I hate them and the reason I hate them is not that the bit got old immediately. It's that the comics did not understand their own bit. --- Like I remember when they first started getting popular, I saw this one and it was mildly amusing: four panel comic showing two blue aliens, one of them with blush lines on his face and body. Full text on post for easier navigation

four panel comic showing two blue aliens, one of them with blush lines on his face and body. Full text on post for easier navigation

Comic description:

**Panel 1:** a blue alien, pointing at a sunburned one says "whoa Alex you look damaged" **Panel 2:** sunburned alien explains "I was exposed to the nearest star"
blue alien says "Jealous!" **Panel 3:** Sunburned alien looks at himself "I feel more attractive"
blue alien agrees "honestly, you are" **Panel 4:** Sunburned alien looks self-satisfied "It's the star damage"
blue alien clenches his fists "I crave star damage"

Like it's not the funniest shit I've ever read but it's fine. The bit here is "isn't it weird that humans choose to give themselves radiation burns and it's considered attractive?" The technical/complicated wording works to defamiliarize the act of getting a tan so we can appreciate how weird it actually is. And I feel like the couple of comics that first got popular had similar bits of pointing at the strangeness with the technical wording. But for some reason Nathan Pile didn't understand his own bit, because every time I see one of his comics now, the entirety of the bit seems to be "haha using weird words to describe uninteresting stuff" Compare the comic above with this one, that I grabbed from the first page of his Instagram feed: four panel comic showing a blue alien going to the eye doctor, also a blue alien. Full text on post for easier navigation

four panel comic showing a blue alien going to the eye doctor, also a blue alien. Full text on post for easier navigation

Comic description:

**Panel 1:** a blue alien walks up to a front desk and says "objects that are far away appear as tiny blurs to me" **Panel 2:** front desk alien says "ok we will have you read a distant sign"
first alien replies "this will be difficult given what I just said" **Panel 3:** a blue alien doctor points at a sign on the wall "stay there and identify these tiny letters"
first alien says "see this is precisely what I cannot do" **Panel 4:** the doctor alien says "obscure one eye"
first blue alien covers one eye with his hand while saying "guarantee it will not help"

And this is some seinfield "what's the deal with airline food" shit. What's the bit here? "Hoho isn't it weird that you go to the eye doctor because you can't see and they make you cover your eye so you see worse??" Well, no. Because that's how you figure out what kind of lenses would work for each of your eyes. The bit ends up being simply "look at all these quirky words all in the same comic" Which is just tedious! What's the animated series going to be about? These blue fucks standing around saying "creature" when they mean "animal" and "sustenance" when they mean "food"? Hilarious. Again, the first example isn't making me guffaw, but when I first saw it it provoked a sensible chuckle, you know? I could see a respectable career in newspaper funnies made out of that bit. Anyway nobody cares. I don't even care, it's just weird that the creator never figured out what his actual bit was and ended up writing the *wrong* bit in his newer comics. And people liked it enough anyway, so Apple Tv bought it. So maybe it was the right bit all along? *** Also how are my comic descriptions/alt text? I don't have a lot of practice describing comics/narrative and I want to make sure I'm being clear/not boring.

#strange planet

on the topic of extremely specific petty shit that I have no investment in: those "strange planet" comics that re getting a TV show?