
XKCD “Time” Wins Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story - doctoboggan
http://www.thehugoawards.org/2014/08/2014-hugo-award-winners/
======
HCIdivision17
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
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.)

------
probably_wrong
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.

~~~
kijin
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.

------
doctoboggan
You can browse through all the panels here:

[http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/](http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/)

~~~
mynameishere
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
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
mynameishere didn't like the comic and you feel this is necessary?

------
Splendor
xkcd link: [http://www.xkcd.com/1190/](http://www.xkcd.com/1190/)

------
rsfinn
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.)

------
saganus
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.

------
andrevoget
Explanation of the story:
[http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190:_Time](http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190:_Time)

------
ferrari8608
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
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.

------
JacobEdelman
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=8284...](http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=101043&start=82840)

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

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

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

------
germs12
I want my hour back.

------
sparkzilla
Really boring. Switched off after five minutes.

