Wrong Answers Only - 009 - HD
Added 2021-02-27 04:37:37 +0000 UTCShow lemons who's BOSS!
Commentary
The day prior to this comic, I posted a story comic page with pictography I thought would PROBABLY be clear to everyone in context?
It was not. Which I should have expected, as it depended on getting in sync with my headspace (a strange place), these things are often confusing even when they make sense in context, AND there are varying screen sizes to consider these days that can render tiny symbols as unhelpfully tiny.
I worked hard on those symbols, however, making tiny revisions, carefully considering how they might be confusing, adding and removing things for clarity, etc, so I was naturally down when confusion seemed more common than not.
But then I decided to TAKE those lemons and explode them into lemonade with the comic you saw above this. This time, the whole point was potential confusion, so I just had fun with it.
So hey, sometimes? Disappointment happens, and sometimes, you just have to take some time and recover. Other times, you get exploding lemons, and that's fantastic.
Comments
Language is a formal construct, built and refined over millennia. We don't all agree on every detail of language; there are more interpretations of what language is supposed to be like than there are people alive today. But there's been a fairly concerted effort to be consistent by enough people that most of the resistance is spent on stuff that doesn't matter as much. Personally, I feel like it would be easier to understand if more people tried to figure out the common understanding, rather than aiming for "enough to understand people and then go do my own thing with it" like so many people do. But the thing is, it mostly works. These symbols? They're not like that. It's one of the two fundamental issues with emoji. The other fundamental issues is that face emoji are generally images that are too small to really make out what expressions they're showing. Also, exaggerating facial expressions like cartoons and anime does isn't really helpful to a lot of people. Finally, I'd like to point out that when you get down to it, pie really isn't that easy, though exactly how easy it is depends a lot. From an eating perspective, I'd say cake is easier, at least if you have something to drink with it and you're able to take reasonable bites. From a making perspective, I'm not really qualified to say, but none of it seems easy to me.
Some Ed
2021-03-07 05:41:52 +0000 UTCI didn't get "easy mode"... I saw "baby". And baby pie anti-WTF is kinda... what? The regular comic's one, I got. I did need the commentary to tell me the suggestion wasn't "you can get big again after cake" but rather "you can have cake and then be huge."
Ardent Slacker
2021-02-28 03:52:45 +0000 UTCThank you - i needed that.
Fairportfan
2021-02-27 19:21:00 +0000 UTCLong ago, I tried symbols in a comic but didn't trust the reader to understand half of them: https://www.deviantart.com/deckardcanine/art/Imagese-32731859
Stephen Gilberg
2021-02-27 18:45:24 +0000 UTC"I swear there's no time limit on this transformation, so I wont suddenly have boobs again"?
Stephen Gilberg
2021-02-27 18:36:54 +0000 UTCI was exposed to a huge number of rebuses as a child. I have not been confused by any of Dan's symbols.
Otter Annason
2021-02-27 08:30:00 +0000 UTCI work on the “If I can’t figure it out easily, probably not that important.” But this is why we need to teach more rebuses in schools.
Thisguy
2021-02-27 08:05:02 +0000 UTCI remember Sarah and Susan in swimsuits, Sarah wearing one of Tedd's transformation watches. Susan was giving Sarah an enquiring look, and Sarah replied with three balloons - one had a hand on a Bible and one hand raised, one had an hourglass with a red slash through it and the last had two watermelons slashed out.
Fairportfan
2021-02-27 07:39:02 +0000 UTCI got most of the symbols yesterday, but swished on the 'grow even bigger' part. But that kind of worked, because when I read the commentary it made Ashley's expression in the last panel work even better.
David Fenger
2021-02-27 06:54:01 +0000 UTC"Thumbs down, baby pie. No question allowed." That sounds perfectly clear to me! (I have to admit, I was among the persons confused by the symbols in the main comic. But I read the commentaries, so the confusion didn't last long)
Audrey Azura
2021-02-27 06:04:21 +0000 UTCGiven I've been binge-watching old episode of the Big Fat Quiz (which has the occasional question like this where the players have to decipher a particular event or news story or film title or whatever by sounding out a series of images), you'd think I'd be better at this.
Anthony Wilson
2021-02-27 04:43:45 +0000 UTCHa! Not going to lie, the symbols lost me in the story comic as well, around the point where he suggested she basically have her cake and eat it too with the shrinking/growing options.
AstroChaos
2021-02-27 04:41:08 +0000 UTC
