comic.
prawn 12y ago
Wonder if there's ever been interest in adapting it as a game? Bit like Limbo without the same menace.
BerislavLopac 12y ago
I always wandered if someone would make that into a movie. Maybe something for a kickstarter campaign?
ferrari8608 12y ago
That was wonderful! The characters, their dialog, the story, everything was just perfect. I don't know how I never saw this XKCD before, but thank you for bringing it to my attention.
- DrStalker 12y ago
  You probably did see it, but didn't realize that the image would update every hour. You would have had to watch for months to see the whole story as it was released.
probably_wrong 12y ago
I'm torn about this. On one hand, "Time" managed to engage in real time a very large audience, spawned it's own micro-culture, and kept everyone interested for weeks. It was truly an innovative use of the medium. On the other hand, the story doesn't read well in retrospective. Check all the comments here complaining - trolling aside, it doesn't translate very well into any other medium. I doubt even its fans would watch it again in real time and feel half the interest they did at first. Contrast with "Saga" (the 2nd place), which you can re-read several times and still enjoy it. "Time" was a one-time work - if you didn't catch it back then, now it's too late. The story (IMHO) is average at best, but the delivery was incredible. I think the judges favored medium and delivery over content, and I'm not decided on whether I agree with that.
- JadeNB 12y ago
  Perhaps it comes down to what 'best story' means, though. I've often felt that one of the characteristics of a truly ground-breaking story (or work of art—or work of science, even) is how obvious it feels in retrospect, but I wouldn't want that to disqualify the creativity embodied in such stories from being rewarded. I think that there is ample room for awards both for stories that stand the re-read test, and stories that deliver a one-shot 'big bang'.
- kijin 12y ago
  Any work of literature includes the medium and delivery as well as the literal content (words and drawings). There is no such thing as disembodied content, no matter how much we might like to think of a webcomic merely as a collection of timeless propositions and vector graphics. If a musician had performed a marvelous work in a unique context that can never be repeated by any other performer nor even by the artist himself (e.g. the cellist of Sarajevo), should that make his work any less valuable? You also mentioned translating into other media. If the best novel of the year happens to be extremely difficult to turn into a feature film or Broadway musical, is that a fault of the novel? (e.g. Lovecraft's novels have often been considered "unfilmable".) "Time" was more like a musical performance than a typical webcomic, despite the fact that it was delivered in the form of a webcomic. You had to be in the virtual concert hall at the right time in order to get the most intellectual stimulation out of it. Once it's over, it's over, and playing an MP3 recording of the concert just doesn't compare to the real thing. Moreover, the next time you hear the same orchestra play the same song, it just won't feel the same. It happens all the time in the performing arts. We who live in a world where anything can be easily mass-produced tend to under-appreciate things that cannot be reproduced. Somehow we're supposed to multiply the value of a thing by the number of times it can be used as well as the number of people who can use it. This is OK for most goods and services, but I'm not sure if it's an appropriate way to judge works of art. After all, reproducible works of fiction are a relatively recent invention. Before the printing press gave rise to the modern novel, almost all good stories used to be performances of one kind or another.
mabbo 12y ago
Best novel for 'Ancillary Justice'? Neat. I finished it two days ago, quite enjoyed it.
JacobEdelman 12y ago
When talking about "Time" its hard to ignore the wonderful thread on it on the xkcd forum. If you can't understand what they are saying its not your fault. They have such a detailed culture and so many customs that they are no longer speaking English. Link: http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=101043&start=82840 http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=101043&start=8284...

239 points by doctoboggan 12y ago

Really boring. Switched off after five minutes.

Explanation of the story: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190:_Time http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190:_Time

doctoboggan 12y ago

You can browse through all the panels here: http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/ http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/

mynameishere 12y ago
Clicked through the whole goddamn thing. Summary: Stick figures talk about the sea going up. They run through identical landscape for about 2000 panels, with dialogue that would be embarrassing in "Troll 2". Then, the reader/clicker is rewarded with a character whose lines are smudged up, which is presumably the visual equivalent of a thick accent. Being already sick to death of this crap, the reader doesn't hurt his eyeballs squinting at it. Perhaps it contained some hidden wisdom. Perhaps not. Then the characters run around some more, and talk to each other like the idiots they are. The end.
- scrollaway 12y ago
  Hi mynameishere; I'd like to offer you a job. I'm sure you will enjoy it. There is a lot of tedious work and absolutely no pay. I gather that, having clicked through the "whole goddamn thing", continuing despite not enjoying it one bit, your time is completely worthless and you simply delight in pointless, boring, menial tasks. I think we will be a good fit for each other. Let me know if you're interested.
  - kyberias 12y ago
    mynameishere didn't like the comic and you feel this is necessary?
- kaoD 12y ago
  [SPOILER] The story is about the Mediterranean sea which completely dries and then fills back up in a massive flood. http://blog.xkcd.com/2013/07/29/1190-time/ http://blog.xkcd.com/2013/07/29/1190-time/ [/SPOILER] There's a lot of subtext in Time, but you only caught what was immediately apparent. I'm very sorry!

HCIdivision17 12y ago

For those wondering just what makes this such a neat comic series, there was a memorable thread a year ago on it: [Spoiler warning!] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6113636 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6113636 Check it out, the story of figuring out the story is pretty great! Edit: added afterburner's spoiler warning.

afterburner 12y ago
Careful, there are spoilers, right at the top. I'm glad I didn't read it before seeing the comic. (Heck, even revealing there's something to spoil is kind of a spoiler.)

Splendor 12y ago

xkcd link: http://www.xkcd.com/1190/ http://www.xkcd.com/1190/

rsfinn 12y ago

Well, I don't like to say I told you so, but: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6148415 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6148415 (No, I didn't actually nominate it; I'm too lazy. But I'm delighted it won, even though it beat Saga to do so.)

germs12 12y ago

I want my hour back.

saganus 12y ago

Woops. Forgot to put spoilers warning. Sorry. I don't see much comments so I thought I could give most of the interesting points. Better delete it. Without giving much, TL;DR It's not just a comic, it's a deep story with lots of very interesting and well-thought clues that give many more dimensions to a stick-figure comic.

prawn 12y ago

Wonder if there's ever been interest in adapting it as a game? Bit like Limbo without the same menace.

BerislavLopac 12y ago

I always wandered if someone would make that into a movie. Maybe something for a kickstarter campaign?

ferrari8608 12y ago

That was wonderful! The characters, their dialog, the story, everything was just perfect. I don't know how I never saw this XKCD before, but thank you for bringing it to my attention.

DrStalker 12y ago
You probably did see it, but didn't realize that the image would update every hour. You would have had to watch for months to see the whole story as it was released.

probably_wrong 12y ago

I'm torn about this. On one hand, "Time" managed to engage in real time a very large audience, spawned it's own micro-culture, and kept everyone interested for weeks. It was truly an innovative use of the medium. On the other hand, the story doesn't read well in retrospective. Check all the comments here complaining - trolling aside, it doesn't translate very well into any other medium. I doubt even its fans would watch it again in real time and feel half the interest they did at first. Contrast with "Saga" (the 2nd place), which you can re-read several times and still enjoy it. "Time" was a one-time work - if you didn't catch it back then, now it's too late. The story (IMHO) is average at best, but the delivery was incredible. I think the judges favored medium and delivery over content, and I'm not decided on whether I agree with that.

JadeNB 12y ago
Perhaps it comes down to what 'best story' means, though. I've often felt that one of the characteristics of a truly ground-breaking story (or work of art—or work of science, even) is how obvious it feels in retrospect, but I wouldn't want that to disqualify the creativity embodied in such stories from being rewarded. I think that there is ample room for awards both for stories that stand the re-read test, and stories that deliver a one-shot 'big bang'.
kijin 12y ago
Any work of literature includes the medium and delivery as well as the literal content (words and drawings). There is no such thing as disembodied content, no matter how much we might like to think of a webcomic merely as a collection of timeless propositions and vector graphics. If a musician had performed a marvelous work in a unique context that can never be repeated by any other performer nor even by the artist himself (e.g. the cellist of Sarajevo), should that make his work any less valuable? You also mentioned translating into other media. If the best novel of the year happens to be extremely difficult to turn into a feature film or Broadway musical, is that a fault of the novel? (e.g. Lovecraft's novels have often been considered "unfilmable".) "Time" was more like a musical performance than a typical webcomic, despite the fact that it was delivered in the form of a webcomic. You had to be in the virtual concert hall at the right time in order to get the most intellectual stimulation out of it. Once it's over, it's over, and playing an MP3 recording of the concert just doesn't compare to the real thing. Moreover, the next time you hear the same orchestra play the same song, it just won't feel the same. It happens all the time in the performing arts. We who live in a world where anything can be easily mass-produced tend to under-appreciate things that cannot be reproduced. Somehow we're supposed to multiply the value of a thing by the number of times it can be used as well as the number of people who can use it. This is OK for most goods and services, but I'm not sure if it's an appropriate way to judge works of art. After all, reproducible works of fiction are a relatively recent invention. Before the printing press gave rise to the modern novel, almost all good stories used to be performances of one kind or another.

mabbo 12y ago

Best novel for 'Ancillary Justice'? Neat. I finished it two days ago, quite enjoyed it.

JacobEdelman 12y ago

When talking about "Time" its hard to ignore the wonderful thread on it on the xkcd forum. If you can't understand what they are saying its not your fault. They have such a detailed culture and so many customs that they are no longer speaking English. Link: http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=101043&start=82840 http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=101043&start=8284...